Bush’s Cracked Egg
by Pamela LeaveyI caught a sound bite of Bush’s interview on the Online News Hour earlier tonight in the car when I was listening to my local NPR station, KCRW. I was astounded to hear his cracked egg explanation in response to Jim Lehrer’s “broken egg” question.
Good grief, someone really needs to explain to the president that once an egg is cracked there is no fixing it! A cracked egg, is a broken egg. Let me repeat that one more time: a cracked egg, is a broken egg. There is no fixing it!
MR. LEHRER: Is there a little bit of a broken egg problem here, Mr. President, that there is instability and there is violence in Iraq – sectarian violence, Iraqis killing other Iraqis, and now the United States helped create the broken egg and now says, okay, Iraqis, it’s your problem. You put the egg back together, and if you don’t do it quickly and you don’t do it well, then we’ll get the hell out.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, you know, that’s an interesting question. I don’t quite view it as the broken egg; I view it as the cracked egg –
MR. LEHRER: Cracked egg?
PRESIDENT BUSH: — that – where we still have a chance to move beyond the broken egg. And I thought long and hard about the decision, Jim. Obviously it’s a big decision for this theater in the war on terror, and you know, if I didn’t believe we could keep the egg from fully cracking, I wouldn’t ask 21,000 kids – additional kids to go into Iraq to reinforce those troops that are there.
Can someone please get the man a Dictionary and a Thesaurus! Iraq is one badly broken egg and we can’t fix it. But, Bush is hell bent on having it his way…
MR. LEHRER: …how in the world does any president of the United States run a war without the support of a majority of the American people and a majority of the Congress of the United States, no matter what the ins and outs are?
PRESIDENT BUSH: No, and no question about that. And that’s why I’m having this interview with you. I’m trying to do my very best to explain to people why success is vital. In other words, people have got to understand that if we decide and we grow weary of – and there’s a lot of war weariness in this country, and I fully understand that — and we say, okay, well, let’s just leave; we can leave in stages, but let’s just leave, or let’s just pull back and hope that the Iraqis are able to settle their business, the consequences of that decision will be disastrous for the future of this country. And therefore, we got to keep working on ways to succeed, as far as I’m concerned.
And again I want to repeat this, if you don’t mind.
MR. LEHRER: Sure.
Read the whole interview, it ran the gambit of inferences from 9/11 to Iran.
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Bush is not the problem. He believes/does what Cheyney tell him. The problem is Congress. It’s their job to stop this insanity. How do we get across to them that we still want our troops out of Iraq?
I may be the exception, but I don’t know what “success” in Iraq would look like, nor do I care. I am old enough to remember the excuses that were always used to keep our troops going to Vietnam. “If we pull out it would be disastrous!” Well, we had to pull out, and nothing very bad happened.
In my thinking, the only way to “support the troops” is to get them out of harm’s way– bring them home. In what way is keeping them there longer and sending them back sooner “supporting them??”
And no question about that? The man is gone forever from this planet! The man is a lunatic I tell you! Still trying to get support on something that a majority do not believe in. He reminds me of the Jehovahs Witness group when you tell them you are not interested. Better yet, he sounds like a tele-marketer. I told you no you jackass!!!
Oh, wow. I could go on but Donnie said it all for me. : ))]
Cracked egg? Oh, wow.
Well, when we left Cambodia (while not really there) bad stuff happened, because we left in a vacuum. A government ready to take responsibility for Vietnam moved in, though not of our choosing, with transition.
Much like what Kerry is proposing for Iraq: neighbors with an interest in the area to figure it out, and prevent the slaughter.
All this egg explanation, and no mention of Humpty Dumpty, unable to put Iraq back together again.
What I love is the way people try and dump this off as another “presidential gaffe” or “cute Bushism” or “he’s just simplifying, he’s really smarter than that” excuse.
It merely reinforces what many of us knew and believed seven years ago: he’s an idiot. He’s not acting…he really is that dumb, and that’s what’s so terrifying. No one could possibly “pass” as that stupid forever.
Read the whole transcript if you get a chance (I actually watched it last night). It’s astounding.
Unbelievable. “Keep the egg from fully cracking.” What?????????? The man is an insult to my intelligence — our intelligence — and I’m really sick of the lack of leadership, denial, arrogance and insanity.
Then he says “We got to keep working on ways to succeed.” In your language, GWB, I say we GOT to bring our troops home!
We really have no ability to prevent what the Iraq people do to each other,
We would need about 1 soldier per 40 people or over 600k troops occuping Iraq to prevent violence; 125k in Bagdad alone.
That was when Sadaam was overthrown.
Since they want us out and we are the enemy, there aren’t enough troops to get them to stop the killing.
And since BushCo refuses to talk with Syria and Iran, this conflict will rage until the locals decide to stop killing each other.
All we can do is finance the reconstruction once the fighting stops.
I’m with Geneva. What is this “mission”? This “success”?
1. to oust Saddam?
we did that
2. to give Irai’s a chance to vote?
we did that
3. to liberate Iraq?
we did that – well at least we liberated them from 75% of their oil.
4. to make ourselves look like “go willie nillie” idiots to the rest of the world
we did that – and quite well I might add
This was an illegal war of aggression. We never should have gone there. Iraq is a scrambled egg at this moment and bush is just cracked.
Ziem
LOL! Iraq is definitely scrambled and Bush is either cracked or…
I agree with the “or…” Pamela, cracked was just a nicer way to put it.
My LTTE to The Newshour:
Mr. Lehrer,
Thank you for the excellent interview this evening with President Bush. True journalists do still exist !
Your questions were very good, and they really facilitated a clearer understanding, on my part, of the president’s thinking about the current Iraq situation. However, if his goal was to help me understand why his policy is the correct one…sadly, it’s much too late for that.
The only questions you didn’t ask, that I wished you had asked, were about his accountability for our current predicament:
1) “Are you, President Bush, aware that your pre-emptive war in Iraq has created this grave situation that so endangers our future by drawing terrorists into Iraq that weren’t there before the war?”,
2) “Do you, President Bush, accept responsibility for starting a war that has become a distraction to fighting the real war on terrorism…a war America must win?”, and
3) ” What will our Plan B be, if your plan doesn’t work?”
Finally, I also want to thank David Brooks for his insightful comments about President Bush’s repeated insistence that he is listening to the generals and/or troops on the ground, and how that answer is wearing thin. Watching the blinders come off and true eyesight return to Mr. Brooks has been worth the wait.
Thanks again for all you do at PBS.
YvonneCa
This Predident’s lack of intelligence, inability to speak the English language, and unwillingness to admit his mistakes, is a disgrace to America!! His legacy of being one of, if not the worst President in history is more firmly established each day. With Laura being an ex-school teacher, you would think she could have tutored him over the past six years.
All kidding aside, Mr Bush is almost solely responsible for our poor image throughtout the world. (both friend and foe nations) America is just no longer respected. I know several people who have stopped traveling to Europe because they are put down because of “the decider.” We need a young, well spoken, intelligent, charamatic, fast learning, person like Barack Obama to restore our respect around the world and to restore Americans with faith in themselves!!
[...] ;—————————— * Bush: I don’t view Iraq as a broken egg. I view it as the cracked egg. We can keep it from fully cracking. [...]