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Tuesday 
15 July 2008
the whiff
it was all going to be so easy.
clean out the taliban in afghanistan, then topple the patsy in iraq.
set up the permanent republican majority back home, and voila! the sun would never set on the the bush legacy.
the spectacular consequences of what transpired instead are now swarming the bush administration like hornets.
by taking his eye off the ball in afghanistan, bush allowed the taliban to rise again, like a bin-laden-in-the-box, to inflict heavy damage on allied interests there. nine u.s. troops were killed sunday, making that front in the botched global war on terror deadlier than in iraq.
The attack was the worst of several reported on Sunday in Afghanistan, including a suicide bombing that killed 25 people, 20 of them civilians, in the central part of the country. They add to a casualty count that has already made 2008 the deadliest year in Afghanistan since the United States-led military intervention in 2001.
it’s no coincidence that the bush administration is pondering a speed-up in troop cuts in iraq. the spin will be, “look, the iraqis are standing up, so we can finally stand down.” the reality is, the iraqis are demanding u.s. troops leave, a security agreement between baghdad and the white house has fallen apart, and oh, yeah, reinforcements are desperately needed in afghanistan.
it was all going to be so easy. and so shortcuts were taken and mistakes were made and hey, what do you know, there weren’t really any scary weapons in iraq after all.
then again, they weren’t needed for this administration to shoot itself in the foot. several times.
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I saw some douchebag driving a giant SUV with a W’04 sticker and I wanted to run him off the road. Much like how his W ran this country off the road.
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I really need to get a new descriptor.
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Kirk said:
Maybe so:
As unpleasant as a douche bag may be, it is at least a very useful thing that helps people.
The two recent targets of your descriptor, an SUV-driving-W-supporter and Phil Gramm, are decidedly not useful, nor do they help people.
In other words, they aren’t good enough to be called douche bags. In their case, it’s a compliment, and I’m pretty sure that was not your intention.
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Yes, I’m actually insulting douchebags and the Massengil company by making the comparison. I’ll work on something this weekend.