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Method as Madness

It isn't too difficult to have a go at VP Dick Cheney - almost evil-incarnate in his ways. The man seems to know no bounds.

NY Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, hasn't had any difficulty in concluding that there might be some sort of method in Cheney's behaviour - that is, madness - learnt from his days in the Nixon White House:

"Dick Cheney’s craziness used to influence foreign policy.

Now it is foreign policy.

He may have lost his buddy in belligerence, Rummy. He may have tapped out the military in Iraq. He may not be able to persuade Congress so easily anymore — except for Hillary — to issue warlike resolutions. He can’t cow Condi into supporting his bullying as he once did, and Bob Gates is doing his best to instill some common sense.

Besides, Cheney is running out of time to wreak global havoc; he’s working for a president who is spending his waning days on the job trying to prevent children from getting health insurance.

But the vice president may have hit on a devious tactic used by his old boss Richard Nixon.

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger liked to use madness as a method. In 1969, Nixon told Kissinger to caution the Soviet ambassador that Nixon was “out of control” on Indochina, and could do something drastic."

Comments

Fallen Liberal said…
It isn't too difficult to have a go at most leftist arguments, as with only a few notable exceptions they are long on emotion and assumption and short on facts, and even shorter on true facts.

I am at work, and don't really have much time to shoot fish in this barrel, so I'll just take the first.

"He may have tapped out the military in Iraq..."

1. We have committed only 20 combat brigades out of a total force of well over 100.
2. All combat units stay home for 2 years between tours. This allows one year for the unit the complete it's training cycle, and another year simply to allow families to be together. We currently have more than sufficient forces to maintain this training/deployment cycle.
3. Given that all units are currently completing their training cycles on time, U.S. combat units have the highest level of readiness in the world.

In what way would you characterize that as "tapped out?"
October 25, 2007 12:32 am
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