The News Says It All
March 6, 2007 – 4:48 pmPerusing the websites of some of America’s best known news outlets, four stories are being featured on the main page of these sites that are exceptionally damaging to the Bush administration. First, there’s the Walter Reed fiasco, where the administration has so overlooked the treatment that our returning soldiers are getting that some of these wounded soldiers are sleeping in their own urine.
Second, there’s the fired federal attorney scandal, where the Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has allegedly pushed out federal attorneys who were not pursuing criminal prosecution of Democrats with sufficient vigor. Third, there’s the Iraq war, where two roadside bombs killed a total of nine American soldiers, making it the the deadliest day for Americans in nearly a month. Fourth, and finally, there’s the news that Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, officially became a convicted felon today, four times over no less.
I was thinking about writing that a news day like today shows the full range of the ineptitude and corruption with which the Bush administration has run our nation over the past six years, but even these stories don’t cover that full range. You would have to throw in at least two more stories, one about our government’s failed response to a national disaster and the other about a brazen usurpation of civil liberties, to get close to covering the full range.
But each of these stories makes a larger statement about the Bush administration. The Walter Reed story shows that while the administration is very quick to state its full support of the troops and is equally quick to label their critics as unsupportive of these same troops, it is not so quick to actually take the measures necessary to support the troops. Some examples of said measures are making sure our troops receive proper training, go to war with the proper body armor, and receive top notch medical care when they come home wounded.
The fired federal attorneys story shows the degree to which this administration values politics over reason. The Department of Justice would rather have attorneys at the beck and call of the administration than independent thinkers who decide how best to proceed best on the available evidence. This story is not unlike the purge of military commanders who disagreed with the way the Bush administration chose to prosecute the war in Iraq. If making decisions based on reason and evidence is in conflict with making decisions based on the desires of this administration, the latter will always win.
The Iraq war news continues to show the administration is content to leave our troops as sitting ducks in the middle of someone else’s civil war. The administration still has failed to make a compelling case for how our continued troop presence in that country will cause a radical shift from daily suicide bombings and sectarian attacks to a fully functional and stable democracy.
The Scooter Libby story shows that the Bush administration feels comfortable playing politics with our national security, which in turn makes Americans less safe at home and abroad. For an administration that spends a lot of time trying to convince Americans that it supports our troops and will make us all safer, and it will do so in an honorable fashion, today is a very bad day indeed.
2 Responses to “The News Says It All”
I’ll just throw this out with no supporting evidence and no commentary: According to the NBC nightly news last night, some of the more dangerous parts of Iraq, such as Sadr City, are actually relatively calm right now. So calm that kids were playing in the street during the newscast.
Like I said, I’m not going to add anything of my own here, so make what you will of this statement.
By Adam on Mar 6, 2007 at 11:36 pm
It is my understanding that Sadr City has never been one of the more dangerous parts of Iraq. It has a great deal of autonomy relative to other areas within Iraq, and it’s de facto leader is Muqtada al-Sadr, the commander of the Madhi Army.
Because Sadr City residents are nearly universally Shiite, and because of the power of the Madhi Army, the city is free from of a lot of the sectarian violence that plagues many other areas of Iraq.
Sadr City aside, I’m sure there are plenty of parts of Iraq that are relatively safe and convey some sense of normalcy. It’s not like bombs are exploding all over the nation over the course of a single day. But a suicide bomber here or an improvised explosive device there, coupled with the sectarian violence that plagues many Iraqi neighborhoods, and you have a quagmire in which American soldiers are sitting as unnecessary targets.
By jjk on Mar 7, 2007 at 12:05 am