Good morning! Let's start off the week with this hopeful editorial from TomDispatch, who reminds us that the BushJunta has been just as incompetent as they have been calculating:
Can there be any question that the Bush men would consider almost any scenario that might advance their candidate's second-term fortunes? I think not. But their incompetence shouldn't be overlooked either; nor should we focus too exclusively on such scenarios ourselves. In that focus lies a lurking fatalism which has its own dangers. It leads to an overestimation of the Machiavellian abilities of the somewhat inept Busheviks, treating them as if they were a comic-book cohort of X-men, superhuman in their ability to grab fate decisively by the throat, reorganize reality to suit their needs, and manipulate the American public. In fact, if you think about it a moment, the Bush administration has proven far less competent since it tossed the Iraqi dice than either its top officials or most of its opponents ever conceived possible. And there's a surprise for you!
Indeed, this has been four years of incompetence (just look at this weekend's outing of an al-Qaeda mole for nothing but political gain), although it's been an incompetence that has cost way too many lives (are we now near 1,000 for the death toll?)