I don’t like Fred Thompson either, but you’re just wrong here.
Nevermind that the first half of the op/ed is the same masculinity obsession that seems to enter Dowd’s columns on a weekly basis.
It took only two days of campaigning to answer the masculine mystique question. Fred gave an interview to CNN’s John King as his bus rolled through Iowa.
“To what degree should the American people hold the president of the United States responsible for the fact that bin Laden is still at large six years later?” Mr. King asked.
“I think bin Laden is more of a symbolism than he is anything else,” Mr. Thompson drawled. “Bin Laden being in the mountains of Afghanistan or — or Pakistan is not as important as the fact that there’s probably Al Qaeda operatives inside the United States of America.”
Usually, you can only get that kind of exquisitely inane logic from the president. Who does Fred think is sending operatives or inspiring them to come?
Fred is not Ronnie; he’s warmed-over W. President Reagan always knew who the foe was.
If Dowd thinks that Bin Laden is our only foe, she’s in for a real surprise.
Yes, the Iraq war is a serious diversion from the actual causes of Sept. 11th. Yes, Osama bin Laden is the figurehead of those actual causes, not Saddam Hussein. But, as much as it pains me to say it, Thompson was on the right track (although not entirely right, grammatically or otherwise) when he referred to bin Laden as a symbol. Bin Laden isn’t a symbol, but he is only a figurehead, and he is only the representative of a massive and dangerous Islamist extremist movement that we have helped to create and even to train. He may be the one releasing the videos, but how many terrorists did we train and arm at al Qaeda and in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan? How many more terrorists have they trained? How many were inspired by the Islamist victory against the Soviet Union, and took it as a sign that religious fundamentalism + war = success, even against a super power? How many went back to their home countries across the world and spread the message there? How many joined the cause because even before 9/11, the United States had troops on the ground in the Middle East in numbers not seen since the days of European colonialism? How many more have joined up since the United States started invading and occupying their countries?
Yes, this is much bigger than Osama bin Laden.
Can we please get someone in charge who will stop whining that Osama is hiding in “harsh terrain,” hunt him down and blast him forward to the Stone Age?
Let’s turn him into a martyr and inspire a million more to fill his shoes. That’s brilliant foreign policy.
He continued to insist that killing bin Laden would not end the terrorist threat, without realizing that this is true now because, by not catching bin Laden, W. allowed him to explode into an inspirational force for jihadists.
He exploded into an inspirational force for jihadists long before 9/11. I know that was the day that all this stuff finally started to matter to Americans, but bin Laden and his followers had a whole list of grievances before that. They exercised violence before that. They were our friends before that. In fact, we were well aware that he was a huge threat, but prominent Republicans thought that was a-ok. Even Orrin Hatch (a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee) defended the decision to train and arm Osama and al Qaeda, saying he would do the same thing all over again because “It was worth it.”
Dowd is right that Bush has made the situation exponentially worse. But he didn’t create it, and had he captured bin Laden two years ago, it wouldn’t have gone away. Not by a long shot.
Republicans are especially eager for a papa after their disappointing experiences with Junior. After going through so many shattering disasters, W. seems more the inexperienced kid than ever.
In Australia, the president called Australian soldiers in Iraq “Austrian troops,” and got into a weird to-and-fro on TV with the South Korean president.
W. cooperated with Ropert Draper, the author of a new biography of him, yet the portrait was not flattering. Like a frat president sitting around with the brothers trying to figure out whether to party with Tri-Delts or Thetas, W. asked his advisers for a show of hands last year to see if Rummy should stay on. And W. is obsessed with getting the Secret Service to arrange his biking trails.
“What kind of male,” one of his advisers wondered aloud, “obsesses over his bike riding time, other than Lance Armstrong or a 12-year-old boy?”
And we finish with the requisite insult to his masculinity. It couldn’t be that the my-dick-is-bigger-than-your-dick political game has led to some really disasterous results, could it? Nah. We need a real man, like Ronnie Reagan. You know, the guy who called Osama bin Laden and his pals “freedom fighters” and who gave them (lots of) money, weapons and training. The guy who gave Saddam Hussein the tools to build the chemical and biological weapons that he used against the Iranians. Yes, that’s exactly who we need as president.
I know the one-liners are fun and Dowd is certainly a colorful writer, but some substance or depth of thought would be nice.