Everybody Knows

Last night I aked, "Will that fool anybody?"

Today, according to an AP-Ipsos poll, the answer seems to be No:

Americans overwhelmingly oppose sending more U.S. forces to Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll that serves as a strong repudiation of President Bush's plan to send another 21,500 troops.

The opposition to boosting troop levels in Iraq reflects growing skepticism that the United States made the right decision in going to war in the first place and that a stable, democratic government can be established there. Just 35 percent think it was right for the United States to go to war, a new low in AP polling and a reversal from two years ago, when two-thirds of Americans thought it was the correct move.

... Fully 70 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops, and a like number don't think such an increase would help stabilize the situation there.

That poll was taken before last night's speech, but the president's thorazine delivery of Nothing New can't have done much to sway opinion.

Some of what Bush said last night actually pulled the rug out from under his staunchest supporters -- those clinging to the belief that everything is going well in Iraq and that any appearance of chaos and quagmire is the result of a deliberate conspiracy of deception by the evil media. This hard-core core has spent the past three years devoutly affirming that they trust nothing except what they hear from the lips of God's chosen president and thus, encouraged by that president, have denied that lethal chaos and death squads run the show in Baghdad, denied that there is a widening gyre of sectarian violence, denied that mistakes have been made, denied that the situation isn't perfectly acceptable. They have denied all of these things because President Bush told them to -- because he and his court prophets at Fox News have said, time and again, that every journalist reporting such things was lying, was not to be trusted, was the enemy of America.

But then, last night, trying to make the case for a "change in strategy" that is neither a change nor a matter of strategy, Bush pulled a 180. He affirmed that everything those journalists have been reporting is true and that, therefore, he has been lying -- about Iraq, about "the media" -- for a very long time:

in 2006 ... the violence in Iraq -- particularly in Baghdad -- overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. ... The result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq.

The amazing thing -- not surprising, but still astonishing to see -- is that this will not alter the views of this hard-core group at all. Does Bush contradict himself? Very well, he contradicts himself. He is large, he encompasses multitudes! These folks are masters of cognitive dissonance. Tiger Woods plays golf. Beyonce sings. They accept incompatible ideas. It's what they do, those some of the people, all of the time.

Anyway, in honor of that AP-Ipsos poll and the all of the people who cannot be fooled all of the time:

Comments

[cjmr]

Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

So do you suppose that's the first time in GWB's life that he's actually said those words in public?

Mind you, it doesn't sound like he thinks there are terribly many of them.

[Axiomatic]

Sheesh, get with the program! We have always been at war with Oceania!

Mind you, it's creepy how utterly quotable 1984 is these days.

[Noah Brand]

Concrete Blonde wins you tons of extra cool points.

Mark my words, in ten years, the conventional wisdom is going to be that the 2004 election was stolen. Regardless of whether it was or not, people will just find it easier and more comforting to believe that than to believe that the American people reelected Bush after he invaded Iraq.

[Edward Liu]

cjmr: "So do you suppose that's the first time in GWB's life that he's actually said those words in public?"

I recall that George Bush has taken responsibility over time for lots of things. So have Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Tenet, and a whole slew of other old men in neckties in the past 6 years. Didn't Tenet take full responsibility for the intelligence flaws that failed to prevent 9/11? I'm also pretty sure at least one of them "took full responsibility" for either the conditions at Abu Ghraib or prisoner abuses at Guantanamo (usually while someone else in the administration would then deny such things really happened or were as serious as was claimed, but that's another story).

However, given the astonishing lack of negative consequences for any and all of that responsibility-taking, I'm going to go with the Inigo Montoya response of, "You keep on using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means." The phrase "I take full responsibility for..." means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when none of them has ever had to actually take full responsibility for anything.

Except passing tax cuts for rich people, of course.

[cjmr]

I meant the words, "mistakes have been made", used when not referring anyone other than himself to the Democrats. Even when they were 'taking responsibility' for the other things, they were 'oversights' or 'laspes in communication' or 'lapses in judgment', not mistakes.

[cjmr]

Please delete the phrase "to the Democrats". Forgot to proofread again.

[LL]

I'll be waiting for the sea of people holding up little cardboard "flip-flops" at Bush's next public appearance (outside of a tightly controlled military base). But I'm not holding my breath, of course... it was oh so ROTL funny when they did it in referring to Kerry, but now that it's fearless leader Bush, not so hilarious anymore, I guess.

[LL]

Oh, and yeah, ditto on the title. Awesome song.

[Ian Mathers]

Good post (as always), but what's blowing my mind is the idea of Concrete Blonde covering Leonard Cohen. Here at work I don't have speakers, so I can only imagine it.

Macleans had a cover story post-9/11 about how depressingly prescient Cohen's I'm Your Man and The Future albums were, and just as with 1984, it's only getting more true.

[Beth]

Wait a second. The "cakewalk" is now in it's third, painful year. Instead of region-inspiring democracy, we've got a breeding terrorists. Iraq has descended into civil war, it's neighbors are being stressed by an influx of refugees, pretty much everyone in the region who didn't hate us before does now. And we're impressed that Bush has finally acknowledged that "mistakes have been made"? What will we do if he ties his own shoes? Declare a national holiday?

...the responsibility rests with me.

How very Trumanesque of you, Mr. Bush. But you seem to have missed the point a little. "The buck stops here," expressed the president's understanding that he was ultimately responsible even for other people's mistakes. It wasn't meant as a way to avoid direct responsibility for his own. Come on, you can do it, George. Just repeat after me, "I ... made ... mistakes."

Ian,
Personally, I much prefer Cohen's version, and yes, the song seems incredibly prescient right now.

[Jeff]

"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

So do you suppose that's the first time in GWB's life that he's actually said those words in public?

Please note the passive voice and the gap between "mistakes" and "responsibility". He's still not saying he made mistakes. Some vacuous entity (Bill Clinton?) made mistakes, and responsibility (but not accountability) rests with the Decider.

Whoop.

A 5th-grade teacher would hand this back with comments along the line of "Nice try, but nowhere near good enough."

[cjmr]

Good point. I was so caught up in hearing (reading?) the word 'mistake' coming out of his mouth that I completely missed the passive voice...

[Mouse]

I don't think "Mistakes were made" ever counts as a confession. It's always so passive because it neglects to name who made those mistakes.

[Reverend Ref]

This sooo reminds of of the Happy Days episode in which Fonzie was wrong.

"I was whu . . . whu . . . whu . . . I wasn't right."

Except, of course, that the Fonz was (is?) way more credible than Mr. Bush.

[Axiomatic]

Question: When did Bush declare Mission Accomplished again?

[GeoX]

I hate to say it, but that version of "Everybody Knows" is awful--it comes nowhere near capturing the ominous, apocalyptic flavor of the original.

[Steve]

Yeah, Cohen's version rocks. Don Henley also covered it (I discovered this by accident today while browsing through my music directories looking for something else...but his version isn't much to write home about either).