Incompetence Hell!

Everybody’s jumping on the incompetence of the Bush administration; Iraq, Katrina, Social Security, you name it, they’ve goofed it up. The Democrats are pinning their November hopes on it; the Republicans are saying that President ____ is gone and they’re not responsible for the turds all over the landscape. On and on it goes, and while it’s true that they’re incompetent, it’s not as good as it looks as an issue.

A few days ago, I took Richard Cohen of the Washington Post to task for weaseling his way out the failure in Iraq by blaming the mess on the incompetence thing rather than the hubris that brought us to our present state. Now I see it as a pattern that the Republicans can twist to their elective advantage.

Let’s take a few the issues that have been handled incompetently and see where this can lead. First, Iraq; of course they blew it by failing to send in sufficient troops from the get go. We should have defended the Iraqi antiquities from looters. We should have acknowledged the insurgency sooner. We handled the Baathists badly. On and on, it went; we blew many an issue. But Secretary Rice has found the flaw in the argument and attempted to turn all of these tactical errors – and thousands more - to the advantage of the administration by saying none of these blunders mean anything compared to the strategic home run of dumping Saddam.

Wrong, Condi, wrong! The venture was morally and strategically wrong, a national blunder of the highest order. Our hubris in sending too few troops and all of the other mistakes simply brought the problems to the surface faster. Bottom line; we shouldn’t have attacked. Our outrageous arrogance in this mad adventure is what is killing our troops and draining our treasure; it’s not just the tactical incompetence.

Social Security; the president mocked the third rail of American politics and grasped the hot rod with both hands. He was inflexible and obdurate. Sure, he was incompetent and should have attempted a bi-partisan approach. He listened to no one outside of his inner circle and it shot a lighting bolt through him and his plan.

Katrina; of course Bush’s response was incompetent, but the storm was so devastating that even if he and Brownie had been on the ball, we’d pretty much be facing the situation on the ground as it is today.

And so it is with everything the administration touches, but this administration is already history. The Republicans are shedding ____ and DeLay and all their other sources of embarrassment and are readying to say it was all ____’s fault, but he’s gone and they are still the party of ideas. Right; and I’m running for president on the Republican ticket.

If we let these brown nosers on the Hill who went along with Bush in the roughshod way they’ve run the government for the past five and a half years off by simply shedding the president, we don’t deserve any better. The conservative movement is bankrupt of ideas; the ruling party has become corrupt; they’ve entangled us in the biggest mess to confront the nation in more than a generation. And if we simply go along with this `incompetence thing’, we’re stepping into a mine field.

The Congress must be won be Democrats in ’06, and the Democratic candidate must be a centrist and win in ’08. Certainly, the Democrats remember why they got sent to Limbo and will behave for a little while until we can strive for divided government in ’10. If we can’t punish the bums by throwing them out, how’re they ever going to become competent?

Blog on!

Wild Bill