It must now be branded as propaganda — for even the president cannot truly feel that very many people still believe him to be competent in this area, let alone “the decider.”
Well, if anyone was thinking that, in 2007, our MSNBC anchorman-hero Keith Olbermann was going to sit on his laurels, they best think again.
The New Big “O” (sorry, Oscar Robertson will, forever, be The Big O) came out swinging in his first newscast since the holiday lull (or Gerald Ford’s funerals, if you will) with a Special Comment About ‘Sacrifice’.
Not only was it another hard-hitting rumination on our Court-Appointed Decider, it was, to some degree, breaking news.
Olbermann based his Special Comment on the BBC news reports that Bush is putting his chips down on the legacy, announcing next week that he will pour more troops into Iraq - for security, not training - in a speech themed “sacrifice.”
This is where we stand tonight with the BBC report of President Bush’s “new Iraq strategy,” and his impending speech to the nation, which, according to a quoted senior American official, will be about troop increases and “sacrifice.”
The president has delayed, dawdled and deferred for the month since the release of the Iraq Study Group.
He has seemingly heard out everybody, and listened to none of them.
And in another Administration classic, the White House Iraq Group must have worked straight through the holidays (and funerals), for we have another Madison Ave slogan in lieu of a real strategy.
But from our impeccable reporter at the Pentagon, Jim Miklaszewski, tonight comes confirmation of something called “surge and accelerate” — as many as 20,000 additional troops —for “political purposes” ...
Surge and Accelerate.
Sounds more like a direction, a motivation, from a Pilates or Spinning class.
And what focus group pitched in on this one? This crew seems stuck on the S&A combo - we all remember “Shock and Awe”, don’t we? Is there a list that they pull from?
Stand and Answer ... Smash and Annihilate (which would have to come from Cheney) ... Sack and Abuse ... Scorch and Accomplish ...
The surge is self-explanatory, but what, exactly, are we going to accelerate? The Iraq Civil War? Lighting up the entire Middle East? More world condemnation?
As Sen. Joseph Biden has pointed out, the new troops might improve the ratio our forces face relative to those living in Baghdad (friend and foe), from 200 to 1, to just 100 to 1.
“Sacrifice?”
No.
A drop in the bucket.
The additional men and women you have sentenced to go there, sir, will serve only as targets.
Hopefully, which Olbermann also posed, the BBC report is wrong, in error. Perhaps paperwork got mixed up and the “surge and accelerate” is about the fund raising for Bush’s post Imperial reign library, or Bush was talking about how he’s going to ride his bicycle next time down in Crawford.
The equation is simple. This country does not want more troops in Iraq.
It wants fewer.
Go and make it happen, or go and look for other work.
Links
Read Olbermann: Special Comment About ‘Sacrifice’
Crooks and Liars has the video
Garlic Special: A George Bush Dream - The Victory
Scroll down the sidebar to read other Minced Garlic posts
