(cross-posted from Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x190987)
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/opinion/15dowd.html?hp<snip>
This version of "The Most Dangerous Game" neatly follows the four-step Bush-Cheney cycle:
Step 1: Set out to pick off what you think is an easy target, like quail — in 2003, he went after stocked, pen-raised and netted pheasant — or a certain sanction-caged Iraqi dictator.
Step 2: In the corrupt company of lobbyist-contractor friends, botch things up. Ignore the peril at hand — as with, oh, Osama at Tora Bora, or Katrina, or the Iraq occupation — and with steely resolve, indulge your raging incompetence. (Oops.)
Step 3: Stonewall. Resist giving Congress information about 9/11 or Katrina; don't tell the public how you're tapping phones at home, setting up gulags abroad and making war and energy policy in secret. Why give the taxpayers, who are ponying up for these weekend hunting trips, the extraordinary news that Vice shot his hunting companion in the face and chest? Scott McClellan knew before yesterday's White House briefing at noon that Mr. Whittington was worse, but did not tell the reporters. He left that to Corpus Christi doctors, who spun the heart attack as "an inflammatory response to a metallic foreign BB."
Step 4: Admit no mistakes. Express sympathy. Blame the victim without leaving fingerprints by outsourcing the smear to the private sector.
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