October 30, 2003
THE PERSISTENT MORON DOWD
Maureen Dowd thinks she's got a great theme for her column this
week: up is down, black is white. Unfortunately for her,
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/opinion/30DOWD.html">most of
what she writes makes no sense. She says that Bush claimed we
needed to invade Iraq because it was an imminent threat to our
security, when that is exactly the opposite of what Bush claimed--that
the U.S. couldn't wait until Iraq was an imminent threat. Dowd
also writes that Bush said that this would be an easy mission to
accomplish and wouldn't harm the economy. Andrew Sullivan points out
href="hhttp://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_1
0_26_dish_archive.html#106748766719045252ttp://www.andrewsullivan.com/i
ndex.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_10_26_dish_archive.html#106748766719045
252">numerous instances where Bush indicated that this would be a
long, difficult, and costly effort. And GDP
href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&e=2&u=/nm/200
31030/bs_nm/economy_dc">grew 7.2% during the third quarter anyway,
the highest rate since 1984. Her piece sees recent attacks against a
sparsely defended Red Cross center as evidence that the terrorists are
becoming less desperate than before. By this logic, terrorists
shooting children and blowing up old ladies will soon become Dowd's
indicator that the U.S. has been defeated and needs to go home. Dowd
labors to compare what is happening in Iraq to what went on in Vietnam.
There were 47,359 combat deaths in the Vietnam War. So far there have
been 232 combat deaths in Iraq. Combat deaths occurred in Vietnam at
the rate of 15.3 a day. In Iraq the rate is 1.2 per day. There were
many more troops in Vietnam, but at the current rate of casualties it
will be about May 2110--107.5 years from now--before Iraq equals
Vietnam. Maureen Dowd has won a Pulitzer Prize for her writing.
Posted by Lexiphane at October 30, 2003 11:28 AM
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