print“WE WANT TO FIGHT THEM OVER THERE, RATHER THAN HERE.” Ann Coulter repeats that embarrassing, Bush-era non sequitur, also a center piece of Bush’s foreign policy. With that line, Bush bamboozled Boobus Americanus into believing that war in Iraq and terrorism in America were mutually exclusive conditions.
Andrew Breitbart prefers to forget the many times Bush betrayed “red-state Americans.” But worse than that: AB seems to be accusing the “MoveOn.Org crowd” of maligning Bush’s efforts at preventing 9/11. Is he seriously defending the stumble-bumble Bush administration’s criminal negligence in the year before the most devastating terrorist attack on US soil?
Let us reminds Breitbart of Condoleezza Rice’s bafflegabs:
She ignored “a 1999 report by the Library of Congress stating that suicide bombers belonging to al-Qaida could crash an aircraft into U.S. targets,” stating that it belonged to the realm of analysis, and wasn’t ‘actionable intelligence.'”
Condy Cow then blamed her ineptness on the need to reform Washington’s atrophied alphabet soup of intelligence agencies. (Ten years on, the Obama administration is doing the same.) But the National Security Council headed by Rice was an office created to advise the president on anything relating to national security and to facilitate inter-agency cooperation. “If suspicion existed – analytic, synthetic, prosaic or poetic – Rice should have put the squeeze on the system she oversaw.”
On Condy’s watch America experienced perhaps the worst intelligence lapse ever: Remember the Phoenix FBI agent who wrote a memorandum about the bin Ladenites who were training in U.S. flight schools? Agent Ken Williams’ report was very specific. Over and above the standard sloth the memo met in the Washington headquarters, it transpired that the FBI was as concerned about ‘racial profiling’ then as it is today.
Listening to Breitbart and Coulter, you’d think that security breech involving Mr. Hot Pants Abdulmutallab, AKA the Christmas Bomber, rivaled the one that allowed 9/11.
Watch the duo:
Update (Dec. 31): Sigh. Just as long as they spell your name right, right? From where I’m perched, I’ll settle for “them” reading what I write.
In response to the missive accusing me of, hitherto, misdiagnosing Ms. Coulter’s Craft, here’s an excerpt from my 2006 “Coughing Up Some Coulter Fur Balls”:
Mencken certainly would have had few kind words for dirigiste Dubya, the ultimate statist. Coulter, conversely, has shown Bush (who isn’t even conservative) almost unquestioning loyalty, other than to protest his Harriet Miers indiscretion and, of late, his infarct over illegal immigration. Such singular devotion would have been alien to Mencken. Nor would the very brilliant elitist have found this president’s manifest, all-round ignorance forgivable or endearing—Bush’s penchant for logical and linguistic infelicities would have repulsed Mencken.
About foreign forays, Mencken stated acerbically that “the United States should mind its own business. If it is actually commissioned by God to put down totalitarianism, let it start in Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Santo Domingo and Mississippi.” Mencken believed that “waging a war for a purely moral reason [was] as absurd as ravishing a woman for a purely moral reason.” Not in a million years would he have endorsed Bush’s Iraq misadventure.
Since he was not a party animal, but a man of principle, conformity to the clan would not have seen Mencken fall into contradiction as Coulter has: she rightly condemned Madeleine Albright’s “preemptive attack” on Slobodan Milosevic, as having been “solely for purposes of regime change based on false information presented to the American people.” But has adopted a different—decidedly double—standard regarding Bush’s Iraq excursion.
To repeat: Coulter is sui generis, but a Mencken she is not.
What readers find confusing is my unfem knack for fairly detailing the woman’s obvious talents, without fulminating excessively and vindictively about her failings. Coulter is a very talented Republican hack. Since I am quite comfortable in my unappreciated abilities, I see no need to denigrate hers. I know this is unusual, but it’s why rational individualists gravitate to this site.
