As I write this the Senate still hangs in the balance but it is so good to see we’re turning a corner. This administration has been so wrong for our country since it was first …. (I almost wrote “elected”).
Thank you, fellow Americans who finally came around to the voice of reason.
I was on a TV round table debate in Spain back before the Iraq war began. The question put before the other pundits and me was, should the US go to war with Iraq? Remember that at that time it was a generally accepted fact that Sadam had weapons of mass destruction. My position was that the US should not go to war because in order for it to be a success too many things would have to go well. For example, we’d have to easily defeat the Iraqi army. We’d have to secure the peace and essentially be greeted as liberators. We’d have to find the WMD. We’d have to prevent Al Qaeda from setting up shop in the country. We’d have to prevent the rival forms of Islam from fighting each other in a power vacuum.
In hindsight we’ve seen that this administration didn’t even fathom that some of those challenges existed let alone have a plan for dealing with them.
In business we like to say that a client won’t trust you to solve their business challenges if they don’t believe that you fully understand their challenges. This administration clearly doesn’t fully understand the complex world we live in so how can we expect them to operate effectively within it?
I didn’t vote for George W. Bush the first time but I kind of understand why he was elected. Clinton had done a pretty good job. We were at peace. We were the only remaining super power. We had just come off the longest economic boom in our history and we had a huge budget surplus. It was party time and who better to lead our country at party time than a bunch of frat boys? (No offense to the many fraternities at our colleges and universities - but you get my meaning).
However, by the time Bush was up for re-election we certainly should have come to our senses. 9/11 had transpired and we had gone into Afghanistan and Iraq. He got America into a very complex and delicate situation that very literally required the best minds in our country. And what did we do? We stuck with George W. Bush!
Today, I am thankful that for the next two years the Bush administration will be tempered by a Democratic House and hopefully the Senate will also be dominated by the Democrats. My fear is that Congress will temper Bush so much that he’ll stop making so many obvious mistakes and come 2008 we won’t collectively remember just how bad he was when he had no restraint forced upon him and that we’ll elect someone just like him.
Let’s not do that. Really!!
Quote from today
“I thought we were gonna do fine yesterday. [That] shows you what I know.” - George W. Bush in today’s press conference to announce the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
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