Poor You

George Tenet from his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday:

{...}Tenet admits the CIA's mistakes and his own. But what makes him angry now is how the White House ignored CIA warnings, cooked the books on intelligence, and then used "slam dunk" to brand him with the failure.

"The hardest part of all of this has just been listening to this for almost three years. Listening to the vice president go on 'Meet The Press' on the fifth year of 9/11, and say, 'Well, George Tenet said, slam dunk.' As if he needed me to say slam dunk to go to war with Iraq," Tenet tells Pelley. "And they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. You know, 'Look at what the idiot told us, and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous. Let's stand up. This is why we did it. This is why, this is how we did it. And let's tell, let's everybody tell the truth." {...}

{my emphasis}

What is that I hear? Could that possibly be the world's smallest violin playing the saddest of all sad songs just for you, George? Could it be? I think it is. Because God only knows you've had it rough over the past three years, living the life of a fat cat government retiree with a book deal. Poor you. Gosh, it must really be hard to have to hear Dick Cheney bad mouth you on national tee vee. How do you stand it? Copious amounts of scotch? Vicodin? Hookers? What? George, how do you manage to make it through the day? America wonders.

Far be it from me, however, to point out that for all your bitching and moaning about how hard it's been to listen to Dirty Dick badmouth you, there are other people who have it worse than you do. People with a far greater sense of honor, courage and fortitude, who are living through Hell on Earth, fighting bad guys left, right and center and who, sometimes, only manage to survive by the hair of their chinny chin chins. They, too, are facing the direct consequences of your actions, yet they don't get to go on 60 Minutes and whine about how hard it's been for them the past three years. Scott Pelley sure as hell doesn't want to interview them---that is, unless they've been accused of doing something wrong Then he's all over them. But until that point? Nope. They suffer in silence. And that's the way they like it. Because they don't see it as "suffering" per se; they see it as "doing their job."

And you just made it harder for them.

Nice double whammy, asshole.

In case you're wondering whom I'm referring to George, well, it's the men and women of the United States Armed Services, who went to war because their Commander in Chief ordered them to---a Commander in Chief who based his decision to wage said war on intelligence you delivered and which turned out to be bad. Surprisingly, however, they don't mind that. They're in Iraq, and no matter how they got there, they want to finish the job they started. Yet, you take no responsibility for your part in all this. Instead, you choose to whine that you've been scapegoated by an administration who never appointed you in the first place, and who should have, by all rights, fired your sorry ass on September 12, but who not only gave you the benefit of the doubt after 9/11, and who also went to bat for you when critics bayed for your blood. This is how you repay them. This is how you repay the men and women who risk their lives everyday for this country. You whine about how hard it's been to be badmouthed on Meet the Press?

Well, far be it from me to say so, George, but perhaps there should be a little rendition in your case. As in they should throw your lard-ridden ass on the back of a C-130 (no private jets for you, George), fly you to Iraq, dump you in the middle of Baghdad (and not the Green Zone, either) and see if your perspective changes a bit.

Methinks you'll still feel sorry for yourself, but it'll be for other reasons then.

See also: Hitchens and Fausta.

Posted by Kathy at May 1, 2007 11:43 AM | TrackBack