There appear to be some sound ideas buried deep under the partisan “nyah nyah” Ann Coulter’s acerbic vitriol but, sadly, the Noise-to-Signal ratio is very high! Among the more nonsensical things:
– – Obama’s “Foreign Policy Change”(which is miniscule and mostly cosmetic anyway) did not enable Nidal or Umar’s attacks whatsoever
– – Ineffective anti-missile weapons in Europe are complete non-sequiturs
– – The inept workforce, State Department handing visas to everyone, political correctness, inflexible “rule-based” security procedures, and ass-covering federal agencies withholding info from other agencies occurred under Bush as with Obama
— The attack was not “nearly successful” ! It is not clear that much would have happened beyond Umar’s pants flaming.
— Some of the Yemeni Al-Queda trainers are actually Gitmo graduates released by Bush/Cheney
— The politicians babbling about like backscatter X-ray and “no peeing on the plane” represent just more of the reactive nonsense that has gone on since 9/11
Even when “conservatives” hold sound ideas, they would prefer to make cheap, idiotic political points to fire up their base than to actually explain the soundness of principles in a non-partisan manner. These partisan warriors would prefer a Romney governing like a jerk than an Obama governing well.
WE WANT TO FIGHT THEM OVER THERE, RATHER THAN HERE.
The current equation for foreign policy seems to be:
1 Major Terrost Attack on American Soil
=
2 Muslim Countries Invaded
+
Y “Moderate Muslim” refugees (see Countries Invaded) and/or immigrants given U.S. citizenship, where Y is any number you like x100,000.
Since Y inevitably increases the number of attacks resulting in the invasion of Muslim countries, which in turn increases Y, in no time at all we’ll have 100 million Muslims in America and an Army post in every nation of Araby.
Or am I missing something?
I believe there is some truth to “taking the fight to them” rather than continuing to wait for them here. If that approach had been taken during the Clinton Administration, 9-11 would not have happened. Clearly – and again – preemptive action against Nazi Germany and Hitler would have avoided the world war.
I see it as a failure of leadership of our political system, both parties, the fourth estate, the academic world, as well as those at the top of the various professions. To try to ascribe the current situation to any one or two groups is unfounded. Our so-called leaders in Washington are the lowest common denominators in our society. So what do we expect. It is up to us voters to keep replacing them until they do what we wish.
No doubt Bush/Rice made many mistakes all around. But he/she were handed the evolving mess from the previous administration. And clearly the first year in office was not enough time to figure things out. Armchair quarterbacking can be a pleasant exercise, but I haven’t read any options put forth on what one should have done then and what should be done now.
Let’s read the plan.
How I wish that were you on Glenn Beck and not Ann Coulter! And so the republicans will come back in power and the same faces and silly thoughts will once again be recycled. Coulter is unfortunately a lawyer at heart, and ultimately concerned about her truth instead of the truth.
Alana, it would appear that you have finally seen the TRUE Ann Coulter. I know that this must be a bit painful, having stated that you admire her on numerous occasions, but there it is. On the other hand, you are one of the very few that learns from their mistakes, and then moves forward, for which I take my hat off to you.
[I have been writing with the same consistency about Ms. Coulter for years; this post mirrors exactly what I said in my Coulter Articles and Coulter Blog crypt. My analysis of the “Coulter Craft” has never budged, starting with “Coughing Up Some Coulter Fur Balls,” excerpted above. Could your comprehension skills be mirroring your spelling?—ILANA MERCER.]
“Bush bamboozled Boobus Americanus into believing that war in Iraq and terrorism in America were mutually exclusive conditions.”
very astute
Ann Coulter is a partisan scribe. She bloviates about “liberals,” but her beloved George Bush is a liberal by any definition.
She has zero credibility.
I appreciate your talents, BooBoo, and Happy New Year.
Myron Pauli –
You mentioned the ‘no peeing on the plane’ policy.
Interesting that the police state handed to us by the neocons sent a few armed agents to one of the first bloggers to report on this, looking to find out how the information was leaked. They confiscated his computer, after grilling him for three hours the day before. Amazing.
Why wasn’t the door slammed in their faces? Why weren’t they told to come back with a warrant signed by a judge and plenty of guns?