MOVING TARGET – TAKE 634
G.W. Bush is often given credit by the mainstream commentartiat for his "bold" moves, as if "boldness" is a legitimate substitute for substance and as if being bold is more important than being right.
But seldom noticed is how Bush’s initial "bold" steps are always beaten back into steps that, while still miserable, are at least less radical than the original proposal or claim. His handlers always back him up to the point where he can get just that 50.1% of whatever inconvenient governmental or international body is standing in his way. Then he claim "bipartisan" victory and the media stands in awe of his "bold" accomplishments.
Take the most recent tax-cut giveaway to his rich contributors. With an initial (and more honest) price tag of $750 billion over 10 years, even some Republicans could not stomach that much of a windfall in the face of already-historical deficits created by the Bushies. So the giveaway’s impact was artificially (by the use of hard-to-reverse sunset provisions) reduced to $350 billion. Rather than cower in shame about their initial miscalculation of the public’s tolerance for giveaways to the rich, the Bushies had a big party and declared victory.
Likewise, at the UN Security Council last year. The initial language demanding immediate disarmament-or-else by Iraq was quickly rejected by the other nations on the Council, except for Bush’s shameless lapdog, the formerly Great Britain. Eventually, the language was watered-down as to be utterly meaningless, requiring only that the Council take another look at it if it looked like Iraq was not cooperating with the inspections. Despite the fact that the language was not anything like its original, hair-trigger version, the Bushies again proclaimed victory with the unanimous Council support of the meaningless version, proceeded to ignore its language and the fact that Iraq was fully cooperating with the inspections, and charged off to its unilateral invasion of a sovereign country.
Now, faced with the fact that Iraq, in fact, had no WMD, as claimed unequivocally before the invasion, the Bushies are trying to move the target after the fact, shifting language as they always do in an attempt to claim they were right when they clearly were not. On the Sunday talk shows, Condi Rice (Meet the Press and This Week) and Colin Powell (only, significantly, in the soft arms of Tony Snow and Britt Hume on Fox) started trying to re-write history, now claiming only that Iraq had weapons "programs" that needed to be destroyed for our own protection.
No. In the run-up to the invasion, all the Bushies claimed that Iraq had actual, live WMD, and not just a little – tons; no, hundreds of tons of it. But listen to the backpedaling. Eventually, all they are going to find is a couple of scientists who were asked to think about maybe putting a bio/chem program back together after the ‘91 war and after the inspections stopped. That’s a far cry from what they initially claimed, but they will try to revise their initial claims after the fact and, if the past is any indication, the media will let them get away with it.
Not so – yet, anyway – on Sunday morning, when Russert and Stephanopoulos pushed Rice pretty hard on the difference between past pronouncements and present facts. Rice turned positively shrill when challenged with facts she could not explain away (none of the Bushies are used to being challenged), her usually stony countenance scrunching up into frowns and squints.
One saving grace to this attempt to move the target is Bush himself and Tony Blair. Both continue to claim that we will find the mythical stash of WMD. In the end, they will either be exposed as war criminals for lying to justify the invasion or they will try to gin something up in the desert to look like they found something. Either way, they are both in deep trouble for dragging their countries into the invasion and killing their own soldiers under false pretenses. Their handlers are trying to save them from themselves. But, if there is any justice in this world (not likely), the moving target will end up with the political bullseye on them.
Next time (really!): Defining Bush
8:28:34 AM 
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