Redefining failure

December 29, 2006

Frances Fragos Townsend, assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, was on CNN yesterday discussing the war in Iraq, Saddam’s pending execution, and the Middle East, but CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry had the temerity to ask about the terrorist behind 9/11.

Officials from this White House are known for some bizarre comments, but Townsend’s response has to go in the Hall of Fame. (via)

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we’re going to get him. Still don’t have him. I know you are saying there’s successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That’s a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I’m not sure — it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.

A “success that hasn’t occurred yet”? By that logic, practically nothing could ever be characterized as failure. Indeed, I’m not sure why the Bush gang hasn’t thought of this sooner.

“Budget deficits are just surpluses that haven’t occurred yet.”

“Global warming is just global cooling that hasn’t occurred yet.”

“Stagnant wages are just raises that haven’t occurred yet.”

“The civil war in Iraq is just peace that hasn’t occurred yet.”

It’d be amusing if it weren’t so sad.

Forget drink the Kool Aid, Townsend swim’s in it.

  • To be fair, yes we haven’t caught Osama but we still could.

    Of course, there is no reason in the world to suppose any Bushite would be able to achieve this. These guys would go on the search for the Holy Grail and get stuck in the Castle Antrax (Monty Python reference for the clueless). Now there’s a lot to be said for being stuck in the Castle Antrax (Zoot, for instance) but it’s not the way to find the Grail.

    And getting stuck in Iraq, no matter how many oil consessions you wring out of a pliant Iraqi government, isn’t going to find you Osama bin Laden.

  • Damn, I’d like to experience a little “peril” at Castle Anthrax!

    Lance, perhaps it is more like the next scene where the father discusses with his son about building a castle in the middle of a great big swamp and marrying a girl for her giant tracts of land. That was before Lancelot charged in due to faulty intelligence and wiped out a majority of the wedding party

  • So Former Dan I suppose in your analogy Lancelot doesn’t break free from the Swamp Castle, has to marry the girl with huge…
    … tracts of land and doesn’t know how to get out of the quadmaire?

    As I remember Lancelot also kept failing about killing guests even after having the situation explained to him. Clueless and impulsive, sounds familar 😉

  • I agree with Liam J (#4), Orwell said it all before. What amazes me though is that , though Orwell’s observations entered our common culture long ago, the public still falls for the kind of Orwellian crap that drops out of the GOP spin machine. I would think that a generation weaned on TeeVee advertising would be wise to it. I would be wrong.

  • Bush is not a failure. Rather, he’s a wise and successful leader who hasn’t yet become wise and successful. So stop saying he’s a failure. And get off his back.

  • But the most depressing thing about it? No follow-up question.

    A White House spokesman stands there and basically invents a new philisophical concept in order to avoid having to agree that “Yes, by any reasonable scale of reference, our not capturing Osama Bin Laden after five years is a clear failure”, but the so-called journalists in the room just nod and move on.

    And this is the ‘Liberal Media’ in action? Do me a favour.

  • I think her quote is an absolute classic and shall adopt it pronto. As CB says, it can be used in a multitude of situations. Including the daily life (burnt the dinner? Who, me? The dinner is perfect, simply hasn’t happened yet)

  • .. must be part of the ‘unknowns’ that we do not know yet …. as for the ‘known’ knowns we can safely write it in the colums of the conservatives are insane …

    and still they ‘talk’ … there has to be a war waged on ALL conservatives -BAR NONE- trhere is a war for everything else anyway so why not them?

  • The lines coming out of this administration will all one day become part of a hit Broadway musical comedy. With lines like “I’m the Decider,’ “There are known knowns …” and “It’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet,” audiences will be rolling the aisles just as much as tey did for “Springtime for Hitler,” or anything from Spamalot. Too bad we’re still in the tragedy phase of enduring this BS and not in the comedic retrospective phase of being able to just laugh at it.

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