Letter to a Mad Blogger

With all due respect, MadMike, when you say this:

. . . . Chimp put us in Iraq under false pretenses and we are there and we can't leave. So let's finish this fight. The Taliban and The Terrorists need to know that we, America, is coming for them and Hell is coming with us. . . . .

I have to say to you what my high school music teacher Ernest Kitson (RIP) taught me were the two most tragic words in any language: "Too Late."

It's too late telling anybody we Americans are coming after them and bringing Hell with us. We had that opportunity in 2001 but our misleader couldn't settle for warring with the enemy we had; he had to have a go at besting his father's hand at Iraq. So, that's where he has shot our wad, and is still doing so, and has to continue doing so in a last languishing grasp at saving his presidential legacy.

Every morning I wake up at 3:00, crying for my once great country. In a fitful effort to regain the sleep I sorely need, I turn on my A.M. radio and get BBC for two hours. That works half the time in recovering my sleep; when it doesn't, I wake in a full rage and go to my desk.

Michael-the-Mad, I say to you, the fortunes and interests of George W. Bush are not the fortunes and interests of America. When Bush was selected president over Gore, people winced because they thought of him as a cowboy. He turned out to be an outlaw.

Michael, Bush is well on his way to turning your nation and mine - once the great leader of the free world - into an outlaw nation.

Staying Bush's course in Iraq will risk salvaging (a) his doctrine of unprovoked and aggressive war (b) his unabashed use of torture on POW's (c) his trashing of our beautiful and indispensable civic religion - our Constitution and (d) his obliteration of the international sympathy and trust extended us after 9-11. Completing Bush's course in Iraq will consecrate his delusions and validate his arrogance.

Instead, we Americans must stand up and say :

Stop!
Don't do this anymore.
And don't ever let it be done again, in our name!

I believe - skin, bones, flesh and blood believe - that in order for America the Beautiful to succeed and cleanse herself, Bush must fail in Iraq.

For in failing in Iraq, Bush and his bloody hands and thoughtless mind will have been repudiated by his countrymen. And our America can climb down from the pedestal where Bush has it now: the world's greatest terrorist state.

It will not be America failing. It will be America correcting its course from a wayward and illegal but temporary detour.

Mike, We will get Osama and al Qaeda. We must first exorcise our own demon(s) within.

Where Has Been the Mind of George W. Bush?

Bush's Iraq obsession has disconnected him from America's priorities.

As a result, our adversaries in Talibanistan and Iran have 'gotten the draw' on our Cowboy-in-Chief.

Let's engage in more quanitative analysis.

Content analysis is a standard methodology in the social sciences on the subject of communication content. Content analysis enables the researcher to include large amounts of textual information and systematically identify its properties, e.g. the frequencies of most used keywords (KWIC meaning "KeyWord In Context"). From this exercise, by identifying the dominant messages and subject matter within the text, we can derive the thinking and logic of the author or speaker.

For example, here are some words from George W. Bush, speaking at the Cincinnati Museum Center on Oct 7th, 2002:

. . . .The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions -- its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror.

. . . . some ask why Iraq is different from other countries or regimes that also have terrible weapons. While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone -- because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. This same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck other nations without warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States.

By its past and present actions, by its technological capabilities, by the merciless nature of its regime, Iraq is unique.

Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time . . . .

Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary; confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror . . . .

Terror cells and outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we confront both. And the United States military is capable of confronting both . . . .

The lives of Iraqi citizens would improve dramatically if Saddam Hussein were no longer in power, just as the lives of Afghanistan's citizens improved after the Taliban . . . .

You get the drift. This speech lasted 29 minutes, contained 3,390 words and only one of them was "Iran", (mentioned as a past victim of Saddam's aggression).

"Afghanistan" appears twice. Once as a source of/link to al Qaeda and once as it appears in the excerpt above.

What can we conclude from this exercise in content analysis?

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