look, Bush never cared about any of that stuff. He didn't care about North Korea--he had to ask Bandar why it mattered. He didn't care about Iran--he and Ollie North and the entire Bush I team were happy to do business with the mullahs.

There was only one thing Bush II cared about, and that was settling a personal score with Saddam. It was entirely a matter of a family grudge. And Bush was too weak to get revenge on his own, so he wanted to use your tax dollars and your children's lives to settle it.

So he lied. From the moment he hit the campaign trail in '98 he was lying about his intentions vis a vis Iraq. All this stuff about protecting America--it was all bunk, from the very start. He didn't give a damn about protecting America--"you've covered your ass" was his response to the briefing telling him that Al Qaeda was about to strike before 9/11.

So the fact that every move he took has empowered North Korea? That's no surprise either. He took his eye off North Korea, and let them get away with building a bomb, just like he took his eye off Bin Laden and let him get away.

So here we are, six years later. Bin Laden still on the loose. NoKo with a bomb they never had to have. And Iran riding higher than it has ever been in the Middle East--since the time of Xerxes, give or take a century.

This guy has been the most monumental failure in American history. The only bigger losers are the people who supported him all these years.

Posted by: kid bitzer at October 10, 2006 04:18 AM | Permalink to this comment

Let's see... Bush wanted revenge for his daddy's humiliation. No, wait, he wanted to humiliate daddy by succeeding where 41 failed. No, I think he was trying to control oil resources so that central banks wouldn't switch their reserve currency to Euros. Whoops, that makes zero sense, I guess he was finding a way to get troops out of Saudi Arabia where they were inflaming the Muslims. Or maybe he was going to war in order to inflame the Muslims and help kickstart the Bibical apocalypse.

My personal favorite is this: A few days after 9-11, the FP team is sitting around brooding about the terrible situation. "This is awful." says Rummy, "We're at war, and we can't find the enemy. The worst part is, this war will be fought on American soil. We can never protect everything." And Bush (who did not get to be the most powerful man in the world by being an idiot) says, "Hey Dick, what's going on in Iraq?" And the Vice President says "Iraq? Why nothing. That son of a bitch Saddam is all bottled up, we're just waiting till he dies." And our President gets a gleam in his eye and says: "Why don't we hold the war in his piss ant country?"

Posted by: Matt Chanoff at October 10, 2006 05:50 AM | Permalink to this comment

We can speculate endlessly on why Bush made the terrible mistake of invading iraq.

Maybe in a few years we'll get access to records of various meetings where it got discussed, things that are not available now.

The bottom line is nobody knows why Bush did it, or if they have some sort of evidence they aren't allowed to say. And it was a terrible mistake that may keep hurting us for generations.

Posted by: J Thomas at October 10, 2006 09:08 AM | Permalink to this comment

actually Greg, were I you I'd have bolded the two previous sentences.

I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer.

they speak more volumes than the subsequent ones.

Posted by: Aziz at October 10, 2006 03:23 PM | Permalink to this comment

Its difficult to understand the actions of a vanglorious, far less than rational leader who is the scion of a political dynasty and who appears bent on deliberately alienating and isolating his nation from the rest of the world.

And its tough to understand Kim Jong II as well.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at October 11, 2006 01:59 PM | Permalink to this comment