a million little pieces. . . .

I’m sorry, but hearing Condi Rice essentially brush off the debacle that she and her soul-mate have brought us in Iraq with the admission that “Yes, I know we have made tactical errors, thousands of them,” reminds me so much of James Frey’s empty backpedaling about his memoir actually being a memoir.

Frey’s book lacked credibility, and his apologies lacked sincerity. We can say the same about Condi’s war. The errors were way beyond tactical; the entire strategy was made up out of whole cloth. Like Frey’s "memoir," the Iraq war plan was not reality-based.

As georgia10 points out, the mini-wave of admissions by Bushers that “mistakes were made” here or there are part of a refocused PR strategy, not the product of any deep soul-searching:

It is not enough for the members of the Bush administration to say "whoops!" as if they spilled a glass of milk instead of spilling the blood of heroes in an unnecessary and mismanaged war. It is not enough for the President to have declared "I am responsible" for pre-war intelligence failures, and have the debate end there. Americans have paid for the consequences of those "thousands" of errors, they've paid the price in blood and billions.

Yet for this administration, mistakes have no consequences. Profound errors in judgment are rewarded with medals and lofty appointments, whereas those who sought to prevent those errors are muzzled and relentlessly attacked. And that is why Rice, Rumsfeld, and Bush are so comfortable publicly admitting their failures: there are no political or legal ramifications to their confessions.

Aided by a rubber-stamp Republican Congress that has obliterated any semblance of accountability, this administration has free rein to make mistake after mistake after mistake. They are unfettered by law or by conscience. They are, though, hell-bent on staying this chaotic course and leaving a wake of flag-draped coffins and unbounded deficits behind them. It's easy, you see, to plow forward in failure, when you never have to look back.

Those who bought and read A Million Little Pieces are only out $22.95 and a few days of their lives. Those who bought into the Bush Administration’s war have cost all of us so much more. Over 2,300 have paid with their lives. Frey only had to endure the wrath of Oprah. What will be the punishment for the architects of this bigger charade?


Update: Oh look, Rice doesn’t even have the fortitude and conviction to bullshit with sincerity. Sadly, this is typical administration behavior, too: get the big headline, then “clarify” (AKA take it all back).