Madman

We are in so much trouble.

President Bush is a lunatic. There’s really no other way to put it. Our president is a man so arrogant, so completely assured of his own wisdom, that to this day he continues to define the situation in Iraq in ways that are wholly at odds with reality. A president who cannot accurately recall his own steps in leading the nation into war and who repeatedly demonstrates he does not understand the goals of the players involved will never be able to lead us to the triumph he asserts is necessary. How do you win a war if you fail to understand who your opponents are and what motivates them?

His press conference this morning was ghastly. After trying to spin the Iraqi government’s failure to achieve “satisfactory” progress on a majority of the 18 mandated benchmarks as a cause for optimism, he then completely re-wrote history in response to a question about whether the authority to end this war rests with him.

“Actually, I was hoping to solve the Iraqi issue diplomatically,” he said. “That’s why I went to the United Nations.” That’s just a flat-out lie. He tried everything he could to avoid the U.N., and for a while the White House talking point was how we should not let our policies be dictated by foreign diplomats. He only went to the U.N. when the political pressure made it necessary. And then, when he could not get his resolution approved by the Security Council, he withdrew it and invaded anyway.

Today, he tried to gloss over that appalling diplomatic failure by confusing it with resolution 1441, which passed unanimously and, in the president’s words, required Saddam to “disclose, disarm or face serious consequences.” But as tragic events demonstrated, Saddam did disclose. He had disarmed. He had none of the weapons or weapons programs of which he was accused. To claim now that Saddam was in violation of 1441 as a justification for the war is insanity.

And then he argued the decision to go to war was Saddam’s, anyway.

He repeated the bogus idea that “we ought to defeat them there so we don’t have to face them here,” as if the conflict in Iraq were some kind of all-powerful terrorist magnet that prevents radical Islamists from staging attacks elsewhere in the world, or that our victory in Iraq could ever be so complete that the planet would be forever free of terrorism.

“The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th,” he said. If he is serious in making this statement, then we truly have a president who is profoundly confused about matters of terrifying importance. It doesn’t even allow for the reality that both sides in the sectarian fracas are bombing each other. He just thinks there’s Al Qaeda and the Good Guys.

He also mischaracterized the discussions going on in this country about the war, and in the process, insulted the American people. It is no longer a question of whether we can win, as the president seems to believe. (His answer is, “We must.”) The question before us now is, how do we get out? The reality we find ourselves in is that the president has left us no good options. Yes, there could be a bloodbath if we leave. Yes, radical Islam might gain a secure foothold in Iraq. The country could fragment. But no one believes that there remains anything for the United States to do about it. The president now has a six and a half year record of being wrong about everything. He asks for patience and recommends that we continue throwing away American lives for an unachievable objective. Noble as his vision might be, it’s a fantasy.

He said he understood that the American people are “tired” of the war. I have an incredible urge to insert an expletive here. We are not “tired” of the war, like it’s a once-promising TV show that has lost its edge and we’re looking for something else. We’re dismayed. We’re horrified. We are clamoring for justice, honesty and accountability. We are begging to end the loss of life and the hemorrhaging of dollars that could be better spent. We are despondent that the people responsible for leading us into an illegal, unjust, futile war will never pay a real price for having done so.