Charles, George and Hamid: Avoiding the question

A reporter asks President Bush a question, and the Republic spin machine goes into overdrive.

Let's start with the facts: a seasoned journalist from one of LGF's most-hated news organizations (remember, that's a badge to wear with pride!) questioned whether the war in Iraq had made the United States any safer. To which Bush's response, in effect, was: you should never have got the information you are basing your question on.

He doesn't answer her, he avoids the issue.

Hamid Karzai, Bush's lackey in Afghanistan, does the same thing: he's neither Iraqi nor American, but he feels qualified to brush the reporter's question aside and give the cameras some whiny spiel about 'should we let 9/11 happen again' without addressing the issue of whether the war in Iraq has made America safer. That kind of patronising/threatening tone may work in a loya jirga, but the press pack certainly won't be thinking that highly of him now.

And what of the chief shill-meister of the Republican blogosphere propaganda front? Well, Charles Johnson, too, avoids the question. Instead, he heaps insults on the reporter, calls the leak of a government document defeatist, and doesn't mention the word Iraq once in his two posts on the issue.

And how could he? Iraq is an issue Charles has been having trouble confronting his lizardoid operatives with lately. Except for when some 'big fish' gets caught, he's staying stumm on the matter. Because, as everyone knows but CJ doesn't dare say, the war in Iraq isn't going well. At last count, 100 people were being killed every day. New jihadis recruits were streaming into the country, getting training and combat experience and leaving for other destinations where we'll doubtlessly see them in future. Iraq's middle class has all but abandoned the country. Yet the wingnuts continue to avoid the question: how has a failed war in Iraq made America safer?

And for that matter, what about Afghanistan?