Juan Cole is losing his diplomatic voice

Well, he's got good reason. This administration has driven me to nastiness. In fact, Jim has written to suggest that some of my name-calling is over the top. I admit it - that shoe fits.

But I might suggest the top of this administration is pretty low.

Here are some of Juan's comments today:

On Double-face claiming lots of people were fooled by the bad intelligence on WMD:

So, there were lots of knowledgeable people who challenged the claims Bush was making. In fact, they were much more knowledgeable on this matter than he was. Which wasn't hard.

On the neocons' hijacking the Pentagon's job:

This sort of high-handedness has characterized the civilians in the Department of Defense ever since Bush got elected. Gen. Shinseki said you'd need hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq for some time to keep order. He got slapped down by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, those great military minds and masters of anti-insurgency. Neither has ever offered Shinseki an apology or admission that he was right and they were wrong. The Neocons have been ordering around the generals, and the generals have had no choice but to do as they are told. Their premise is that the American public is populated by fools who can easily be swayed with a few rousing calls to patriotism.

My worst fear, which I believe is true, is that they are correct in that assessment.

And weren't we just talking about the problem of politicians running a war? Oh, no, wait. That was Double-face himself, on Meet the Presstitute.

From my earlier post:

Bush: The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War.

Russert: Let me turn to the economy.

Dammit, Patsy!

Did you not just hear that whole last paragraph? Even a poor lawyer would be all over that like stink on George W. Bush. For cryin' out loud. Is that not exactly the complaint the Pentagon had from the get-go in Iraq? Jesus Christ on a Unicyle, Patsy. He laid it open for you. And if he had an attorney, the man was jumping up and down screaming Objection! Objection! to get his client to shut up.

Well, Patsy, at least it looks like you won't be losing your job any time soon.

Ooops...error corrected. I slipped and typed Jay when I meant to type Jim. I think I'm safe, as Jay is on a trip to the desert and probably is not seeing this. On the outside chance, though....mea culpa, gentlemen.