What the fuck doesthis mean?
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration had abandoned the benchmarks [Congress set for Iraq] as a strict standard of progress because establishing a secure Iraq would also depend on factors other than political and military progress.
[snip]
Asked for elaboration, the senior administration official said, “It’s a very hard concept to explain publicly because it doesn’t feature a sort of setting of the dial. It features what we call a running assessment.”
“We’re doing what we want to do, and we’re not going to tell you when we do it. Congress can pound sand.” is my rough translation.
Do you know in the opening of The Simpsons where they show Maggie steering the wheel, only to pull back and it’s a toy steering wheel? That’s Congress, not because it has to be that way but because Congress accepts it.
“Laws? We don’t need no steenkin’ laws.”
I doubt any of them know what it means either. You can tell from the way things have been handled thus far that this is not a very smart administration. Dedicated to its goals, but not very smart.
It’s Calvinball. Every time Congress says, “These are the rules,” the Administration says, “Until we change them. Which is now.”
Where are the adults when you need them?
What I take “running assessment” to mean is that they are reactively flying by the seat of their pants without knowing what the fuck they’re doing or any having even a defined plan. The only long term objective that Bush seems to have is to make it to the end of his term and hand off the whole problem to the next president.
The whole problem will definitely be left for the next president, but Bush is intent on a “steal the W key” program right now. The problem will be left in as messed up a form as is possible, with executive agreements, secret compacts, a compromised military command, etc., all aimed at forcing the Democratic President to be seen as a surrender monkey by the great mass of ignorant voters. This is a ploy to make the Repub defeat this year be for 2 years only.
georgee can only make messes. this time daddy can’t afford to clean the mess up.
It means what they want it to mean, and that meaning could change at any moment. It means that if fighting is going well, we have to stay, or if the fight’s not going well, we have to stay. And there’s no accountability for the 12 month on – 12 month of starting in “August” since 12 months from August, Bushie will no longer be Commander-in-Chief.
Goblety gook? You mean, you can drink it now?
Maybe it was the same senior administration official who said this:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
It wasn’t? Doesn’t matter–they all speak “goblety gook”.
Calvin ball indeed. Making up shit as they go along.
It’s the Humpty Dumpty school of language. “‘WhenI use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just waht I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'”
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