Nuancing The Poor Man To Death

Juan Williams was my late-night entertainment last night, talking away on NPR as I drove home. He and the host were going over Williams' interview with the president trying desperately to find a nuance that could be cracked open into an indication that Bush was ready to invade Iran.

It was slim pickings.

As all of you must know by now, Bush specifically said he has no plan or intent to invade Iran, then even addressed the question of questioning in a response to Williams:

"This is the kind of thing that happens in Washington. People ascribe, you know, motives to me beyond a simple statement — 'Of course we'll protect our troops.' I don't know how anybody can then say, 'Well, protecting the troops means that we're going to invade Iran.'"

Even with that, the host still drew Williams' attention to the "protecting our troops" phrase, the phrase the president had directly stripped of double meaning, and said, "But when he says 'protecting the trooops,' doesn't that open the door?"

This is not news analysis; it is the attempted generation of Bush hysteria.

The premise of Bush's intent with Iran is quite simple: They are supplying our enemy and are directly and indirectly involved in killing our troops. So we are not going to be like Michael Dukakis Dems, so confused by policies and politics that the bad guys can rape and kill their hypothetical Kitty and they stand by, unengaged in reality.

It's like this, Dukakisites: Kill us, we kill you.

Now if the premise were "invade us," the conclusion would certainly be "we invade you," but we're starting with "kill," not "invade." (I'm making this simple enough for NPR hosts to understand.) "Kill" allows lots of options: Killing Iranians in Iraq. Natch; is there a problem? Maybe even bombing an IED plant in Iran, or a shipment of IEDs on an Iranian highway. Maybe blowing up a bridge on the Iranian side of the Iran/Iraq border. Gosh, we might even go to the UN.

What NPR and its ilk is up to is also simple enough for even an NPR host to understand. If they believe from the pile of tea leaves they swear is evidence that Bush intends to take away our freedoms, knew about 9/11, is fighting in Iran so his oil buddies get rich, is under the control of Dick Cheney and finally, that he still practices Skull and Bones rituals in the basement of the White House, why then of course he's going to invade Iran. That was his plan all along; he's just been waiting until the right moment, until invading another mideast country would seal the win in 2008 for the GOP.

That would be his win, you know, not some other GOP guy, because of course he never intended to step down after eight years anyway, you know.

Aren't you just thrilled your tax dollars support NPR in its mission to inform the American public without favor or bias?

Related Tags: Bush, NPR, Iran, Media bias, MSM