Thursday, June 09, 2005
Schadenfreude
Tony Blankley in a recent article: The Age of Schadenfreude
Complains that the Daily Show has it all wrong:
A large percentage of activist Democrats and the left gain pleasure from the continued embarrassing or tragic incidents surrounding President Bush's Iraq effort. "The Daily Show" would have to come up with almost completely different material if it didn't have Iraqi set backs to gaffaw over. Can you imagine Bob Hope's audiences getting a good laugh over reports of insufficient armour in the Sherman tank or Gen. MacArthur being forced to escape from Bataan? There really should be nothing pleasurable about seeing your country struggle during a war.
Well he is right, there really should be nothing pleasurable about seeing your country struggle during a war, and if the Bush administration had done its homework correctly before the war, we might not be struggling in the conflict in Iraq now.
It is true that I was against the war then and I am against the war now. But that has become a moot point, we are there, and there is no reason other than hubris, that our troops were not better armed and better prepared. The Bush administration seemed to believe the hype that the Iraqi's would greet us as liberators.
Of course the places that we failed were in the infrastructure side of things. We have not been able to keep the water flowing or the electricity, or the oil for that matter. Plus, the administration did not do its job protecting the oil, which was supposed to allow us to pay for the liberation and peacekeeping efforts.
It seems that it is very easy to throw a monkey wrench in the oil works to mess things up...
Now the president is faced with an unpopular war, problems with social issues, but through it all he doesn't make mistakes, at least not in his eyes, and is always right on every issue.
I wish I could be like that, but then I am not a lame duck president with nothing to lose except the support of his party.
Of course that is just my opinion, I could be wrong. ¶ 9:53 AM
Complains that the Daily Show has it all wrong:
A large percentage of activist Democrats and the left gain pleasure from the continued embarrassing or tragic incidents surrounding President Bush's Iraq effort. "The Daily Show" would have to come up with almost completely different material if it didn't have Iraqi set backs to gaffaw over. Can you imagine Bob Hope's audiences getting a good laugh over reports of insufficient armour in the Sherman tank or Gen. MacArthur being forced to escape from Bataan? There really should be nothing pleasurable about seeing your country struggle during a war.
Well he is right, there really should be nothing pleasurable about seeing your country struggle during a war, and if the Bush administration had done its homework correctly before the war, we might not be struggling in the conflict in Iraq now.
It is true that I was against the war then and I am against the war now. But that has become a moot point, we are there, and there is no reason other than hubris, that our troops were not better armed and better prepared. The Bush administration seemed to believe the hype that the Iraqi's would greet us as liberators.
Of course the places that we failed were in the infrastructure side of things. We have not been able to keep the water flowing or the electricity, or the oil for that matter. Plus, the administration did not do its job protecting the oil, which was supposed to allow us to pay for the liberation and peacekeeping efforts.
It seems that it is very easy to throw a monkey wrench in the oil works to mess things up...
Now the president is faced with an unpopular war, problems with social issues, but through it all he doesn't make mistakes, at least not in his eyes, and is always right on every issue.
I wish I could be like that, but then I am not a lame duck president with nothing to lose except the support of his party.
Of course that is just my opinion, I could be wrong. ¶ 9:53 AM
