Incompetence

from smashingrrl - Friday, July 28, 2006
accessed 804 times

From Andrew Sullivan's Blog. For the record, Sullivan is a conservative. He was the editor for the New Republic, a writer for the NYT, the Wash Post, the Wall Street Journal. He's also written several books. So far, he's the only one I've read that makes any sense on the current state of the mideast.

His blog, even if though I disagree with him half the time, is brilliant. www.andrewsullivan.com

This is a war Iran started. I fear it has just begun. Its ultimate end is simple: the eradication of Israel and the murder of every Jew in the Middle East. Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad are very, very clear about this. And they are playing the p.r. game brilliantly. The president's press conference with Blair today struck me as revealing - and not in a good way. Bush is right on the basic issue. He grasps the nature of the enemy. But he is so out of his depth - rhetorically, strategically, politically, intellectually - that it is hard to have much confidence in his leadership. This is one reason why I couldn't endorse him for a second term. He is an incompetent. He is too incompetent to lead the West at this time. He is simply without the skills to navigate the very treacherous waters we are all now in. He is being outmaneuvered at every turn by wily enemies who are becoming more dangerous and emboldened by the day.

Bush, in a word, is overwhelmed. He has no idea what to do except return to the catechism of freedom versus terror, like an ideological security blanket. Of course that it what this is about. The trouble is: freedom is being defended by the incompetent and the clueless. In Bush's blank, bewildered eyes, you see the image of someone who is finally beginning to see reality. And it's something with which he simply cannot cope. Our enemies, moreover, see the weakness in the president and they are ruthlessly exploiting it. And we have more than two years left to survive.