From the end of Paul Krugman’s piece in the NY Times today about the awful truths coming out in Ron Suskind’s new book “The Price of Loyalty:”
The question is whether this book will open the eyes of those who think that anyone who criticizes the tax cuts is a wild-eyed leftist, and that anyone who says the administration hyped the threat from Iraq is a conspiracy theorist.
The point is that the credentials of the critics just keep getting better. How can Howard Dean’s assertion that the capture of Saddam hasn’t made us safer be dismissed as bizarre, when a report published by the Army War College says that the war in Iraq was a “detour” that undermined the fight against terror? How can charges by Wesley Clark and others that the administration was looking for an excuse to invade Iraq be dismissed as paranoid in the light of Mr. O’Neill’s revelations?
So far administration officials have attacked Mr. O’Neill’s character but haven’t refuted any of his facts. They have, however, already opened an investigation into how a picture of a possibly classified document appeared during Mr. O’Neill’s TV interview. This alacrity stands in sharp contrast with their evident lack of concern when a senior administration official, still unknown, blew the cover of a C.I.A. operative because her husband had revealed some politically inconvenient facts.
Some will say that none of this matters because Saddam is in custody, and the economy is growing. Even in the short run, however, these successes may not be all they’re cracked up to be. More Americans were killed and wounded in the four weeks after Saddam’s capture than in the four weeks before. The drop in the unemployment rate since its peak last summer doesn’t reflect a greater availability of jobs, but rather a decline in the share of the population that is even looking for work.
More important, having a few months of good news doesn’t excuse a consistent pattern of dishonest, irresponsible leadership. And that pattern keeps getting harder to deny.
As Paul O’Neill described, Bush and his Cabinet are deaf and blind. And, it seems, too many Americans stand mute. Feh.
Kalilily Time
Just an old lady talking to herself
And the supposedly secret document seen on tv was in fact the cover sheet for a document which in itself is not classified. It serves as informational warning piece. But let’s not confuse Dumbya with facts; he’s got to keep all the lies straight. Maybe Suskind will do another book entitled The Cost of Truth.
Do you think there’s any truth to the notion that Cheney’s new secure location will be on the moon?
All this circus concerning dissenters and whistleblowers is frightening. At which point did this country became like the Soviet Union, I do not know, but certainly, as you say, what it more scary is that America, the one that took pride in its ability to speak its mind, has been silent. The specter is that it will have to remain so.
Hmmmmm interesting !!!