Losing explosives, losing wheels

Jesus was a carpenter
He died nailed to a wooden cross
Irony, oh, irony
Upon me, it's never lost
   - The Cowboy Junkies, "Simon Keeper"

As always, I try to follow the immortal advice of labor leader John L. Lewis who said, "He that tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted."

So I need to toot the fact that Old Hickory Weblog is currently (as of early 10/29/04 East Coast time) being featured on the AOL People Connection's Political Panel page:

 AOL News: The Political Panel (unfortunately, it's an AOL-only page)

Specifically, they are linking to this post: It ain't over 'til it's over.  With some (acceptable) editorial license, they quote my post as follows:

'It Won't Be Over on November 2'
BMiller224 says, "If the election is close and Kerry's declared the winner, the Bush dynasty will go all out to get it in front of the 'Scalia Five.'"

So, thanks to Ben Rubendall who's in charge of that page for the boost for Old Hickory's Weblog!

One thing I notice, though.  Just above that text are pictures of Bush and Dark Lord Dick Cheney above photos of John Kerry and John Edwards.  What's up with that? :)

The irony that I had in mind has to do with Bush's campaign this week.  Now, since I'm the AOL Political Panel's official Cassandra of the moment, I should preface this by saying, well, it ain't over 'til it's over.  Bush could win this thing, as grim a thought as that is.

But all Jacksonian Democrats had to feel a warm glow this week, watching the wheels come off the Republican campaign.  Now, that doesn't mean they're throwing in the towel.  Far from it.  The Republican voter-suppression effort is already well under way.  Check out this joint report from the NAACP and People for the American Way from a couple of months ago:

The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today 08/25/04

And this related article from this week:

"It will be worse than in 2000" by Mary Jacoby Salon.com 10/28/04 (An interview with NAACP head Julian Bond)

But what I mean is the Bush campaign's incredible contortions this week over the revelation about the 380 tons of high-grade explosives that Bush the Magnificent, Liberator of Peoples, allowed to be looted, along with a large part of Iraq's infrastructure, during the invasion and occupation of Iraq.  (Okay, conservative comma-dancers, I saw one version that said it was only 377 tons.)  Josh Marshall has been following this closely for days, and I don't know of a better summary and set of references on the story than his Talking Points Memo blog.

The Bush campaign's responses reminded me of one of those sitcom-type scenes where someone jumps into a car and the whole thing falls apart.  The best you can say of their explanations is that they were trying to throw such a smokescreen of confusion over the whole issue that it would blunt the impact of yet another dramatic exposure of the astonishing incompetence of the Bush administration, especially when it comes to national-security and military issues.

Roughly, they first said, well, things are such a total mess in Iraq that, hey, who can keep up with what was looted?  Then they said, no, wait, it was all stolen before the invasion.  Or it was the Iraqi government's fault.  Bush said Kerry was denigrating the troops by criticizing him over it.  Then Rudy Guilani said, well, goll-darn it, it was the troops' fault, not Dear Leader Bush's.  And besides, Bush says, we've confiscated lots and lots of explosives and stuff, so there!  And this shows that we were justified in invading in the first place.  And it shows Kerry's ridiculous.  And besides, there is the international UN-Liberal-Media-Democrat-Bill-and-Hillary Satanic conspiracy against God and George W. Bush bringing all this up anyway.

The Foxists were spinning so hard the dizziness must have spoiled many an Oxycontin high this week.  They've now gone from the Bush fundamentalist version of "postmodernism" (we create our own reality and you reality-based peons have toaccept it) to Bush Zen postmodernism (we create a new reality every few minutes and Bush's loyal subjects are required to live in the moment and accept each new reality as it occurs).

Check out Bush's statement at Marshall's blog, which includes this unforgettable line:

And a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not the person you want as the Commander-in-Chief.

Yes, this was George W. Bush, Liberator of Peoples and Hooder of the Unrighteous, who said this.  This is what I mean by irony.  This is the kind of stuff not even The Onion can make up.

The irony was not lost on Wesley Clark, another Southern general who seems to have a strong streak of the Andy Jackson spirit in him.  With any luck at all - and if Antonin Scalia can be shamed into recusing himself when the presidential election comes before the Supreme Court this time - Clark will be Secretary of Defense three months from now, and that wretched Don Rumsfeld will be a bad memory for most of us.

The General said in response to Bush's comment (Statement from General Wesley Clark in Response to President Bush's Remarks Today U.S. Newswire 10/27/04:

Today George W. Bush made a very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected. In his own words, he told the American people that "...a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief."

President Bush couldn't be more right. He jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 911. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction. He jumped to conclusions about the mission being accomplished. He jumped to conclusions about how we had enough troops on the ground to win the peace. And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops, we are stuck in Iraq without aplan to win the peace, and Americans are less safe both at home and abroad.

By doing all these things, he broke faith with our men and women in uniform. He has let them down. George W. Bush is unfit to be our Commander in Chief.

Clark also had some thoughts about Bush's statement that Kerry was "denigrating the actions of our troops and commanders in the field" by daring to criticize Bush's majestic person, and about Rudy Guilani's follow-on comment that the troops actually were to blame, certainly not Bush.  The General said (Statement from General Wesley Clark on Giuliani Comments U.S. Newswire 10/28/04):

For President Bush to send Rudolph Giuliani out on television to say that the 'actual responsibility' for the failure to secure explosives lies with the troops is insulting and cowardly.

The President approved the mission and the priorities. Civilian leaders tell military leaders what to do. The military follows those orders and gets the job done. This was a failure of civilian leadership, first in not telling the troops to secure explosives and other dangerous materials, and second for not providing sufficient troops and sufficient equipment for troops to do the job.

President Bush sent our troops to war without sufficient body armor, without a sound plan and without sufficient forces to accomplish the mission. Our troops are performing a difficult mission with skill, bravery and determination. They deserve a commander in chief who supports them and understands that the buck stops in the Oval Office, not one who gets weak knees and shifts blame for his mistakes.

That sounds right to me.

And, yeah, it sure looked like the wheels were coming off the Bush campaign this week.  Hesiod had a perceptive observation on what's been happening in Oxycontin land (Fox Does Its Job 10/28/04):

Fox not only has to provide a plausible (for rightwingers) alternative explanation for the missing explosives, they also have to pump up the "you can't trust the liberal media to get it rigt" theme as well.

These are the two prongs of rightwing congnative dissonance.

They are grasping for anything to uphold their collapsing worldview, and to steel them against the barrage of facts and reality that is assaulting that worldview.

So, they latch onto some cockamamie story on Fox News, and the liberal media bias meme for confort like a baby suckling her mother's teet.

Its not so much excuse making, as it's a strategic withdrawal into la la land.

Josh Marshall also has an appropriate description of the Bush Zen postmodern dimension:  "the alternative fact universe that is the Fox News Channel."