What do you all make of the right's confusion over Iraq?

[BurtWorm]

If there's some concerted conspiracy going on here, why are so many wingers normally hooked into the pipeline wondering what the fuck is going on with the Bushists and Iraq?

For example, as Salon.com's Right Hook column noted:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/right_hook/2004/05/26/speech_moore/index.html

NRO contributor Clifford May was a bit less charitable about the speech from the get-go. "It's a start," he managed, "but only a start. Too often in the past, this administration hasn't understood the importance of repeating a message, elaborating on a message, working a message until it burns its way into the public's mind and imagination."

He probably wasn't thinking of the administration's linking 9/11 to Saddam, a central yet still questionable Bush talking point repeated again prominently on Monday night. But May did find comfort in what he saw as a sort of thorough five-point plan for Iraq.

"Yes, it was reassuring to see the President appearing confident, articulating a plan, going into detail about who, what, when and where. But now he -- and those who claim they work for him -- need to drive the ideas he only sketched out tonight."

But that's not how NRO contributor Jed Babbin saw things. He found troubling contradictions in Bush's speech.

"The president's 'five point' plan to turn Iraq over to free Iraqis is riddled with holes. The first is that the president insisted that the 'turnover' of Iraqi sovereignty would be complete. But how can that be when, as he said, 138,000 American troops will remain there as long as necessary, under American command? If they are not subjected to the law and authority of the new Iraq provisional government, how can they be anything other than an occupation force? Though the 'Coalition Provisional Authority' will cease to exist on June 30, changing the sign over the door but leaving American troops there under American command (the only way they could possibly stay) continues the occupation."

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I wonder if they got the talking points

I am serious, I wonder... all day I have seen only one, Buchanan,
actually do teh best defense and claiming that bush was now the
realist and the Neo Cons were out

[Kimber Scott]

3. It's all about separating themselves from the NeoCons

The Right knows the only way to save the Republican party is to blame all of this mess on the NeoCons. Maybe, even get Bush above the fray. Poor, incurious, blindly-led Bush. He's a good guy, just mis-informed. This is Plan A. Plan B is, if Bush continues to go down in flames, throw him in the NeoCon fire, too, and hope to save one's own Right-Wing Ass.

[BurtWorm]

5. That's what I'm thinking.

Well said. :toast:

[Must_B_Free]

13. Jeb is a Neocon

too hard to divorce from the Neocons - they are all neocons now... How many McCains are there?

[BurtWorm]

4. I think some serious fissures have been exposed.

They're not as united a they want us to think they are. Not even inside the administration. It's not quite clear who's in control, but it does look like the neocons--the silly dreamers, as Joe Conason calls them--are on the way out and Poppy Bush's people's star is in ascent.

[wtmusic]

2. They have reached the critical point

where there is really no denying anymore that we're f*cked. Instead of admitting it, and taking the radical steps which need to be taken, Bush is erecting the pathetic facade of a policy which is supposed to save face and Iraq at the same time.

Nothing doing!

[BurtWorm]

6. It seems to me that Poppy's people may be asserting control

to try to save the stoopid boy from himself and the idiots he's surrounded himself with. It just might be that they'll be happy to salvage his reputation as a "president" who failed "honorably." If that's the case, they have a LOT of work left to do!

[wtmusic]

7. Iraq will drag * down like a bigass boat anchor

regardless of what they try at this point. There's no realistic scenario which promises stability in the near term.

[calimary]

15. Awfully hard to save face for bush when HE keeps scuffing it up.

[maggrwaggr]

8. then why are they still calling it Bush's "war on terror"?

some scumbag was on Matthews tonight spouting that bullshit. I wanted to grab him and say "can you feel proud of yourself, sitting here on national television, repeating these lies? Do you tell your kids what you do? How can you live with yourself knowing you're a lying scumbag?"

I don't even know who the asshole was. Some scumsucking pigfucker Republican whore.

[BurtWorm]

9. Either they're cynical liars or confused fools.

Either they know what a mess is unfolding and don't want to say or they're clueless useful idiots.

[maggrwaggr]

14. if Bushco told them to murder their own children they'd do it

they're simply spineless followers who will do whatever they're told, no matter how heinous

[BeFree]

10. Well, failure breeds failure

And this bunch are a miserable failure.

Damn, but it's been a long three years. We knew these times were coming on, and now, here we are. America has lost all of it's progressiveness around the world, and even at home, because of the squatters in control of our government. At least we seem to becoming out of the deep denial phase and just as soon as we kick the squatters out, America will pull herself up by the bootstraps and continue it's journey once again. I can hardly wait.

[Cat Atomic]

11. So let me get this straight.

Bush and Cheney aren't part of the problem, it's only the evil neocons surrounding them. Bush was so stupid that they managed to fool him into committing the biggest foreign policy mess in US history.

And that's supposed to make him look BETTER.

The situation must be well and truly fucked up if that's the new spin.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. That is the new spin

distance from neo con central, we are now realists.

See I can do it too

teh difference I am just an observer here, going... whoopee, they are now showing fisures.

And yes, 1932 is coming increasingly to mind.... as well as 1858 and 1800... I would not mind 1800 Part Deux, could not happen to a better party, quite frankly

[BurtWorm]

16. kivk