Someone recently said that when you've got your opponent by the throat, kick 'em in the balls. I'll bet Bush never saw the kick coming from former neocon guru Richard Perle! In an
upcoming Vanity Fair article, under the heading of "Now They Tell Us," author David Rose interviews some of the neocons responsible for the current Iraq quagmire, including the pseudo-intellectual "Prince of Neocon Darkness." Perle wastes no time cocking back his foot, taking aim, and going straight for the President. Perle defends his theory for invasion (and covers his own butt) by flatly stating that the current disaster is the result of the incompetence and dysfunction of the President and everybody in his administration.
Keep reading, it gets better.
According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush. Perle says, "The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.... At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.... I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."
To Perle, it all boils down to "Not Me." "I want to be very clear on this: They [mistakes] were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."
Former Presidential speechwriter David Frum piles on, explaning that the Pres just doesn't have the brains to pull it off. "And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."
Former Pentagonista and CPAer Michael Rubin joins in and takes out Bush's Dad for good measure. "By failing to match his rhetoric with action, Rubin adds, Bush has betrayed Iraqi reformers in a way that is "not much different from what his father did on February 15, 1991, when he called the Iraqi people to rise up, and then had second thoughts and didn't do anything once they did.""
Fratricide and infanticide are never pretty sights. This Republican orgy of eating their own is going to get grisly, as is usually the case when anyone in Washington gets pushed under the oncoming train. HOWEVER, now is not the time to be squeamish. It's the weekend before Congressional elections. USE THESE QUOTES. Whenever any issue comes up in any race across this country, as Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake explains, PIVOT AND ATTACK. For example:
"Well, yes, Harold Ford does like Super Bowl football and girls, but what about Richard Perle, who made the President invade Iraq in the first place, calling Bush an incompetent fool and saying Iraq is the biggest foreign policy screwup in our history? And that it's not Perle's fault."
Or "Well, yes, Jon Tester's position on methanol is unclear, but what about the former head of the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority saying that Bush lied just like his father did in 1991 and killed thousands of Iraqis and Americans as a result?"
Or "Why is the guy who used to tell Bush what to say in his speeches now saying that Bush is too stupid to get Iraq right?"
Or "What about the guy from the American Enterprise Institute, for God's sake, saying that the only people the President listens to on Iraq are women who are in love with him, Laura, Condi, Harriet Miers, and Condoleeza Rice? What about that?"
Follow up with something like, "We've got to change course. We can't leave it up to him any more. Even the guys who told him to invade in the first place say he can't do it. We've got to put somebody, anybody else in charge."
You get the idea. Read the whole article. Pick a couple of quotes. Pivot and attack and pound, pound, pound. Subtlety doesn't work here. As the old saying goes, when you've got 'em by the throat . . . . Well . . you know . . . throw 'em an anvil when they're drowning.
Oh yeah. Heads up. The article contains the veiled threat that once Bush is gone, the real neocons'll come back and do "it" the way it should have been done all along. "The best news is that the United States remains a healthy, vibrant, vigorous society. So in a real pinch, we can still pull ourselves together. Unfortunately, it will probably take another big hit. And a very different quality of leadership. Maybe we'll get it." Or maybe we can drive a stake through these guys' hearts before it's too late.
P.S. This is my first diary. I couldn't figure out how to pinpoint cite the quotes within the article, but you can find everything in the link above. Good luck!
UPDATE: Just saw another DIARY by BobTrips, HERE.. I think mind adds includes enough of my own take not to have to be deleted, but am open for advice.