Failure

Once again, Bush has stepped in the way of progress. Within hours of getting the Iraq timetable bill from Congress, he vetoed it. In the NY Times article, Bush actually said the measure would “impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat” by forcing them to “take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.” Don’t they do that already? Wasn’t it those very politicians who made the troops go over there to fight in the first place? His pathetically stupid commentary at every turn takes any logic or reason he may have used to make his decision right out of the equation.

On the BBC website, it makes light of the fact that he has only used two vetoes in his 7 years of presidency. This could be for two reasons: Republicans had the biggest piece of the Washington pie until just recently, so he never had to, and/or, he just recently found out what a veto is for. I think it’s the latter, but I don’t want to seem too pessimistic.

As usual, Bush says that failure is not an option. Of course it isn’t an option, and I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks it is an option for anything. But it happens, and in the case of the war, it is just fact. He needs to stop talking about his obvious fear of embarrassment and accept that both he, as president, and the war are probably the biggest failures this country has ever suffered, at least in the past 100 years or so. I say that because we, as a country, have already suffered a lot of failures, but the failure to learn from any of that is by far the biggest one.