Mark Bossingham

Suicide

"THERE ARE people—there is no discreet way to put this—who pulled the lever last Tuesday that began the process of their own deaths."
--J.R. Dunn

Under the bus

I LIKE Donald Rumsfeld. A very smart man that  killed the Crusader howitzer system and a lot of other big-ticket items the Generals wanted.
His replacement is a hack who has been waiting out the winter of his discontent at Texas A&M. Is that the best Bush could do? Back to pragmatic realism. Ugh. Clintonian do-nothing diplomacy. Blame Bush for throwing Rumsfeld over the side.
Bottom line. Iraq is not a fight the West can affort to lose. Aside from the icky feeling we will have when the genocide commences, redeploying (to Okinawa? Ask the Okinawans about that laugher) is not an option. Nancy Pelosi, or no, don’t hold your breath.
Again, blame Bush. And, I suppose Rumsfeld too, to some degree, for not telling the truth. No, not about all that stuff that gets the socialist weenies excited--WMD, etc.--but for not making it crystal clear how hard this was going to be.
Bush on TV my way. “We are in an existential fight--a fight we cannot lose and continue to survive as the nation we know. You must accept that there will be a tremendous amount of blood shed in Iraq before things improve--mostly Iraqi blood. The Kurds in the north and the Shias in the south watched as the Baathists in the middle killed their children, aunts, uncles and grandmothers fro more than a generation. They want payback and they will get it. The Sunnis, on the other hand, understandably don’t want to be slaughtered. Stay the course means at least a 20-year commitment to the country. We will be forced to hold our collective noses, take minimal casualties, and watch as until the Iraqis get tired of killing each other, moving in as firefighters only to stop the worst of it. If we leave prematurely, I promise you we will be trying someday in the future to figure out what that great flash of white light was--until the shock wave rolls us up.”
That’s my Bush. What we got instead was the I-can-work-with-the Democrats Bush. On what for God’s sake? Another horrible entitlement program like the unneeded prescription drug program or the zillion dollar bribe to the teacher’s union known absurdly as “no child left behind”?
Expect a slew of mini-payoffs a la Clinton to special interest/victim groups. Gee, that’s visionary.

 

For the record

NO WHINING, no complaining of voter disenfranchisement from me. The Democrats won. Bush sounded as disinterested in the workings of Congress as always at his press conference. Expect him to sign anything they throw his way. But for the record, the DJIA was at about 12,200 when the Dems took over; unemployment was at 4.4 percent, taxes low and the economy growing at a clip Europe will never see again. Let's see how those numbers hold up under the Democrats.

I voted

POSTINGS HAVE been few and far between lately. Work saps me of my energy. Journalism may not be rocket science and is certainly not as challenging as a Marine squad leader, but its sheer monotony can be enervating. Leave aside that the Pulitzer Prize committee gave my profession's top award to terrorist-photographers employed by The Associated Press, the work can be dull and repetitive. I need a vacation. And I am going on one in a couple of weeks. Will drive around an underpopulated country and look at trees. No deadlines; no schedule.
    Voted the other day by mail. Straight party line. Indeed, I pulled the lever for a couple of Republicans I wouldn't want in my house but the alternative--voting for a Democrat is an ridiculous. Not going to cut off my nose--or the Republican Party's--simply because I am unhappy with the way they are doing their jobs. The House has been more reliably conservative than the president.
    Maybe if the Democrats take control of the House, GW can finally locate his veto pen. But I doubt it. He has governed (aside from taxes and the GWOT) as a liberal. I don't expect much change. In his favor--taxes and the GWOT--are the two issues I care the most about. I really fear Democrats screwing up the U.S. economy. My mutual fund has soared in concert with the DJIA. It is already beginning to fall, in, I suspect, anticipation of Nancy Pelosi.
    Bottom line: al-Quada trigger pullers dying by the thousands in Iraq; a market above 12,000; unemployment at 4.4 percent and zero attacks on the United States. Exactly what do voters want? They don't like war--any war? Who does? But the alternative--think a big white light and millions dead in some urban blue area--is far worse.
    On the other hand, there is the comic potential of Democrats in control of anything.