Don't Believe Him

Americans could learn a little from Machiavelli these days:

[There is]“such a difference between the way we really live and the way we ought to live that the man who neglects the real to study the ideal will learn how to accomplish his ruin. . . .”

Machiavelli was pointing out that what people say and what they intend do not matter. Only the result matters.

Consider the following from the President's speech at West Point:

We're still in the early stages of this struggle for freedom and, like those first years of the Cold War, we've seen setbacks, and challenges, and days that have tested America's resolve. Yet we've also seen days of victory and hope. We've seen people in Afghanistan voting for the first democratic parliament in a generation. We have seen jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets, holding up ink-stained fingers, celebrating their freedom. We've seen people in Lebanon waving cedar flags and securing the liberty and independence of their land. We've seen people in Kyrgyzstan drive a corrupt regime from power and vote for democratic change. In the past four years alone, more than 110 million human beings across the world have joined the ranks of the free -- and this is only the beginning. (Applause.) The message has spread from Damascus to Tehran that the future belongs to freedom -- and we will not rest until the promise of liberty reaches every people and every nation. (Applause.)

Contrast that with this:

BAGHDAD, May 29 - The U.S. military said Monday it was deploying the main reserve fighting force for Iraq, a full 3,500-member armored brigade, as emergency reinforcements for the embattled western province of Anbar, where a surge of violence linked to the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has severely damaged efforts to turn Sunni Arab tribal leaders against the insurgency.

President Bush is living in a dream world, and his high-minded grasps to be the next Truman or Roosevelt or Reagan do not matter. His rhetorical acrobatics (and liberties) are just self-indulgent gas-bagging. The only thing that matters in the news about the Iraq War today is that we're now having to call in the reserves because the insurgents gained the initiative.

Dammit, Mr. President, wake the f*ck up. Fix this, or get out of the way and let someone else do it, and you can continue your impotent speaking circuit uninterrupted.