Having said all that, beside the possibility that the White House’s favored Iraqi exile was an Iranian agent, that the spy chief just got canned, that the OSD is wired to polygraphs, and that the president has had to retain outside counsel in the investigation into which members of his staff burned one of the country’s own spies, I’d say the place is being run like a pretty well-oiled machine.
My own hunch is that these voters do not like a massive increase in government spending, a huge jump in public debt, and a post-war policy in Iraq that seemed blindsided by reality. But here’s my other belief, and it’s about Abu Ghraib. The images from that prison shamed America in deep and inchoate ways. Traditional conservative patriots in particular were appalled. The awful truth is that this president presided over one of the most damaging blows to American prestige and self-understanding in recent history.
[...]
But I didn’t hold my breath for the leaders of the religious right to make a fuss because, well, they’re the leaders of the religious right. When you’re primarily devoted to the pursuit of worldly power, it is hard to criticize its abuses.
The U.S. Constitution didn’t simply hatch out of an egg one morning.
This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.
152 days until November 2. Feel the tempest.
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