Communication Breakdown

Here's Condi Rice today, this morning, on Fox News Sunday:

[T]he administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa...Say what? "Generational commitment"? When did they say that? It must have been between them telling us it will be a brief operation, executed in a blitzkreig-style "shock and awe" campaign, and them appearing on carriers under a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

You probably just weren't paying attention.

I could go and do the research to prove this is a lie, but Think Progress has already done the hard work for me and I have to go to work in a half hour anyway, so I'm just going to post the quotes he found:

Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03:
[M]y belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly. . . (in) weeks rather than months

Donald Rumsfeld, 2/7/03:
It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

Former Budget Director Mitch Daniels, 3/28/03:
The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid…

Thanks, Think Progress! You're a responsible, hard-working blogger that probably never posts articles about nuns being crucified.

I'd just like to point out that, near as I can tell, the Bush Administration is trying out an entirely new line of rhetoric, a method of argumentation that has never been used before by a sitting president.

He said: I want to take the country to war, but it will be a fast and easy war, and the country will be rich enough to rebuild itself.

Then, time proved him horribly wrong, and the American people began to turn on his administration. So how does he reply? Not by saying that circumstances beyond his control foiled his plans, not by denying that the plan was his idea, and not by coming up with a new plan to salvage some part of the situation.

He says that he already told us his idea wouldn't work, and that we just weren't listening, so it's not his fault that we didn't know. I mean...really? He thinks the public's going to go for this? It would be the equivalent of having plans with your friend, and then your friend not showing up, and when you call him later, him saying "I called you and told you I couldn't come...you must have forgotten."

I mean, sure, you probably couldn't prove beyond a doubt he hadn't called you - but you'd still know that friend was flaky, unreliable, and possibly a liar. Well, that's how I feel about this President, except without the "possibly" part. And add in "batshit insane."