Ann Althouse gets reflective:
Okay, I’m depressed about the election.
She asks herself a question, then answers it — Rumsfeldianly.
What is it, exactly?
It’s the failure of Americans to support the war. It’s the folding and crumpling because things didn’t go well enough and the way we conspicuously displayed that to our enemies. They’re going to use that information.
For how long?
Forever.
…What I’m concerned about is national security and, consequently, the way the election was fought and is being interpreted. I’m upset because I think we have sent a terrible message to our enemies: Just hang on long enough and continue to inflict some damage, and the Americans will lose heart and give up. You barely need anything at all. You might not be able to hijack a plane with a box cutter anymore, but you can take back a country — a country we conquered with overwhelming military power — merely by mercilessly and endlessly setting off small bombs in your own town day after day.
How much harder it becomes ever to fight and win a war again. Only pacifists and isolationists should feel good about the way this election was won.
As long as Ms. Althouse remembers how hard it is to fight and win wars, I will be happy with her disillusionment. You go to war with the electorate you have, not the electorate that you might wish you have. If you do not have the near universal support of the country for war, the electorate will demand an end to the war once it fails to come to a swift conclusion. This is something Poppy understood and his son did not. Even worse than bombing an innocent nation was sticking around to occupy it indefinitely. Doing that was to fundamentally deny the lack of consensus in this nation, let alone among our allies, for the necessity of making the necessary sacrifices.
If this was ancient Greece we would ostracize the entire White House leadership. If this was a parliamentary system, we would give them a vote of no confidence. As it stands, our only option is impeachment. It’s either impeachment, or the threat of impeachment. If the threat can get this administration to change course, maybe it won’t be necessary. But it can’t be taken off the table.
And, despite rhetoric to the contrary, it hasn’t been taken off the table. The Dems are intent on holding hearings in many committees of both houses. It’s unlikely that Americans will be indifferent to what is uncovered. We have been lied to…brazenly and with contempt. The truth is going to make a stained blue GAP dress seem like a Disney movie.
Comeuppance is a bitch, Ms. Althouse. Get used to being depressed because there is no more appropriate response to the debacle created by BushCo.
