Stabbed in the Back
Via Susie Madrak and Josh Marshall, we see the faint stirrings of the Battered Spouse Syndrome Corolary: Stabbed in the Back!
The U.S. is failing in Iraq. Bush’s policy was repudiated by the American people in the last election. And now America’s enemies and rivals are pressing their advantage, including Iran, Syria, the Taliban, Sudan, Russia and Venezuela. We have yet to hear from al-Qaida.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.
It is not only that Iraq is to blame for its own destruction, but that the American public is to blame for the Administration’s complete screw ups in failing to carry out that destruction. It’s not that “George Bush and Co screwed up”, so much as “America is a pussy”.
So now we have two people to blame other than George W. Bush and the people who backed his policies.
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