Is This the Crack That Will Bring Down the Castle?

When Cindy Sheehan calls upon President Bush to explain why we started the war in Iraq, she is doing more than expressing a mother's grief. She is turning the tables on President Bush emotionally, and when polls also show that half the American public believes Bush is being untruthful about the war, they may be signaling lost faith in him that is equally emotional. The administration's patent intellectual dishonesty has always been there, but it somehow didn't count.

Ordinary people reflexively want to be loyal, patriotic, nationalistic, and even jingoistic. President Bush skillfully turned these set reactions to his advantage when he morphed the war on terrorism into a war on Iraq, despite almost unanimous agreement in the intelligence community that the two weren't connected.

What he has constantly depended upon is a post-9/11 emotional connection with the public, but I think his refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan, which about half of Americans think he should do, may indicate that this emotional connection is fraying badly. Like Lyndon Johnson in the latter days of his Presidency, Bush seems isolated, strident, stubborn, and as if hiding out.

Camp Casey is a symbol for the commoner calling the king to account. If this crack in Bush's emotional hold widens, the next step will be to demand that the administration account for its leadership, its decision-making and its actions. The rationale and evidence given by the administration has not stood up to scrutiny. It's high time for accountability.

In 2002, the Bush team convinced most Americans that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat with its frequently repeated image of an Iraqi-caused mushroom cloud. After the war was sold, the evidence supporting preemptive attack unraveled: Aluminum tubes were not for uranium enrichment; Niger yellow cake was not sold to Iraq; those trucks were not mobile biological weapons labs. We now know that eight months before the invasion the British government understood that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As the war deteriorates, the Bush team continually produces a fresh line of reasoning after the previous one crumbles. Promoting democracy now appears to be leading toward an Islamic theocracy and the elimination of the rights and freedoms Iraqi women had enjoyed under Saddam. Fighting terrorists overseas means much less since the London bombings. Removing a tyrant now causes us to wonder what new tyranny may follow. Honoring the sacrifice of the soldiers who have died by continuing to sacrifice more soldiers is simply circular.

I don't believe the Bush team are blind or stupid, since journalists with inside contacts assure that behind the castle walls, everyone in the administration realizes how badly the whole enterprise has turned out. But I do think they have chosen not to be direct or honest about their intentions. As more and more Americans question the war, they will increasingly arrive at the root question that a grief-stricken mother was willing to ask: Why are we there, really?

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