Shut Up and Salute

The White House has been having more than its share of problems lately. After yet another "milestone" has come and gone in Iraq, the anti-American insurgency war has not miraculously gone away. One can almost hear the head-scratching in the White House Situation Room - these ungrateful Iraqis don't appreciate all we've done for them, like, um, not being able to get the lights back on. Why don't they just sit back and let us take all their oil?

And so as the American death toll in Iraq rockets past 2,000 with no end in sight, the Administration has unveiled its new plan for winning the war. It does not, of course, have anything to do with strategy or goals in Iraq. Heaven forbid. No, this new plan involves attacking war critics at home as unpatriotic, America-hating whiners.

On Veterans Day, President Bush did his bit to unite the nation by claiming that it's "deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." That's a good one - the Administration has rewritten history on an almost daily basis by constantly changing the rationale for invading Iraq ever since it became apparent that Saddam Hussein did not in fact have massive WMD stockpiles. Oh yes, and it's all Bill Clinton's fault for also believing that Saddam possessed all those terrible weapons. Never mind the fact that Clinton - unlike Bush - did not use this belief to scare Americans into supporting a full-on invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Not to be outdone, Vice President Cheney, looking more and more every day like someone who desperately needs a laxative, did his part for the cause by smearing all those troublemakers who take democracy seriously and insist on (gasp!) questioning our nation's leaders. "Nobody is saying we should not be [debating the drive to attack Iraq] or that you cannot reexamine a decision made by the President and the Congress some years ago," Cheney said to the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

But just in case people might actually take his advice, he went on to say, "What is not legitimate, and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible, is the suggestion...that the President of the United States or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence."

And just to be sure that nobody missed the point, he added that "untruthful charges against the Commander-in-Chief have an insidious effect on the war effort itself."

Really? Actually demanding accountability and alleging deliberate deception is dishonest? Reprehensible, even? With the recent avalanche of revelations that intelligence was cherry-picked and knowingly false reports were embraced to support an already-approved invasion, one would think that Cheney and others who were hot to attack would be just a tiny bit bashful at being found out. Nope, the official line is that anything short of unquestioning obedience and mindless belief is sabotaging America.

Fortunately, after years of being told to shut up and salute, the American public ain't buying it. With solid majorities in poll after poll reporting that the public feels deceived into war and demanding a pullout from Iraq, the usual White House approach of wrapping themselves in the flag just isn't working this time. Congressional Republicans, facing an angry electorate in next year's elections, are starting to buck the White House and, however timidly, are asking for anything to show the folks back home that they don't support an endless war. Even the Democrats are starting to show some spine.

With a normal Administration, one could say they should be ashamed at such blatant attempts at getting off the hook. Of course, with this Administration, shame is a four-letter word.