WSJ Op-ed Page: Off The BS Meter

If the Wall Street Journal op-ed page was accompanied by a BS meter it would be completely off the charts today.

First off is a piece by Karl "I ruined the country and I don't care" Rove on whether Obama can "buy" the election with his superior fundraising ability. Someone should remind Rove's readers that the first candidate to opt out of the public financing system for presidential campaigns was "W" Bush. Who advised him on that? Rove, of course.

Not only that, but Bush was quite explicit that his purpose was to buy the GOP nomination in 2000.

It is typical in the U.S. that a man who's done as much damage as Rove gets rewarded with a sweet gig writing columns for a right wing (and getting worse) publication like the WSJ.

Next up is Douglas Feith, one of the Iraq war architects, with a self-serving piece trying, once again, to justify the basis for spending a trillion dollars and killing at least a 100,000 people going to war in Iraq.

Needless to say, Feith leaves out a lot of inconvenient facts, not the least of which include his role in completely botching the occupation.

But one can't read through Feith's piece without wondering what planet Bush and his advisers were on. Feith recounts in some detail that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was extremely worried about the ability of U.S. and British pilots to enforce the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq before Bush decided to go to war. Here's what Feith says:

"Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld worried particularly about the U.S. and British pilots enforcing the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. Iraqi forces were shooting at the U.S. and British aircraft virtually every day; if a plane went down, the pilot would likely be killed or captured. What then? Mr. Rumsfeld asked. Were the missions worth the risk? How might U.S. and British responses be intensified to deter Saddam from shooting at our planes? Would the intensification trigger a war? What would be the consequences of cutting back on the missions, or ending them?"

WTF! So what we have here is that Bush sent 250,000 troops and supporting personnel into Iraq, putting them and all of Iraq's civilians at grave risk, because Rumsfeld wasn't sure the air force and naval aviators enforcing the no-fly zone could do so without any casualties. (And despite the fact that through eight years of the Clinton administration no flyers had been shot down.)

Incredible!

If you wonder what's wrong with our country, and especially our government, you need go no further than today's WSJ op-ed page. These people are so out of touch with reality as to boggle the mind.