What’s Better Than Having It Both Ways?

In the Bush administration, the only thing better than having your cake and eating it too, is loudly proclaiming wrong is right and defeat is victory. 1. Yesterday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on ABC’s “This Week” that President Bush could have easily gotten warrants for the wiretaps he illegally ordered without warrants, but doing it illegally was legal. Powell said, “My own judgment is that it didn't seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go get the warrants. And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it. The law provides for that…for reasons that the president has discussed and the attorney general has spoken to, they chose not to do it that way. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing these kinds of actions." 2. On December 19, 2005 President Bush said, "To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor, and I will not allow it." He said the US would not “cut and run”. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday on "Fox News Sunday" that the Pentagon had a plan to reduce troops in Iraq in the coming months. 3. President Bush called the December 16th elections in Iraq "a major step forward in achieving our objective” and that U.S. officials hope a broad-based government will be able to quell the bloodshed. The NYT reported this morning “Demonstrations by Sunni Arabs over the (December 16th election) results have broken out in several Iraqi cities, including two on Sunday, in Baquba, a city north of Baghdad, and Falluja, to the west. A police official in Baquba said by telephone that insurgents clashed with the police after the protest, leaving four police officers dead and 15 wounded. Shiites also demonstrated on Sunday in Baghdad in a show of support for the Shiite alliance. In all, at least 17 people were killed in violence across Iraq on Sunday, including two American soldiers, who died in separate incidents involving homemade bombs, the military said.“ Yep, the National Security Agency tapping phones is patently illegal, but it’s okay for President Bush to do it. We’re not going to pull our troops out anytime, anyway, nohow, except we’ve started the pullout already. The Iraq election for members of Parliament will end the insurgency and bloodshed, except more civilians and American soldiers have been killed because of it and it’s increased the likelihood of civil war.