I am the commander, see? ... I do not need to explain why I say things. — That's the interesting thing about being the President. — Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

-- President Bush, recorded on tape by Bob Woodward in 2002.

to see what actually makes the folks at the White House freak out. There have been more potentially damaging things on a political level than a person can count, let alone keep track of. But the two biggest things over the last five years are Joseph Wilson's column and Bob Woodward's new book? Of all things! I mean, how many times have Bush or Rumsfeld been caught with their pants down--on film, no less!--yet it's things like this that make them hit the panic button.

The thing to understand is that when you take someone with a truly Manichean worldview, it's not possible for opposing sides to share blame or fault. These people just aren't wired in such a way to accept that sort of reality. The Republican/Authoritarian/Bush viewpoint sees Kim is "bad" and "evil"--the "enemy." Which most of us don't have a problem with even though their terminology is rather childish. However, they extrapolate from that that the U.S. must therefore be "good" and "benevolent," and "blameless" since we are Kim's adversary. They are incapable of seeing the issue in terms that are even slightly more complex than that.

You're exactly right. It's so easy for me to see why anyone would be motivated to betray them if he had the chance, so I hadn't thought of that angle. I keep forgetting that Bush and Cheney don't understand why. But that's exactly right.

Hey saintzak, I like the logic of your point that Democrats need to present the whole picture. It makes a lot of sense. However, I've seen no clear sign that the portion of the electorate who've been voting Republican the last six or more years responds to anything that makes sense in any logical way. Especially the "swing" voters who've been voting Republican. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping I'm dead wrong, but I think the Democrats will fall short next month simply because a large enough portion of the voting populace doesn't respond to the truth, logic, reason, sense, facts....

"I really wonder if The Base is ever going to wake up to the fact that they've been had."

OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD.

"I am not going to descend into biased mud slinging and innuendo (at times) and melodramatic words and sarcasm... anymore (I have in the past, sorry). It does no good, converts no-one."

Obviously there are differing views on what the Salon letters section ought be. There are letter writers who get quite angry about folks who try to have fun and inject humor into very serious issues. And it's fine for people not to like humor or sarcasm in this forum. Get as angry as you want; knock yourselves out.

But one thing I feel fairly certain about is whether or not this forum ought to be about convincing what's remains of Bush's base that the liberal view is right, and that they are horribly misguided and wrong. At this point in time, I just don't see how that's they're going to change. Voter's minds are made up one way or another. If people haven't turned their backs on Bush yet, I can't see how they ever will. Seriously--what's it gonna take? Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but that's how I feel.

So if I tee off on those on the right here--and I do--I'm not really thinking that there are loads of potential converts reading the Salon.com War Room Letters section looking for that final pebble to tip the scale and to bring them over to "our side." That's just.... silly.

If folks here want to try converting voters, be my guest. But I think there are better places to toil away with that task.

is one hell of a big comma.

Sure, 650,000 is a really big number, but at least they died in a free and sovereign country! They died knowing they were no longer living under the tyranny of Saddam. They died with the sweet taste of freedom on their lips. They should be quite thankful for what we gave them.

(Finally after nearly six years, Bush's reasoning is finally starting to sink in with me. It's all making sense now...)

"I wish those assholes would put things just point-blank to me. I get half a book telling me about the history of North Korea."

The first thing I thought of when I read that is Condi Rice's dismissal of the August 2001 PDB as being an "historical" document.

I think it's safe now to assume that the folks in the White House consider history irrelevant as far as their foreign policy objectives are concerned.

From Tim Grieve's post, third paragraph. All caps for emphasis.

"A study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published in the British medical journal THE LANCET CONCLUDES THAT 655,000 MORE IRAQIS HAVE DIED SINCE MARCH 2003 THAN WOULD HAVE DIED IF THE UNITED STATES HAD NOT INVADED THEIR COUNTRY."