Adam's blogbox: I'm thinking about extending some compassion to George Bush

For real. Look at it this way. We have here a shallow chap who became Prez because he was the son of a Prez. No other reason. He was born into it. It's not his fault he was born a Bush.

This shallow chap really believed he should start a war with Saddam because it would be a really easy way to get a client state in the Middle East with a compliant puppet regime under Chalabi, and with a guaranteed supply of steady oil for the good old USA. And cheap, too. Hell, Iraq's oil would pay for the whole thing.

I mean, was that such a bad idea -- if you forget for the moment that you'd have to kill a lot of Arabs?

How was he to know that it would NOT be easy, and that it would NOT be cheap, and that fucking Sistani would insist on an actual national election (instead of the rigged, phased elections our war planners had in mind)?

So now the whole thing blew up in his face, and how was he to know it would? How was anyone to know it would, except maybe his own Dad, and his Dad's friends like Snowcroft?

So now he sits, a hostage to Iraq's own painful process to democracy, which like America's, seems to want to be born via a Civil War.

Shouldn't we feel sorry for Bush, instead of angry?

When we see a Greek tragedy, and the hero has his great fall because of his hubris, we're not angry with the hero. We feel pity and terror.

So this here is a plea for pity for Bush, and for our country. He didn't know. We didn't know. Yes, he was filled with hubris, and he filled us with his post-9/11 hubris-bravado, and now it has all come tumbling down around our ears, but should we be angry with him? Or angry with ourselves, or with the neocons, or with Cheney, or whoever?

Pity. That's what we need to feel.

Like we feel pity about Vietnam. Fact is, Vietnam taught us a lesson, and still we went into Iraq. Let's hope, for God's sake, that Iraq has taught us a lesson, too, and that we won't start another unprovoked war. Ever again. Vietnam plus Iraq -- those are TWO mighty big lessons.

Meanwhile, pity Bush, and pity us.

Remember how he told us when he originally ran for Prez back in 2000, that the US should be humble in its foreign policy? Well, he wasn't humble, and we weren't, but he was right then.

Maybe he really believed it then, and then after he got elected, he had his ear bent by those warmongers Cheney and Wolfowitz. If that was the case, and I happen to think it was, more's the pity. More's the pity for Bush. And for us.

There are NO easy and cheap outcomes for killing the people of other nations en masse. Pity the nation -- and the man -- who thinks there is.