Bush's 180

It should be no surprise someone dredged up comments made by Bush while Governor of Texas during Veterans Day 1997, whereupon he defended his skydiving dad for not chasing the Hammurabi Division back into Baghdad in 1991. Matter of fact, it's surprising it's taken so long. But it's also quite interesting, since Cheney is already on record as saying the same thing in 1994.

Surely Kos is busily planning his next summit to discuss how this revelation might alter the current PNAC/world domination narrative. Not surprisingly the stock answer coming from Bush central is the "paradigm shift created by 9/11", unsurprising since Bush himself has spoken of it many times while in public. Cheney has also said as much (when not confined to his secure location).

But if we can just for a moment suspend any disbelief, this story begs a rather curious question--was the 180 a result of 9/11 or something more? The precision with which both predicted what might occur during an invasion was stunning in its clarity, meaning both knew very well the pitfalls of going in, including the certain political pitfalls.

Now, with our newfound knowledge that both were actually endowed with gravitas usually reserved for college professors and liberals on message boards, can we therefore surmise they also might have guessed that things like TSPs, GTMOs and secret prisons would go over equally as well with the voters? I think so.

That both were willing to take those risks suggests less that Bush entered the presidency leading a secret cabal to take over the world and more that our knowledge of the entire WoT and Saddam's role therein might resemble an iceberg as seen from the surface. Or maybe they were lying back in the 90s. Odd that similar 180s have taken place within the Democrat party as well, in reverse of course.