Adam Felber of Fanatical Apathy looks for a metaphor for the Bush administration… #

A couple of weeks ago I’d have pointed to the recent Bush press conference and his now iconic inability to point to any mistakes he’s made in his entire administration. That was a good one – it conveyed the poor communication skills and lack of both foresight and hindsight that has transformed us from a beacon of hope around the globe into a nation known to possess the single largest and most prominent middle finger in the world. #

But then I seized upon an earlier moment, something I’d dismissed as merely an amusing gaffe at the time: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee. Fool me once…shame on … shame on you…Fool me – can’t get fooled again.” That’s nice and compact – you get the hubristic headlong plunge into an adventure whose outcome hadn’t really been thought about, the inevitable stumble when resources proved to be insufficient, and the assured but utterly nonsensical conclusion wherein all of the original sense is lost. If memory serves, this was followed by a confident, even defiant glare that said, “That’s what I MEANT to say. There will be no going back, no corrections, no apologies. Mission accomplished.” #

As commenter Dee points out, though, “it is futile to search for metaphor in a literal administration. There is no metaphor, there is no symbolism, because that would require some realization that the problems we face are complex and the answers are not always obvious.” #

Further down, commenter Murray nicely encapsulates the story so far… #

“Lets see we went to war to:
1. get retaliation for 9/11, OK maybe that wasn’t exactly right.
2. rid the country of those WMD that threatened us, OK that was wrong too.
3. rid the country of Sadam’s torture chambers,
Hmm.. didn’t quite work out as we wanted.
4. Give the Iraqis a stable free democratic government that would be the envy of every Arab state. OK that’s not going to happen either, but at least Halliburton made a nice profit. #

And the really sobering thing about this is that Bush’s poll numbers are still around 50%. #

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Monday, May 3rd, 2004 @ 8:50 pm Politics Matters
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