The Real Reason
Just read Eric Boehlert's piece in Salon (premium, sorry...) this morning, comparing the administration's ever-shifting justifications for the Iraq war to their previous strategy of ramming the tax cut down the nation's throat by whatever means necessary. All this shifty and obvious prevarication reminds me of the scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life, where two men are caught in the African bush disguised as a tiger ("A tiger? In Africa?") that bit off the leg of one of the officers. The hunting party questions them suspiciously and they keep changing their story until the audience finally wonders what could be a convincing explanation for this bizarre scenario, and why even bother asking?
That's all to say that when the rationale for official policy keeps shifting, it doesn't reduce the policy to absurdity - it reduces the concept of searching for a rationale to absurdity. Such a strategy, whether intentional or not, admirably serves the purposes of an administration that seems uncomfortable with the need to ever explain or justify itself, provide proof of its claims (if indeed it understands any distinction between "proof" and "evidence" or mere allegations) or answer a direct question from the public it claims to represent. Everyone suspects that the "real reason" behind the Iraq policy is something shabby and unprincipled, like oil or revenge for the assassination attempt on Bush Senior. I'm beginning to think the real reason we're after Iraq is because the President Wishes It So, so just sit down and shut up if you don't like it.
9:41:48 AM 
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