conspiracy of dunces

By Todd Stadler · Saturday, September 28, 2002 4:58am

More fodder for cynicism is to be found in a New York Times article on Democratic opposition to the clamor for war in Iraq.

[Ted] Kennedy's position ... complicates the task of Mr. Daschle. He and other Democratic leaders had hoped to move the resolution quickly through the Senate to focus on his party's core message highlighting economic distress before the November midterm elections.

Hmm. It all seems so well-coordinated now. By focusing intently on the imminent war in Iraq (don't fool yourself ? it's going to happen), the Republicans aren't just distracting us from their apparent ties to the fake energy crisis, corporate collapse due to shady accounting, the stupidity of that giant tax cut, the increasing national deficit, and so on.

No, they're also forcing the Democrats to be complicit in this action. If, as Daschle wants, the Democrats acquiesce and grant Bush eternal power extreme, then they can go about painting themselves as the right-thinking saviors of mankind in time to win the election.

However, in so doing, they are forced to say that Bush is right about this whole Iraq thing, and we get a war that, as with most wars, gives even more popularity (and power ? let's not forget power) to the president.

If however, as Kennedy wants, the Democrats struggle and fight this Iraq thing to the bitter end, more pre-election time is spent talking about the Iraq issue to the exclusion of the aforementioned domestic issues.

And the Democrats end up looking very unpatriotic, unamerican, and unconcerned for the obvious fact that Saddam is coming to attack us right now look out he's right behind you!

It's brilliant. The only problem I have is that I generally assume the people running this country are not bright enough for such a scheme (and I'm not being partisan here ? I think most politicians and their strategists are pretty dim bulbs, most days).

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" and all that.

So it's a choice between the cynicism that it's all a conspiracy or the super-cynicism that people, most notably politicians, are dumb.

Hmm ... the lady or the tiger?