This is no Way to Organize Chaos.

I'll keep this short because I'm still mad but did you know that the American people have lost the will to fight in Iraq and that is why we are failing there?

That ought to go over real well with voters in 2008.

I wish this cancer had a cure.

Now that I think about it, this especially disgusting line of thought has origins. Back in August I wrote:

Look more closely at Rumsfeld's words. Will is everything here. Military might means nothing. Rumsfeld is characterizing this as nothing less than the willpower of the American people versus the willpower of insurgents/terrorists/fascists. And what is this willpower being applied to? The resolve of each side to continue killing and being killed with no goal in sight. Actually, Iraqi insurgents have various goals whereas the Bush administration does not. Achieving democracy in Iraq, you say? Is that our goal? What is our strategy for accomplishing that goal? Without a strategy and a plan, goals are nothing more than dreams. And what about "resolve?" Are suicide bombers more committed to their cause than Americans who are caught in the blast? Suicide bombers have made a conscious decision to die for their cause. Yet this notion of sacrifice is absent from Bush administration rhetoric (when have you ever heard Bush conjure up the notion of "taking one for the team"?) and it certainly isn't shared by soldiers in Iraq. Didn't John Kerry say it best when he asked how you would ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake? US soldiers in Iraq are being killed--I can't emphasize this enough--for no reason. Please, give me a reason. The formation of government and constitution in Iraq has not induced democracy, the ostensible reason we're in Iraq. It seems to me that the reason Americans have lost the will to stay in Iraq is simply because there is no good reason to be there. And if we've lost the will, then doesn't that mean that America is no longer strong?

Rumsfeld's attacks make it sound like he's criticizing a minority opinion. But a majority of Americans favor a phased withdrawl from Iraq within a year and that same majority thinks it was a mistake to go there in the first place (with hindsight, for sure). Who are the radicals? The extremists? The minority opinion that is weakening America's resolve? Take a wild guess. It is the same people that got us into this mess, who refuse to admit error and refuse to make any serious effort to ameliorate the situation. Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney should not be taken seriously by anyone. They are the ones who are afraid. America doesn't want to "cut and run," America wants to end this pointless and costly conflict as soon as possible. And Democrats should be saying this every day until Election Day and beyond. The Bush administration is AFRAID to admit failure and would rather stick to failed policy and no plan (at great cost in blood and treasure) than get America back on track. It is COWARDLY and beneath contempt. You want to see American will in action? How about taking some action on getting us out of Iraq or the new Democratic Congressional Majority will fully investigate the entire executive branch for failing to uphold its Constitutionally-ordained duty and prosecute them for endangering the national security of the United States. It astounds me that these people are running the country into the ground because they think some Islamic fundamentalists are the second coming of Hitler. Not only are they cowards, but they are idiots as well.

The American people still want out of Iraq. That hasn't changed. Their votes on Nov. 7 indicated that clearly. Rumsfeld may be gone but to me, that's just the shedding of one more layer of corruption. Soon we'll be at the rotten core. As the philosopher Costanza once remarked, "This thing is like an onion: the more layers you peel, the more it stinks!"

But I'm more interested in Bush's enablers. The cancer of the Republic. Josh yesterday:

Let's first take note that the 'blame the American people for Bush's screw-ups' meme has definitely hit the big time. It's not Bush who bit off more than he could chew or did something incredibly stupid or screwed things up in a way that defies all imagining. Bush's 'error' here is not realizing in advance that the American people would betray him as he was marching into history. The 'tragedy' is that Bush "bit off more than the American people were willing to chew." That just takes my breath away.

Now come down to the third graf. Bush gets repudiated in the mid-term election ... "And now ..." In standard English the import of this phrasing is pretty clear: it's the repudiation of Bush's tough policies that have led to the international axis of evil states rising against us. Is he serious? The world has gone to hell in a hand basket since the election? In the last three weeks? The whole column is an open war on cause and effect.

This is noxious, risible, fetid thinking. But there it is. That's the story they want to tell. The whole place is rotten down to the very core.

The article being referenced is Mort Kondracke's, titled, "U.S. Weakness Leads Assassins, Terrorists, Demagogues to Rise." Think about this for a second. Let it sink in. Now cool off and consider this: why won't these people acknowledge that Bush has erred? That he has not only erred, but erred in every possible way, repeatedly, and won't change course? Let me be clear: these people are delusional. They are obsessed with Bush's faux machismo and their idoltary prevents them from seeing the plain truth.

Bush is responsible for Iraq. It is his fault. and because he is the head of state, should shoulder the responsibility.

I can't dumb it down anymore than that. That's as plain as I can make it. We can't punish idiots like Kondracke, Kurtz, Friedman, Krauthammer, Reynolds, etc. for being idiots. Everyone can have an opinion, it's just unfortunate that the opinions of these people are prominent. Think about that, too. How many times have I pointed out the idiocy of these people, how many times have they been wrong, and why are they still allowed to essentially write nonsense in serious newspapers? Absolutely incredible.

I guess I didn't keep it short. But someone has to call bullshit on these people.