The headline on the first page of the Boston Globe's URL was perhaps inadvertently hilarious
Bush Defends War, Ducks
We might add, especially lame ducks. It is indeed difficult to imagine a worse presidency. Bush and his cohorts have, from day one, been a venal and lazy bunch, permanently behind the events rather than ahead of them. Entirely forgotten by the press, apparently, except somewhere on the left, is the plain fact that his administration was told that something big was going down in 2001, and they did nothing. The reaction to 9/11 was disaster number two. Lots of Clinton blaming, lots of activism, lots of aggression. Not enough careful examination of the facts on the ground, of the lead-up, of the grievances, many quite legitimate, in the Arab world... hence lots of wasted opportunity. There were those who saw the trap laid by Bin Laden, notably Robert Fisk, who wrote in The Independent:
Retaliation is a trap. In a world that was supposed to have learnt that the rule of law comes above revenge, President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him. Let us have no doubts about what happened in New York and Washington last week. It was a crime against humanity. We cannot understand America's need to retaliate unless we accept this bleak, awesome fact. But this crime was perpetrated – it becomes ever clearer – to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the US military is preparing.
The conspiracy theories abound. But they give far too much credit to an administration that has simply been fettered by its extremely narrow ideology. And ideology, like musty old religious beliefs, is all too often a substitute for imagination and plain human intelligence. The ability to look at situations holistically, i.e., from every possible angle is willfully set aside in favor of same ole, same ole, which for most is plain stupidity, for Einstein it was insanity.
And that Iraqi journalist is going to feel the sheer, vindictive response of neo-conservative parochialism.
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