MSM Using the Old Ploy

You know the old ploy? It's sort of like the "straw man" argument. You start your argument by saying, "Everybody knows..." or, "The vast majority of Americans think..."

For example, I heard just today that "Everybody knows that the vast majority of Americans think [the double whammy] that the prosecution of the Iraq war is going badly." (Can't remember the name of the liberal talking head who said it... sorry for not having the quote credited).

Personally, I don't know the vast majority of Americans, but of the people I do know, if they think about Iraq at all (they're typically just busy leading their lives) think it's great we toppled Saddam and they hope it works out, but they know that how it works out will be up to the Iraqis, not us.

Of course, "Everybody knows..." should be replaced by, "Everybody has been told over and over again, whether it's true or not, that..." For example, "Everybody knows Saddam had no WMD or weapons program." Well, we don't KNOW that. In fact, everybody who's been paying attention (which has to be a serious minority of the people), knows that evidence continues to trickle in that Saddam likely had them and hid them well, and that Saddam definitely was planning to rebuild them, and likely wasn't even waiting for the sanctions to be lifted, given he was so good at getting money through OFF, and deceiving the UN inspectors. So, if "Everybody knows he didn't have them" then "everybody" is not paying attention. Everybody can't have a leftist agenda!

It also seems that the elusive everybody is ready to bring in the Dems because Bush is weak on immigration, gas prices are high, and (contrary to ALL evidence other than gasoline prices) the economy is weak. So... Everybody apparently wants to change out Republican leadership for Democrat leadership, despite the fact that Dems are even weaker on border enforcement and "amnesty" than Republicans, Democrats have no plan to lower gas prices other than to take money from the oil companies (a good plan, because everyone knows that when taxes are raised, lowering profits, the first thing a company does is lower prices to make even smaller profits) or give lip service to the panacea of alternative fuels (which are way out in the future) while still restricting the oil companies from building new refineries or drilling for more oil (despite the fact that technological improvements over time have enabled refineries to be cleaner and drilling footprints to be incredibly small and clean), and the Dems answer on the economy is always "more taxes, more help from new government programs". You want to see a bad economy and even worse gasoline prices? See what happens to the markets the day after Dems take over control of the House and Senate. I'm not on Wall Street, but it would scare the hell out of me and have me telling my money managers to sell oil short, sell stocks, and button up wallets.

The new one that the former generals in the Rumsfeld kerfuffle are bringing out is that everybody knows that the planning for Iraq was bad because we let the Baathist army disperse and didn't have enough boots on the ground. Um... exactly how much control did we have over the Baathist army, and how, when they "melted away" were we supposed to round them up and keep them in service to a new (though far from established) regime? How would the Kurds and Sunnis have responded to us keeping the army that was the club over their heads in place? Would that have led to a better result, or a much, much worse result? I can just see the soldiers from all of these additional forces we should've had running around to the former regime's soldiers and telling them that now they're free and they're fighting for US. What? Or maybe they could've been combing the desert for Saddam's arsenal. Trained for such activities or not...

It's just all complete and utter bullshit. 20/20 hindsight isn't 20/20, it's usually speculation. Here's my theory... if we'd just sent one really big, strong guy over to punch Saddam right in the face and knock him cold, everyone would've been so impressed by our strength and prowess that they'd have instantly held an election, set up a government, and the Baathists, Iranian backed terrorists, Al Queda, any other Islamofascist would've been far to afraid of our big, strong guy to even lift a finger to stop the democratic revolution in Iraq. Bush and Rumsfeld are complete morons for not having figured out how to get that one big, strong guy into Iraq and close enough to Saddam to punch him in the face. It's incompetence, I tell you. Think of the lives that would've been saved! If I'd have thought Rummy would listen, instead of being arrogant and dismissive, I'd have sent a letter detailing my "punch in the face" plan.