New Quaker Notebook

On Friday, in an interview with ABC News, Vice President Cheney said it would be "full speed ahead" in Iraq.¹ He also said something perfectly in tune with his character and the character of those in the Bush administration:

"It may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue what we think is right," Cheney said. "That's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."

It doesn't matter what you and I think. The Busheviks have political capital to spend and they're going to spend every cent of it. What matters is that their twisted sense of moral behavior gets to dominate their actions.

I have to laugh at the thought of how much information historians are going to have, perhaps a generation from now, as they mine the treasury of idiocy, incompetence,² the bloody horror of the Iraq mistake, detainee abuse and torture, loss of Constitutional freedoms, Congressional bad behavior and stupidity, a broken American economy—all of which will surely define the US in the first decade of the 21st Century. What fun social scientists will have with that radio transmitter hidden under the president's suit coat during his last debate with John Kerry, and how sad that his poor tailor got the blame for it.³ How entertaining to hear "Being president is hard work" from a man who beat the record for presidential vacations, including a vacation/fundraiser while the whole world watched New Orleans being washed away by Hurricane Katrina. How much fun it will be to witness the President of the United States mangling the English language better than any illiterate, but how pathetic to see the frequent use of his middle finger, to watch him grope the female Chancellor of Germany, and to hear him beckon his lapdog from the UK with "Yo, Blair," his mouth full of food. And then there's Cheney's shotgun, his F-bomb blasts, and the last throes. And that's not even including good stuff from John Ashcroft, Condoleeza Rice, and Donald "Back Off" Rumsfeld. It doesn't matter how many people were killed, or how many were maimed and crippled, in the long military response to 9/11. Historians will see it all as a "work of art"⁴ or just a "comma."⁵

It doesn't matter, because our leadership did what they thought was right. And that makes it all okay.

1. "Cheney Vows 'Full Speed Ahead' on Iraq War," Washington Post, November 4, 2006.
2. This isn't my word. That's from neocon Kenneth Adelman, who served on the Defense Policy Board until 2005, in "Neo Culpa," David Rose's preview article on the neoconservative backlash in Vanity Fair, November 3. 2006. You'll be surprised at what comes out of the mouths of Adelman, David Frum, Richard Perle, and others.
3. See a comprehensive guide to the story in "The Box on Bush's Back," Slate, October 20, 2004.
4. "Iraq a 'work of art in progress' says US general after 49 die," The Guardian, November 3, 2006.
5. President Bush said this during an interview on CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 24, 2006.

The ship is sinking, but everything's cool