10/03/2004 08:56:00 AM

the State Department hates Bush. the CIA hates Bush. the military is evenly split. my god, if we were not complacent middle class consumers this would spell bloody revolution. i guess the wage slave wal-mart economy is good for something.
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on a related note: is it possible to be more explicitly intentional about cherry picking intelligence to bolster ideological policy than to declare CIA intelligence estimates the product of "pessimists and naysayers" that, because they are not in line with White House PR, have no higher status than that of a "guess"?

mr. president, it is time for some flip-flopping. look at the evidence, the changed ground reality and evolve policy that is more than rhetoric in the political patina of divine infallibility. decisive action is lunacy when the action is duplicitously inappropriate. make some hard decisions. observe political transformation in its native habitat for a moment (the will of a local people not an outside people). consider that the move from totalitarianism to democracy has a multi-generational lifecycle.

intelligence reports that contain forecasts that do not square with the rose-colored re-election glasses that are being issued to dutiful Americans in the run up to November 2nd should be a touchstone that a deliberative president uses in self-critique. if only we had such a president.