If memory serves, the most common line of attack against the first President Bush in 1992 was that he was “out of touch.” He’d talk about how great the economy was at the time, but people would look at their personal finances and job security and know otherwise. If Bush believed the status quo was so great, the argument went, then he’d clearly lost touch with the concerns of typical Americans.
I mention this because the current President Bush is not only tragically wrong about Iraq, he acts as if he’s woefully oblivious of the debacle this war has become.
President Bush said Thursday freedom was on the march in Iraq even as a U.S. intelligence report depicted a bleak outlook for the country.
Bush insisted the U.S. strategy in Iraq, where more than 1,000 U.S. troops have died, was working as he campaigned in Minnesota, a traditionally Democratic state Republicans are targeting in the Nov. 2 election.
“In Iraq, there’s ongoing acts of violence,” Bush told a rally in St. Cloud. But he added, “Freedom is on the march,” emphasizing his campaign image as a “war president” in the election battle against Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry.
I haven’t the foggiest idea what “freedom is on the march” means, but Bush’s buoyancy and assurances to the public aren’t grounded in reality. His “strategy,” if we can call it that, is most certainly not working. The president is, by any reasonable definition, misleading the public about our progress in a bloody war.
Bush’s sunny optimism on Iraq not only suggests a certain foolishness; it reinforces the suspicion that the president is simply unaware of current events. Bush is, like his father before him, woefully out of touch. Or as John Kerry put it so well yesterday, Bush is “ignor[ing] his own intelligence while living in a fantasy world of spin.”
There are hundreds of items out there demonstrating just how awful the war and occupation are going — and why Bush’s irrational optimism doesn’t make any sense — but Bob Herbert did a fine job today putting the situation in perspective.
Three more marines were killed yesterday in Iraq. Kidnappings are commonplace. The insurgency is growing and becoming more sophisticated, which means more deadly. Ordinary Iraqis are becoming ever more enraged at the U.S.
When the newscaster David Brinkley, appalled by the carnage in Vietnam, asked Lyndon Johnson why he didn’t just bring the troops home, Johnson replied, “I’m not going to be the first American president to lose a war.”
George W. Bush is now trapped as tightly in Iraq as Johnson was in Vietnam. The war is going badly. The president’s own intelligence estimates are pessimistic. There is no plan to actually win the war in Iraq, and no willingness to concede defeat.
I wonder who the last man or woman will be to die for this colossal mistake.
Those who express support for Bush’s handling of Iraq — currently, just under half the country — are buying into the most mendacious spin ever uttered.