A reader writes:
That response from Hewitt is more than a little interesting for what it says about the mindset of George Bush and his dwindling band of supporters.
We get the Iraq Study Group telling us to pursue Plan B. We get most of the military, including half a dozen generals at a Senate hearing last week, telling us to pursue Plan B. We get almost every foreign policy expert in the country – including Charles Krauthammer, for goodness sake – telling us to pursue Plan B. And we had a pretty unambiguous vote for Plan B from the American public in November.
Yet Mr. Hewitt acts as if a statement by Republican senators in favor of Plan B is an act of "appeasement," close to treasonous, because General Petreus testified yesterday in favor of Plan A (meanwhile telling us the situation in Iraq is "dire").
You can reach this kind of "doesn’t compute" meltdown only by the most extreme version of subconcious filitering, ignoring all imputs other than those that yield the result you want. We all do it to some degree, but with Mr. Bush and his supporters the filtering has become almost desperate, of necessity. And when your desired outputs are so out of kilter with the available inputs, meltdowns are to be expected.
Just to play a little mind game, suppose the President had decided we needed 50,000 more troops, or 100,000 more troops, or 50,000 fewer troops. Would Mr. Hewitt have raised a hue and cry? Is there any policy that would have been criticized by Hewitt, once announced by Bush? No chance. Clearly, what Mr. Hewitt and his dwindling band care about has nothing to do with victory in Iraq or supporting our troops any other national interest. They care about something much smaller, much more personal, something that nobody else cares anything about at all.
The Dish 