T update

A week or two ago I had a brief exchange of blogs, emails, and comments with Tristero. Every few days I'll wander back to his blog to see what's on his mind.

Generally, Tristero (like Atrios) assumes the worst about President Bush and his administration, e.g. the "hidden motives" behind Bush's public policy, the administration's lies [sic], the president's intelligence, and so on. Why that is, I have no idea, since my contact with Tristero has been so limited. Because I don't know him that well, I think it would be rash to speculate on his own motives, so I'll refrain from doing so.

His biases results in posts which are certainly interesting to read. For instance, in a post from today, he speculates as to what he would do if he were the leader of another country today; not any specific country, but just not the US. Here's what his general plan would be:

I would work as hard as possible to ensure that never again would the US be in a position to act militarily in the face of nearly universal opposition. I would work to limit American power in as many ways as possible.

Two points:

1. "Nearly universal opposition"... this is a red herring; Tristero well knows that dozens of countries gave at least a modicum of support to the US. The fact that France and Germany and some other countries opposed Bush does not equate with "nearly universal opposition."

2. Tristero would prefer, evidently, that things return to the way they were before we invaded Iraq, when we had evidence going back to the Clinton administration that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and when Saddam ran a terror state. (NB: I've said before that the latter does not justify the war; but it is indisputably a positive side effect.) He would prefer that the US be unable to act "independently" (to assume Tristero's red herring for a moment) when the President and majority of people and their representatives believe that there is just cause for us going to war.

Needless to say, I disagree.