Wednesday, January 03, 2007

An "Ouch" Op-Ed by Garrison Keillor

Dragon Mood? -- pained

Once upon a time, there was a president named Bush. This is not a fairy tale.

According to Garrison Keillor, of Prairie Home Companion fame, Dubya may have some issues, in addition to the war in Iraq. Issues with Bush 41. It's entitled "Daddy Issues."
You wonder, however, what this earnest bunch [the new Congress] can do when things are so far out of whack as they are in Iraq. The gangland-style execution of Saddam Hussein was visible reality, a token of the blood lust and violence that swirls around Iraq ...

Meanwhile, in Washington, the limousines come and go, memorandums are set out on long polished tables, men in crisp white shirts sit at meetings and discuss how to rationalize a war that was conceived by a handful of men in arrogant ignorance and that has descended over the past four years into sheer madness.

Military men know there is no military solution here, and the State Department knows that the policy was driven by domestic politics, but who is going to tell the Current Occupant? He is still talking about victory, or undefeat, like some frat boy on meth who thinks he can step off a roof and not get hurt. The word "surge" keeps cropping up, as if we were fighting the war with electricity and not human beings...

Here we have a slacker son of a powerful patrician father who resolves unconscious Oedipal issues through inappropriate acting-out in foreign countries. Hello? All the king's task forces can gather together the shards of the policy, number them, arrange them, but it never made sense when it was whole and so it makes even less sense now...

He was the Great Denier of 2006, waving the flag, questioning the patriotism of anyone who dared oppose him, until he took a thumpin' and now, we are told, he is reexamining the whole matter. Except he's not. To admit that he did wrong is to admit that he is not the man his daddy is, the one who fought in a war...

It's time for 41 and 43 to work something out ... Pick up the phone, old man, and tell 43 you love him dearly and it's time to think about sparing the lives of American soldiers, many of whom have sons, too.
I appreciate the fact that Mr. Keillor isn't pulling punches here. People are dying because of our president's poor leadership.

No comments: