George Bush listens to no one on Iraq

In this excellent interview by Bill Moyers, Jon Stewart cuts straight to the heart of our current political crisis, and demonstrates that he's truly one of the most insightful media news figures in America:

JON STEWART: Well, it's also at the fore now, because the Senate and the House are working on timetables, which by the way, who knows if that's an issue, either. It's but it's again, the conversation that the Senate and the House are having with the President was very similar to the conversation that McCain and I were having, which was two people talking over each other and nobody really addressing the underlying issues of what kind of country do we want to be, moving forward in this? And it's not about being a pacifist or-- suggesting that you can never have a military solution to things. It's just that, it appears that this is not the smart way to fight this threat.

BILL MOYERS: Your persistence and his inability to answer without the talking points did get to the truth, that there's a contradiction to what's going on in Vietnam in there's a contradiction. Yeah, exactly, that there's a contradiction to what's going on in that war, that they can't talk about.

JON STEWART: That's right. There is a there is an enormous contradiction, and it is readily apparent, if you just walk through simple sort of logic, and simple rational points.

But the thing that they don't realize is that everyone wants them to come from beyond that contradiction so that we can all fix it. Nobody is saying, "We don't have a problem." Nobody is saying that, "9/11 didn't happen." What they're saying is, "We're not a fragile country, trust us to have this conversation, so that we can do this in the right way, in a more effective way."

George Bush has always ruled as though he has exclusive authority over the Iraq war. He conducts his planning in secret with a tiny group of true believers advising him. He's never solicited advice from the Congress, he's fired Generals who disagree with him and he's ignored the voters, who've repudiated him for his incompetence. He believes this war is about his legacy, and that the rest of us are just witnesses to history.

Or, as one of his aides put it:

"We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

It's possible that there's a brilliant strategy that would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in Iraq, but we'll never learn it. We've only been given two choices. Support the President, unquestioningly. Or reject him, completely.

h/t CrooksandLiars