Quotes of the Morning: Fear and Loathing

"Many of these folks are sincere and they're patriotic but they could be -- they could not be more wrong. If America were to pull out before Iraq could defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable, and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies -- Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran, and al-Qaida terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban."
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, August 31, 2006

“Excuse me… Did the President just admit to having helped create a terrorist base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban? I know that he said ‘if America were to pull out’, but let’s face it.. It ain’t getting any better over there kids. Honestly, Saddam was a dictator and a monster, but he was no where near the threat to world peace that this little war of ours, and what it has done to Iraq, has been. It is good to see that Fearless Leader is coming around to accepting that.”
-Skippy

"’The images that come back from the front lines are striking and sometimes unsettling,’ Bush conceded. ‘When you see innocent civilians ripped apart by suicide bombs or families buried inside their homes, the world can seem engulfed in purposeless violence.’
But he also said that those responsible for bringing down the World Trade Center are united with car bombers in Baghdad, Hezbollah militants who shoot rockets into Israel and terrorists who wanted to bring down the flights between Britain and the United States.
‘Despite their differences, these groups form the outline of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology,’ he said. ‘And the unifying feature of this movement, the link that spans sectarian divisions and local grievances, is the rigid conviction that free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam.’"
-Associated Press, August 31, 2006

“Exactly how does one use terror to kill? Using terror to kill sounds difficult. It would mean that you were literally scaring people to death. That sounds more like Fox News. Typically the purpose of terrorism is to use killing to terrorize, not the other way around.
Also, aren’t the car bombers in Baghdad blowing up, you know, other Muslims? And, while the Sunni Muslims certainly seem to be doing their fair share of the violence, certainly there have also been a number of Shiite suicide bombers (I refuse to use the made-up word ‘suiciders’). The primary target of each group in Iraq at the moment seems to be the other group.. Hardly what I would consider a unified movement. Terrorism seems to be (stop me if you’ve heard this before) a tactic rather than a group. Hard to stop a tactic. Still, using terror seems to be effective.. for Bush.”
-Skippy

“John Mueller, a professor of political science and national security at Ohio State University who has studied the impact of casualties on public support for war, suggests that Bush is playing to his political strength with this new offensive but has passed the point of regaining support for the war in Iraq.
‘It's his strongest suit, and terrifying people over terror can win votes for him and his party,’ Mueller said. ‘There is an election coming. Terrorism is his strongest suit. The standard thing in an election is to focus on your strongest suit.’
Mueller cites the words of a 20th Century social critic, H.L. Mencken: ‘The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed.’"
-Chicago Tribune, August 31, 2006