Welcome to Daou Report readers. Please feel free to comment on the post that the Daou Report linked to, as well as anything else you find interesting on ISOU.

And if you want to read two more interesting viewpoints on the effects of the war in Iraq on Bush's legacy. Professor Bainbridge and Kevin Drum have two excellent pieces on the subject. It is heartening to see Conservatives like Bainbridge waking up to the reality of this folly.

I found these two comments, particularly compelling:

The trouble with Bush's justification for the war is that it uses American troops as fly paper. Send US troops over to Iraq, where they'll attract all the terrorists, who otherwise would have come here, and whom we'll then kill. This theory has proven fallacious. The first problem is that the American people are unwilling to let their soldiers be used as fly paper. If Iraq has proven anything, it has confirmed for me the validity of the Powell Doctrine.

and

The second problem is that the fly paper strategy
seems to be radicalizing our foes even more. For every fly that gets
caught, it seems as though 10 more spring up. This should hardly come
as a surprise to anybody who has watched Israel pursue military
solutions to its terrorist problems, after all. Does anybody really
think Israel's military actions have left Hezbollah or Hamas with fewer
foot soldiers? To the contrary, the London bombing suggests to me that
it is only a matter of time before the jihadists strike in the US
again, even though our troops remain hung out as fly paper in the
Augean Stables of Iraq. {Update: The news
that Scotland Yard foiled a gas attack on the House of Commons, for
which the Yard deserves mega-kudos, doesn't change my mind. As the
climax of Tom Clancy's novel Debt of Honor suggests (and I still wonder of that inspired 9/11), the terrorists only need to win once. Conversely, the latest news
about that rocket attack on a US Navy ship in Jordan seems to confirm
my concerns: "The Abdullah Azzam Brigades -- an al-Qaida-linked group
that claimed responsibility for the bombings which killed at least 64
people at Sharm el-Sheik in July and 34 people at two other Egyptian
resorts last October -- said in an Internet statement that its fighters
had fired the Katyushas, bolstering concerns that Islamic extremists
had opened a new front in the region." Indeed, the NYT reports
that: "The possible involvement of Iraqis and the military-style attack
have raised fears that militants linked to Iraq's insurgency may be
operating on Jordanian soil."}

I have to admit, I often wonder what some Conservatives out there are smoking, that they can't see the obvious. I am convinced that they do see it. If 2000 was a heady experience for Conservatives who had suffered through eight years of Bill Clinton, despite aggressive attempts to get rid of him at any cost, then 2004, after surviving numerous mini scandals and debunking Rathergate, must have been the greatest of highs.

That Republicans managed to take healthy majorities in both Houses, and seemed to dominate the U.S. political agenda, must have given Conservatives a sense of invulnerability. But the cracks have been showing in the armor for some time now, and it has taken "Rovian," measures to keep the fact of the Emperors Nakedness from the American Public. It must be painful in the extreme to see those cracks appearing, and know that not only did they make a monumental mistake, but that all they worked so hard for is based on a foundation of lies, deception and corruption.

Admittedly, the Downing Street Memos, in and of themselves might have been compelling to those who already suspected the truth, but they were not "smoking gun," enough to convince the majority of the faithful. This is especially true of those who invested so heavily in what they felt was a new Conservative Revolution. They have been rewarded by stark failures on the part of the Administration to propel that Revolution forward, and have instead seen it get bogged down in a morass of ineptitude. For a time, they were able to defend against this ineptitude by making the issue "Liberal Hate of Bush," rather than accepting the realities of consistent and repeated failure by the Administration to accomplish much of anything, except successfully defending itself against charge after charge. Now, with more and more Conservatives beginning to acknowledge the obvious, the spin begins to ring hollow, even for those who once believed it.

Even still, some refuse to acknowledge the obvious:

I honestly don't see anything "inappropriate" about it. Cindy accuses the President of "lying" about several of the reasons for war in Iraq, so maybe these television stations are worried about giving air time to somebody calling the President a liar when its clear to most of us with common sense that he didn't lie about Iraq. But that's just a guess.

Were it up to me, I'd have let the ad run. Most Americans don't agree with the idea that the President "lied" about the WMD's and know that Saddam had plenty of ties to al Qaeda, though not to the 9/11 attacks specifically. This is why Americans re-elected the President in the face of these accusations of lying. Putting Cindy Sheehan up to repeat these accusations again is only going to do more harm to her causes than it would to the cause of the President.

Rob's argument is deeply flawed... First off, recent polls indicate that as many as 51% of Americans feel the American Public was deceived about Iraq. With some polls nearing 60%. So the argument that "Most Americans believe that the President did not lie is intellectually and morally dishonest.

The Left has often made this spin easier, by failing to stay on message, and by failing to present a clear alternative. The Left has also been guilty of wimping out at key times. Those who have shown strength, have been attacked as members of the "Loony Left." Rove has been able to successfully exploit this time and time again by pointing out the inconsistency of the Left's message, while hammering away on the Administration's, even in those cases where it was obvious that the Administration message was a nefarious one. Rove and his Conservative Disciples have been Masters of hammering away on a message until it BECOMES truth, even when it is clear to any thinking person that the message lacks logic.

9/11 was a catharsis for America. Karl Rove and the Administration have shamelessly taken advantage of this to smear Liberals, out a CIA agent in an act of revenge, and execute a disastrous and unjustified war. This administration's legacy will be based on Post 9/11. With information coming to light almost daily on how badly they bungled the so called "War on Terror," and with little else to point to as accomplishments, Bush's legacy will likely suffer. More significantly, he may join Nixon as a President corrupted by his own sense of infallibility.

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Posted by: Jay Tea at August 22, 2005 06:52 PM