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August 31, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts Slams the "Five Morons"

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and Contributing Editor of National Review, has just ripped the Bush Administration a new one. In an article entitled, "They're Even Dumber Than We Thought: The Five Morons Revisited," Roberts writes:

When the neocons launched the Bush administration's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and announced plans for invading Syria and Iran, I labeled Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rice "the five Morons." With the passage of time I see that I over-estimated their mental capabilities.

Roberts calls the war in Afghanistan and Iraq "pointless," and says it has "achieved nothing but death, destruction, and hatred of America." He shakes his head at the effort to start a war with Iran and Syria. And with wonderful sarcasm, Roberts chides Rumsfeld for his complaint that the success of terrorists at "manipulating the media" is keeping him up at night.

Now I get it. When Fox News' Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilley assured us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that would be used against us if we didn't strike first, they were being manipulated by Osama bin Laden, who used America to get rid of the secular Saddam Hussein and to create a new training and recruitment ground for al Qaeda and fundamentalist fanatics.

When the New York Times let Judith Miller serve as a propagandist for war with Iraq, the Times was being manipulated by Muslim terrorists, not by neocons.

When CNN, the networks and columnists like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin reassure us that we will win the war unless we pull out prematurely, they are being manipulated by terrorists. Finally I understand what the Weekly Standard, National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, AEI, and the online site Frontpage are all about.

The terrorists are so clever at manipulation that Americans cannot perceive that we have been sucked deep into a war that is creating the Islamic fundamentalism that we so desperately fear.

Obviously, I misjudged Rumsfeld's intelligence. Anyone who can figure out the Muslim conspiracy is off the charts. What I can't figure is why Rumsfeld is willing for America to continue to be sucked in. Don't tell me that terrorists are manipulating Rumsfeld, too!

I keep waiting for the money appeal from AIPAC. I already know what it is going to say: "Although AIPAC is undisputedly the most powerful lobby in America and can determine with impunity the fate of every elected official, we cannot match the terrorists' ability to manipulate the media. Polls show that terrorists' manipulation of the US media is causing American support for the war to dwindle away. Please send more millions to counter the terrorists' control of the American media. We are winning in the Middle East but losing at home."

The rest is far more biting criticism about Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and the mess they have made in the Middle East. And as Americans are increasingly recognizing, and Roberts so eloquently states, "[t]he only hope is that Bush and Olmert miraculously turn into grown men." Considering the consequences of owning up to their mistakes and the fact that Bush is a moron, however, I think the ending of this madness will only come about when we the people put an end to it.

Posted by Becky at August 31, 2006 06:24 AM