That bastion of the left, that always-liberal beacon, that Commie rag The Washington Post gives editorial space to one of Our Beloved President's most loyal eunuchs, Paul Bremer, to justify his pathetic performance as The Decider's point man in Iraq.
I read the damn thing once, and to attempt to dismantle it would require me to study it closer, and frankly, until I get my blood pressure meds back in line, I'd better not. You can read it here if you dare.
Bremer's points seem to be 1) he was perfectly justified in patronizing the Baathists, 2) of course he had to dismantle the Iraqi army, and 3) if you haven't been to Iraq, you have no business criticizing him.
As the whiny tone of the piece makes clear, he takes the criticism personally. Why are they saying all these terrible things about him, Poor Widdle Paul? Don't they know they're hurting his delicate feelings?
There seems to be no realization on Bremer's part that he was a tool, a cog in an infernal machine, a bit player used to move the scenario forward. While he admits to be stymied by the difficulties the U.S. is facing in Iraq--"difficulties" apparently being the Bushinista's euphemism for "total, abject failure"--for the most part he spins the same old bullshit like it's 2002 all over again, and doesn't seem to realize nobody's buying it anymore. (He even compares Saddam to Hitler at one point. Say, Paul, that's original.)
And never for a second does it occur to Paul that the "democratically elected government" he boasts of is as hated and feared by many Iraqis as Saddam's gestapo, or that the American occupation was the very thing allowing al-Qaeda to gain a foothold, or that the outrages of Abu Ghraib and Hadditha have in any way eroded whatever credibility the U.S. had in the region.
No, none of that troubles Paul Bremer. He's too busy throwing a hissy fit over how that awful George Tenent called him names. And the rest of us are faced with the dreadful realization that the corridors of power are filled with kids playing in sandboxes.
