I just read the article. It's a wonderful picture of a man standing there, paper cup in hand, wondering if he really should have taken that big gulp of kool-aid after all.

This was a good read, but I think I am missing something from the author's assumptions about how things went in the war, and things that Bush has done.

I must have missed his arrogance, when he was dishonest, and when things did not go well. I remember him saying that the hard part was ahead, that we need to bring democracy to the middle east, and that there were many reasons to do so through Iraq. I still see the Iraq war as one of the shortest, best run wars of all time. I see the occupation as incredibly well run as those things go, and so fast to hand power back that the risk seems to come from leaving too soon. Then again, I read a lot of military history, which is not too common in Manhattan.

There seems to be an assumption among liberals that he did not say what he said, and that what happened was badness and lies. It seems that Andrew Sullivan has subscribed to this, even though his writings in the past showed that he got the truth.

What am I missing? Is it a "big lie"? How do we combat that?

-Donut

Junod ends the article saying Bush shouldn't be re-elected - How that follows from his argumaents is beyond me.

Yes, it's a "Big Lie". Specifically-

I must have missed his arrogance,

That'd be a reference to the Unilateralism thing, not getting a second resolution from the UN, etc.

when he was dishonest,

That'd be the Iraqi WMDs. Nevermind the binary sarin shells, those don't count, or the tons of uranium oxide, that doesn't count either.

and when things did not go well.

...why, ever since the invasion of Iraq began. A lot of the media wouldn't recognize a military operation that was going well even if they accompanied the troops on the front lines.

Moe- you've misunderstood his conclusion. Read it again, and track down the fairytale, and read that, too.

Junod writes:

"What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find [President Bush's] call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion."

What you mean "we", white man?

(More here.)

Oh, yep. Right you are. Thanks rosignol, Now I gotta go fix my blog entry.

Good stuff. Unfortunately he is far too articulate for the average trendbot.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

Let that be realized

Kerry's eyes betray his words. I have never found Bush's eyes to shout "I do not believe this".

He picks his words carefully and sometimes fumbles over them. That is because The President loses the conversational benefit of the doubt when he is elected. The world hangs on every word and reacts to what is said, not said, should have been said, and was expected to be said.

It also seems that many in the press cannot/do not read or listen. They accept the report of others and run with it as truth.

The BIG LIE has been cast. It has been proven wrong many times. But the BIG LIE opens a wedge.

It lets people believe we can return to the Year 2000 when everyone was rich and the worst problems were lying about sex. The Golden Age of Democrats...

I remember Tom Junod, and not unfavorably, from many years back, when he did features for Sports Illustrated, particularly a long piece about Pat Dye, right at the apex of Dye's career (please note, I generally have no use whatsoever for SI).

He's a fine writer, even if he is largely a captive of the New York media political groupthink. Nice to see that he's got enough personal integrity to at least question the herd, though.

Junod also wrote for Esquire "The Falling Man," a harrowing story about trying to identify one of the people photographed leaping from the World Trade Center.

Can't get link to work, but you can find it here:

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030903_mfe_falling_1.html