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Monday, August 16, 2004

Bush's troop "redeployment" explained

I think I've figured out what's going on with aWol's troop redeployment announcement. Admittedly, I'm probably not the first. From the NY Times:
"Over the coming decade, we'll deploy a more agile and more flexible force, which means that more of our troops will be stationed and deployed from here at home," Mr. Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Cincinnati, in a talk that had much to do with domestic politics as well as military strategy.
My guess is that Karl Rove has a team of political scuzbags assigned to come up with proposals which a) don't mean much; b) have no immediate consequences; and c) will look better in the headlines than they are in the details. This proposal easily meets these three tests. It doesn't mean much, and doesn't have immediate consequences, since it is "over the coming decade," which means Bush won't have failed to keep his promise until long after he's either out of office or dictator for life. And the Washington Post headline shows what I mean about looking better: Bush to Shift Troops Home. AP's headline says Bush Plans to Withdraw Troops From Abroad. You have to actually read the articles to find out that they are not coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Bush's hydrogen fuel cell plan was along these lines. Give a bunch of money to the big three, and promise results for about the time W is opening his pResidential Liebrary. Unfortunately, Kerry's energy plan is similar.

I'll help Karl's pie-in-the-sky corps out with some proposals like these that Bush (or Kerry) can make (along with explanations):
  • Healthcare for all Americans by 2030 (all the poor folk will be dead by then because of no health care)
  • No more Alzheimer's disease in America by 2015 (we're renaming it "Gipper's Disease")
  • Balanced budget by 2012 (let Jeb deal with it)
  • Democracy in Iraq by 2010 (heck, people believed the rest of the lies, why not this one?)