“Stupid is as stupid does.”
It may be one of the most oft-quoted movie lines to come out of the 1990s. And no, it isn’t a genuine classic. Neither are others among the decade’s co-leaders: “I amuse you? I make you laugh?”; “I’m king of the worrrrrlllllld!!!!”; and perhaps the most regrettable of all, “Show me the money!”
(I know, I know, what about the superior Gump-ism, “Life is like a box of chocolates,” and the heart-tuggers at the end of Jerry Maguire, “You complete me” and “You had me at hello?” Well, the fetal filmgoers who found these lines original were exactly the audience Hollywood was shooting for with these jackpot hitters at the box office and the Oscars, people of all ages who either weren’t alive for or simply don’t remember anything significant that happened in this world before Reagan took the oath of office. None of these lines was original to the film in question. Hell, “You complete me” was lifted straight out of a Joni Mitchell song from 1974!)
In 2003, our president -- yes, all of ours, and it’s time for all of us to start accepting our collective responsibility for him, whether you voted for him or not -- ordered our armed forces to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was developing even more sophisticated and dangerous ones with the help of a starving African nation, and because Iraq was in bed with Al Qaeda and shared responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, and because the White House and Congress had irrefutable intelligence that Iraq sponsored terrorism and we had to fight them there so that we wouldn’t have to fight them here, and because the sun rose that morning and set that night, and on and on.
Those who thought these defenses were utter bullshit then have since welcomed to the fold all those who eventually arrived at the same conclusion. But then there are those who continue to argue that our freedom, our democracy, indeed our entire “way of life” is at stake.
I read a book recently entitled Common Ground, a very reader-friendly but still effective collaboration by liberal stalwart Bob Beckel and conservative commentator Cal Thomas. The book is a combination “how we got here” and “what do we do about it?” guide for the shouted-down majority of Americans who lean more toward the middle than toward either extreme of the American political spectrum.
Only one chapter of the book is explicitly written by the two men separately (assuming the whole wasn’t ghosted by a third party with the two pretty much acting as advisers), the explanation for which is that the chapter’s subject is the one polarizing on which the two men could not find common ground: the war in Iraq.
Beckel authored the bulk of the chapter, which consists of many of the commonly touted arguments that paint the 2003 invasion as self-serving, egregious or flat out stupid and the war without end that’s followed it as a fiasco wrapped in a farce drowning in a quagmire.
The last two pages, however, are Thomas’ rebuttal, a bitter, full-throated defense of the invasion, including the argument once again that Saddam had the WMDs and just cleverly hid them before the U.N. inspectors arrived on the scene; an explanation for why we need to have a strong military presence in the Middle East lest we allow jihadist activities and the islamofascist virus to mushroom until takes over the entire world and then infects our very shores; and finally, as always, an attack on those who disagree because they don’t accept that we are on the side of the angels and don’t see the plain-as-dirt threat to our freedom, our democracy, indeed our entire way of life check your citizenships at the door you America-hating wusses blah blah blah....
Cal Thomas, for anyone who isn’t aware and might be shocked by this factoid, is best known for the commentary he provides for the Fox News Channel.
Apparently, though, William Kristol, one of his high-profile comrades in arms in defending the decision to forever keep our desert-deployed comrades at arms, recently accepted employment with another media outlet known for its distorted, bloviating haranguing of anyone who doesn’t view Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh as the modern day equivalent of the three wise men. You know the media powerhouse I’m talking about. The one the Bush acolytes eagerly read every day with gusto and hang on its every proclamation, the one that causes heartland Nascar devotees to froth at the mouth over its unimpeachable assailing of terrorist-caressing ACLU supporters, the publication that makes The American Spectator and The Weekly Standard look like whiny campaign brochures for public education, welfare cheats and Al Gore.
I’m talking, naturally, about The New York Times.
Times Public Editor (fronting for all the private ones, I guess) Clark Hoyt wrote an opinion piece in last Sunday’s edition that, at first glance, seems to give a “tsk, tsk” to all those who wrote in and expressed unprecedented outrage at the paper’s decision to give its open conservative columnist slot, vacated by the right wing but still far more open-minded (and, if I might, talented) William Safire in 2005, to the nightmare bloviator whose father Irving began to spread the neocon ebola some decades back with his launch of The Weekly Standard.
But while Hoyt might have wished to give the impression up front that he sought to make nice with the right and with his editorial overlords who decided to pay Mr. Kristol ever-deflating dollars to spew his pro-war, anti-intellectual, anti-reason opinions with support provided in the form of an endless litany of facts manufactured by Fox News, a full perusal of the piece gives a far different impression.
So what does all or any of this have to do with the quote at the top of the post? Mr. Kristol, like Mr. Thomas, still firmly believes in the war in Iraq, mainly that it was an action absolutely necessary to protect the U.S. and democracy in general from islamofascism and other threatening neocon neologisms, and he further believes that the U.S. Armed Forces must remain a substantial presence in Iraq for as long as it takes in order to restore peace and order to the country and give our intelligence community a “Big Brother”-like view of all potential terrorist activities there and throughout the Arabian Peninsula. In other words, until hell (with all its Judeo-Christian infidels) and paradise (with all its former virgins pleasuring its islamofascist martyrs) freeze over.
Do people like Messrs Kristol and Thomas really, honestly believe that our presence in Iraq is doing anything to curb, much less halt, terrorist activity? The only argument the neocons have been able to make that hasn’t been laughed off the stage by everyone else on the political spectrum is that we haven’t had any more domestic attacks since 9/11 (unless you count Rudy’s ongoing attack on our senses about 9/11). Reality check-plus-reminder here, folks: those terror-martyr-brainwash victims were almost all products of Saudi Arabia madrases, and their benefactor was born and spent most of his days in Afghanistan. But neocons are notorious for refusing to let facts get in the way of a good rant. They’re also notorious for waving the flag and cheering while other people (and other people’s children) camp out in the desert and wait to be blown up or fired upon.
And as the evidence mounts, day after day, year after year, nearly five years since the immortal “Mission Accomplished” banner proudly flew on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the stalwart neocon brigade continues to fly squarely in the face of said evidence by repeatedly insisting at the tops of their lungs, and in print, that we have to defeat them there so we won’t have to fight them here.
And to date, of the more than 3,700 U.S. troops who have given their lives for that sentiment, not a single one has been either a neocon bloviator or one of their offspring. So maybe we should tinker with ol’ Forrest’s pearl of wisdom.
Stupid is as stupid forces someone else to do?
Welcome to the New York Times editorial page, Mr. Kristol. I look forward to following your work as you continue to uphold Jayson Blair’s fine traditions of honesty, integrity and, most of all, practical, insightful and well-analyzed commentary on what is truly best for our great nation.
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