This reflection is entitled...

The Triumph of Failure

"As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron" _{- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)}

We have finally reached our Orwellian destiny where Failure equals Triumph , where Defeat equals Victory, where Mediocrity equals Excellence and where Incompetence equals Accomplishment.

No where was this more evident than last Tuesday when President Bush gave the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to former CIA director George Tenet, Retired General Tommy Franks and former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer.

Sidney Blumenthal, The guardian & Salon, writes, " that this is how to run an imperial presidency ~ Reward those who have failed . Otherwise, the whole charade will be exposed ."

Charley Reese calls them the ' Three stooges ' :

" Gen. Tommy Franks allowed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to browbeat him into planning a war with fewer troops than were needed ...Then there's Paul Bremer. Nobody could have made more mistakes as head of the occupation than Bremer. He and Franks allowed the looting that proved disastrous. He fired all the civil servants who could have helped run the government, and he disbanded the army. All the problems we face today in Iraq stem directly from these blunders. But he gets the medal.......And finally there is George Tenet, the former CIA director. He failed to detect the attack on 9/11, and he padded the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to please the president. "It's a slam-dunk," he said. Sure. He makes a blunder of stupendous importance and gets the medal ."

Failure has triumphed in Iraq and for those Republicans who are calling for Rumsfeld's head ~ they are missing an important point.

This administration is and has always been a Cheney administration and Rumsfeld is Cheney's military point man to carry out his neo conservative empire building schemes.

Bush is and has always been the cheerleader to rally the base and provide cover for Cheney's designs.

It was the pentagon who set up the infamous Office of Special Plans ( OSP ) to bypass the CIA and feed tainted information directly to Cheney's office.

To this day Dick Cheney still maintains there is a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

Cheney's fingerprints are all over every failed operation of this administration and despite the recent cabinet turnover ~ the four horseman of hubris ( Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz ) are still in full gallop.

And to top it all off , White House counsel and recent Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales took the lead in vetting Bernie Kerik ~ whose appointment as Homeland Security Chief reflected incompetence at the highest levels.

Perhaps Mencken's prediction has come true , perhaps we have reached that sad and ominous day when the White house is occupied by a moron and great pretender and we have settled for the triumph of failure ~ while the great ship of state , unchecked and unchallenged, sails full steam ahead toward the rocky shoals.

ONLY LOVE HEALS Back to Reflections Archives Top