Iraq Is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac: FRANK RICH - Iraq, the Larger Sin + by FRANK RICH - THE NEW YORK TIMES Sunday Apr 22nd, 2007 6:13 AM RICH: Each new scandal fills in a different piece of the elaborate White House scheme to cover up the lies that took us into Iraq and the failures that keep us mired there.
THE COMPLETE ARTICLE WITH ALL HYPERLINKS AND MORE --> OP-ED COLUMNIST Iraq Is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac By FRANK RICH Published: April 22, 2007 PRESIDENT BUSH has skipped the funerals of the troops he sent to Iraq. He took his sweet time to get to Katrina-devastated New Orleans. But last week he raced to Virginia Tech with an alacrity not seen since he hustled from Crawford to Washington to sign a bill interfering in Terri Schiavos end-of-life medical care. Mr. Bush assumes the role of mourner in chief on a selective basis, and, as usual with the decider, the decisive factor is politics. Let Walter Reed erupt in scandal, and hell take six weeks to show his face and on a Friday at that, to hide the story in the Saturday papers. The heinous slaughter in Blacksburg, Va., by contrast, was a rare opportunity for him to ostentatiously feel the pain of families whose suffering cannot be blamed on the administration. But he couldnt inspire the kind of public acclaim that followed his post-9/11 visit to ground zero or the political comeback that buoyed his predecessor after Oklahoma City. The cancer on the Bush White House, Iraq, is now spreading too fast. The president had barely returned to Washington when the empty hope of the surge was hideously mocked by a one-day Baghdad civilian death toll more than five times that of Blacksburgs. McClatchy Newspapers reported that the death rate for American troops over the past six months was at its all-time high for this war. At home, the president is also hobbled by the Iraq cancers metastasis the twin implosions of Alberto Gonzales and Paul Wolfowitz. Technically, both men have been pilloried for sins unrelated to the war. The attorney general has repeatedly been caught changing his story about the extent of his involvement in purging eight federal prosecutors. The Financial Times caught the former deputy secretary of defense turned World Bank president privately dictating the extravagant terms of a State Department sinecure for a crony (a k a romantic partner) that showers her with more take-home pay than Condoleezza Rice. Yet each mans latest infractions, however serious, are mere misdemeanors next to their roles in the Iraq war. Whats being lost in the Beltway uproar is the extent to which the lying, cronyism and arrogance showcased by the current scandals are of a piece with the lying, cronyism and arrogance that led to all the military funerals that Mr. Bush dares not attend. Having slept through the fraudulent selling of the war, Washington is still having trouble confronting the big picture of the Bush White House. Its dense web of deceit is the deliberate product of its amoral culture, not a haphazard potpourri of individual blunders. . . . Like the C.I.A. leak case, each new scandal is filling in a different piece of the elaborate White House scheme to cover up the lies that took us into Iraq and the failures that keep us mired there. As the cover-up unravels and Congress steps up its confrontation over the wars endgame, our desperate president is reverting to his old fear-mongering habit of invoking 9/11 incessantly in every speech. The more we learn, the more its clear that hes the one with reason to be afraid. --MORE-- http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/04/iraq-is-ultimate-aphrodisiac-frank-rich.html Labels: Bush, coverup, FRANK RICH, Gonzales, Iraq, Kerik, New York Times, News, Politics, war, White House, Wolfowitz Israeli troops shoot Nobel Peace Prize winner http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/1316 Mass killer Cho Seung Hui's link to Iraq occupation, private military contractors http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/38 The unsung hero of the Virginia Tech massacre http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/04/unsung-hero-of-virginia-tech-massacre.html And More http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/ http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/ http://mparent7777-3.blogspot.com/ http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/38 --------------------------------- All new Yahoo! Mail --------------------------------- Get news delivered. Enjoy RSS feeds right on your Mail page.
