Four Long Years: The Public's Realization Of A Mistake

It shouldn't be surprising the Iraq war was so popular four years ago when bombs started falling on Baghdad. It shouldn't be surprising that we were easily duped by a White House hell bent on building a castle in the sky. It shouldn't be surprising that we overlooked a rush into war that was disorganized and cockeyed. We were angry.

I had always said the only reason we got into Iraq was because we were still angry. All of us, me included. Anger boils the blood as it closes the mind. It makes us vulnerable to coercion. We were attacked, we were angry. All we wanted to see was somebody be punished and since we couldn't drag Osama Bin Laden through the streets of Manhattan in a perp walk, blowing up Baghdad will have to do. Since bombs go off among the minarets of mosques will do us fine, so President Bush didn't have to work hard to convince us Saddam Hussein was a real threat...and so he didn't.

Now our anger is back...this time pointed toward the man who took advantage of his own people's vulnerability. While I feel the fact the war isn't going as planned is a reason why the President's popularity has plummeted to about as high as diaper rash. I do think that, deep inside, the people know they were taken for fools and the man they trusted with keeping them safe and sound post 9/11 threw them into an unwinnable war that has only made the situation worse.

That, my friends, is where I think the President has gone wrong...and I don't think that will be solved until at least January 21st, 2009.