I have been seeing a lot of people point this out lately. President Bush keeps insisting that our war with…. whoever, is “the battle of our time” or “the ideological battle of the 21st Century.” That’s all fine and well, but if this is a true statement, why do we keep insisting it on fighting that battle without acting like it? Why no draft? Why no huge mobilizations? Why are we cutting taxes at the same time as we are running a four billion dollar a week tab just in Iraq along? Why are we not converting industry over to a wartime footing? Oops, scratch that last one. It has been for several decades now. But what is with this approach to an ideological battle-to-end-all-battles that will last several generations?
Dan Froomkin in the WaPo has this about how Bush views “sacrifices”.
More from Barnes: "Bush dismissed as cynical the charge that he hasn't asked the American people to accept sacrifices as American soldiers fight against terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere. 'You know what the definition of sacrifice is for a lot of people' who question him about the lack of sacrifice? 'How come you didn't raise taxes? That's what that means as far as I'm concerned . . . If we had raised taxes to create a sense of sacrifice, it would have caused even greater sacrifice because I believe raising taxes in a recession would cause the economy to get even worse.'"
But it was Bush himself who, unprompted, made the surprising association between sacrifice and taxes just last month in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams.
"WILLIAMS: The folks who say you should have asked for some sort of sacrifice from all of us after 9/11, do they have a case looking back on it?
"BUSH: Americans are sacrificing. I mean, we are. You know, we pay a lot of taxes. America sacrificed when they, you know, when the economy went into the tank. Americans sacrificed when, you know, air travel was disrupted. American taxpayers have paid a lot to help this nation recover. I think Americans have sacrificed."
And then there's the fact that by failing to raise taxes, he has just shifted the "sacrifice" of paying for the war to the next generation."
So, that’s it then. For Bush, sacrifices = taxes. And taxes are bad. No shades of gray discussion here. Nuance need not apply. Taxes are bad, in the same way as the Black Plague could be considered as bad. And you cannot obviously fight one bad thing with a different bad thing. Therefore, no new taxes or even slowing down the cuts of existing ones.
But it is nice to know that we have indeed made a sacrifice, made a genuine contribution to Operation “Support Our Troops” ™ by standing in line at the airport for several hours with our shoes in our hands and our water bottles in the refuse bin. Where’s my yellow magnetic ribbon?
Seriously, this guy is just amazingly narrow-minded and totally without any imagination whatsoever. Nothing is going to break his laser-like focus, I’ll have to give him that. But his aim of that laser is just so... bizarre. I am thinking that he has now probably already decided to drop a nuke or two in Iran, just because he is getting so many people telling him that he would be nuts to do this.
Nobody tells Georgie “No”!
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