Laura Bush should keep her mouth shut

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Because she doesn't know what she's talking about.

In case you missed it, she said this to Larry King last night: "I hope that they can build their government and reconcile with each other and build a country. This is their opportunity to seize the moment, to build a really good and stable country. And many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day this discourages everybody."

There is such enormous cluelessness there (and in much else of what she said) you'd think her husband was feeding her lines through a hidden earpiece. And, like her husband, her vacuous optimism seems to be based on nothing but hope. Apparently she knows nothing of Iraqi history, nor of the nature of Iraqi sectarianism, nor of present-day Iraqi reality.

It may be that some parts of the country are relatively stable, but her statement that "one bombing a day" -- as reported by the media -- is what "discourages everybody" is appalling in its ignorance and shocking in its insensitivity. The truth is that there is daily brutality and bloodshed all over Iraq. We try to cover some of it here with our "Just another day in the life and death of Iraq" series, but there's no way to gauge the full extent of the horror. We're not just talking about one single bomb here or there. We're talking about suicide bombers blowing up civilians, about mutilated bodies being tossed onto the streets, about corpses piling up at the morgues, about a virulent disregard for human life that has turned Iraq into a massive killing field.

And this is now their opportunity, Laura has the gall to insist?

The sectarianism was there long before Bush, but it was his war -- and his gross mismanagement of that war -- that unleashed the forces that had been locked down under Saddam. It was inevitable that they would resurface, but the disregard for Iraqi history and society that accompanied the war and the subsequent occupation contributed significantly to the state of turmoil that prevails today.

In getting it wrong, the warmongers made it all so much worse. But that doesn't stop Laura -- who, to be fair, was just regurgitating the party line -- from heaping all the responsibility on the Iraqis. As if it's all their fault when things go wrong. Perhaps she should take a good hard look at her husband. It was he who must bear the responsibility for the failure of the Iraq War.

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Think Progress has the video, transcript, and a graph showing the steady increase in daily attacks by insurgents and militias. One bomb a day? Hardly.

(For more, see AMERICAblog and The Carpetbagger Report.)

[Creature's Note: Michael's words, my cut-and-paste. Ignore all references to me below. Thanks.]