No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 

McCain may be leaving the fold

As the Howard Fineman article in Newsweek says, while there is no love lost between McCain and Bush, McCain has continued to support the Republican President. But it seems to be getting harder for him. Take a look at what he said recently"

McCain, aides say, was rankled by what he saw as a useless, Panglossian classified briefing, especially after reading Donald Rumsfeld's now infamous internal memo. In it, the secretary of Defense said that Iraq would be a long slog, and admitted the government had no metric for knowing if it was making net progress in ridding the world of terrorists.

"This is the first time that I have seen a parallel to Vietnam," McCain declared, "in terms of information that the administration is putting out versus the actual situation on the ground. I'm not saying the situation in Iraq now is as bad as Vietnam. But we have a problem in the Sunni Triangle and we should face up to it and tell the American people about it. Also reminiscent of Vietnam, McCain said, was the administration's reluctance to deploy forces with the urgency required for the quickest victory. "I think we can be OK, but time is not on our side... If we don't succeed more rapidly, the challenges grow greater."

MSNBC reports today's bombings timed for the first day of Ramadan, and Bush characterizes it as proving the desperation of the terrorists because we are succeding so effectively and rapidly at rebuilding Iraq.

I guess we can tell how well we are succeeding by how many more bombs are delivered. More bombs per day equals greater success. Perhaps that is the metric Rumsfield was looking for in his now famous memo.

The administration seems to be trying to use its credibility to convince us that all is well. Unfortunately, after seeing how well they read Intelligence, it does not appear that they have any credibility left.

Apparently the Congress is getting no better information in its classified briefings than we are in the public out of the White House.

Bush really needs to get his act together. It has been clear for a long time that he focuses only on the November 2004 election, but the Iraq mess appears likely to effect that if something doesn't change. These bombings may even get his attention.

Unfortunately, I see no sign at all that Bush will get his act together.
posted by Richard at 9:06 PM