Imagining Honesty and Competence

President Bush and Vice President Cheney gave speeches today, but both remain afraid to speak to gatherings of regular Americans. Speaking in front of soldiers has become a requirement for several reasons. First, the need to perpetuate the illusion that they are tough military guys, even though they are both prissy, country-club civilians who have never enlisted nor fought. And second, the need to speak in front of men who are trained to take orders and will not boo or shout out in the middle of a speech. If either man spoke in front of a random crowd of Americans, neither could be heard over the jeers and catcalls. Recall that these are the same two Republicans whose minions waged smear campaigns against critics, recently calling war hero Jack Murtha a coward. But what is more cowardly than avoiding the general public?

Both so-called leaders have been giving a lot of speeches in front of soldiers lately, trying to persuade people that the fiasco in Iraq is something noble and worthwhile. But the American public has long-passed the point of persuasion.

Suppose, if you will, that we could turn the clock back to March 20, 2003, and the President said the following as our tanks and soldiers prepared to roll into Iraq:

“My fellow Americans, we are invading Iraq, along with our friend England, because we need more control over the region that produces oil, and we’ve given Saddam Hussein so many reasons to hate us over the years that we fear he might someday hook up with Osama bin Laden, or invade our friends in Saudi Arabia, or do something to damage our supply of oil. And since my father screwed up and didn’t take out Saddam during the Gulf War, we figure this is the right time to finish the job. We’re not stupid enough to assume that we will be greeted with roses, and we don’t have enough men to secure important assets like weapons stockpiles, but if we wait any longer we may give others time to build a solid case against our invasion, so we’ll have to wing it.”

“Over the years, Saddam rubbed out tens of thousands of his fellow countrymen. And our invasion is likely to rub out tens of thousands more. But their families will forgive us since we are killing them to help their country. Our help will come in the form of democracy, and since we’ve been listening to a broad range of experts, we know that the best we can hope for is a government coalition of three distinct sects, who will likely form a theocracy similar to the evil empire next door, Iran.”

“We suspect that Iraq will be a very difficult country to pacify, especially once the iron grip of dictatorship is broken. And yet Islamic radicals are convinced that we want to control the Middle East forever, and will use this fear to recruit terrorists. So it is safe to assume that we will either have to exit Iraq long before it is a stable, viable nation, leaving the likelihood of serious strife and civil war when we are gone, or stay for a prolonged period, which will multiply our losses and give credence to the Islamic radical position that we want to control the Middle East.”

“But we believe that the thousands of lives lost and hundreds of billions of dollars spent will be worth the try. If things work out perfectly, which they seldom do in nation-building, Iraq will become an Islamic state run by radicals who will probably not kill or torture quite as many people as Saddam. And the citizens of Iraq will get to vote for those radicals, just like we do. They will appreciate this freedom, and despite the chaos of invasion and horror of war, they will decide to keep the oil flowing, which is very important to us. This is surely a noble cause.”

Would Congress have applauded this speech? Would the American people have applauded this speech? Of course not. Congress would have put a stop to this nonsense, and Bush would have been tossed out of office in 2004.

But neither honesty nor competence has ever been a part of the Bush playbook. Even with the public turning against him, his Administration’s response is to use the same old tricks. Deception, spin and sloganeering. They worked for a while, but people finally see them for what they are--big, costly, dangerous lies.