Misunderestimation...

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen in his Op-Ed Iraq and the 'L' Word:

The restraint of responsible war critics has been remarkable. Despite a recent headline on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page -- "What If People Start Believing That 'Bush Lied'?" -- the "L" word has been prudently withheld by elected Democrats. But you would think that Bush himself would wonder about how he's gotten to this place where he looks like such a fool: wrong on the biggest issue of his presidency. He went out there and told the American people things that were not true. Does that mean he lied? Maybe not. Maybe he was just repeating the lies of others.

Wrong on the biggest issue of his Presidency. The problem, of course, is that the American people should have known this from before March 2003 and not allowed it to happen...and once it did, we should have rejected this administration in total...but we re-elected them.

The Houston Chronicle carried this tragic story from the war today about an officer who was demonized by the dishonor he saw in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The article includes these quotes:

In e-mail to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. has come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.

A psychologist reviewed Westhusing's e-mail and interviewed colleagues. She said that Westhusing had placed too much pressure on himself to succeed and that he was unusually rigid in his thinking. Westhusing struggled with the idea that monetary values could outweigh moral ones in war.

So, these days, struggling with the idea that monetary values outweigh moral ones in an invasion and occupation is unusually rigid thinking? A sad commentary.