Another Look : ‘Too Much, Too Little, Too Late’
Posted on Friday, October 27, 2006
The Saturday morning network news broadcast something unexpected for a change. The talking heads indicated that there could be some flexibility coming to the proudly unshakable and often repeated Bush policy in Iraq. The military minds were physically gathered instead of the usual teleconference. On Sunday morning, George Stephanopoulos asked the nervous Mr. Bush about reports that his dad's old buddy and former secretary of state, James Baker, was working on a new plan for Iraq, one that lies somewhere between stay the course and cut 'n' run. Bush shifted in his seat and chortled," We've never been stay the course, George !"
The lie and his squirming, grinning and promotion of yet another new and improved empty slogan are, by now, so predictable that we would be disappointed if he withheld them. It's a twisted satisfaction, but if George Dubya is anything, he is consistently inconsistent. It took me half a minute of researching that claim to find reports and recordings of Bush staunchly proclaiming that his policy, and thereby America's policy, in Iraq was to "stay the course. "Items in the first set were dated Dec. 15, 2003; April 5, 2004; April 13, 2004; April 16, 2004; Aug. 4, 2005; and Aug. 30, 2006. There are others, but these make a pretty good start.
What in the world - and what in the United States - could motivate such a dramatic deviation ? Lower gas prices and record numbers on Wall Street simply haven't delivered the bounce in GOP poll numbers Karl Rove predicted. Working-class Americans may not be as blindly ignorant as he thought. Even more disturbing is the increasing defection of disenchanted reasonable moderates, both religious and secular. After all, it's hard work holding the moral high ground on torture and run-away spending.
It worked for a long while, but there is no way to hide forever the effects of mounting debt and trade imbalances mixed with negligence and mismanagement. Combine that with rapid unraveling of moral and constitutional authority throughout Congress, and the smell soon becomes undeniable. Photographing flag-draped coffins may be banned, but it doesn't stem the rising tide of war dead and wounded. Declining the "difficult task"of counting the collateral damage in unburied beneficiaries of the American rescue from dictatorial oppression has not erased the killings of innocent Iraqi fathers, mothers, sons and daughters.
Something has gone terribly wrong. An American president now claims imperial powers to define and eliminate his enemies both foreign and domestic. Congress, when it has bothered to show up for work, has chosen to abandon due diligence in overseeing the executive branch and checking its insatiable hunger for power. Industry lobbyists have been summoned to the Capitol to write advantageous legislation, and nuclear devices are the latest fashion in a growing number of ambitious and increasingly nervous and defensive foreign states.
Could it really be time for a change in strategy ? Absolutely; but trotting out a new ad campaign slogan a few days before the election is hardly a strategic overhaul. At this stage of the game, offering Americans the phrases "We will complete the mission," and "We will do our job," is as insulting as being given a Band-Aid to treat your lung cancer.
Arguably, it is progress to see that the administration and GOP leadership recognize that something isn't quite right. Nonetheless, watching our supreme executive on TV tossing us bumper-sticker slogans like table scraps to quiet the dog got me thinking and, oddly enough, humming an old song. It was the chorus of the 1978 Johnny Mathis and Denise Williams hit," Too Much, Too Little, Too Late. "There has been too much deception and not enough truth, too much profit lust and not enough integrity, too much fear driving and not enough problem solving. Clearly, there has been too little public service and too much public embarrassment, too little wisdom and too much swagger, too little wise counsel and too much silence about a great nation being led by one fool's gut instinct. The most disappointing thing is that it may indeed be too late. If American voters install a slightly updated version of the current donothing Congress, it may be too late to preserve any shred of American credibility, too late to assert a balance of powers, too late to face the real sources of Islamic anger and Korean anxiety backed by nuclear capability. Taking on the emboldened challenges encircling our war-weary nation will be painfully difficult, even if it is done honestly and in unity with clear goals, but our undoing will be certain and piecemeal at best if our future lies in the hands of dishonest, self-serving manipulators bedding with ultrarich and corporate interests. "Too much, too little, too late to lie again with you; too much, too little, too late to try again with you. It's over."
• • • Scott Sullivan writes a monthly column for The Benton County Daily Record. He may be reached at sksully 7698 @ hughes. net.
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