Cognitive Dissonance

Lets use the title above because WHAT THE F*CK is rude..... more appropriate but rude.

From Face tha Nation (3/19/06)

SCHIEFFER: Let's start right in about Iraq because that's right at the top of the list this morning. The conservative columnist George Will in this morning's paper, reflecting what I think is a growing unease among some Republicans now, says the conditions in Iraq today are worse than they were after the elections in December.

To be more precise Will wrote in the Sacramento Bee (George Will Editorial 3/19/06)

Conditions in Iraq have worsened since Iraq's elections in December. And there still is no Iraqi government that can govern. By many measures conditions are worse than they were a year ago.

Back to the FTN transcript:

SCHIEFFER: And today, Ayad Allawi, the former interim prime minister, the most pro-American of the Iraqi leaders, I think, says that we can no longer mince words. Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. Do you agree with that?

CHENEY: I don't, Bob. I think the assessment that we get from General George Casey, who's our man commanding in Iraq, from Zal Khalilzad, the ambassador, from John Abizaid, who is the general in charge of Central Command, doesn't square with that. Clearly there is an attempt under way by the terrorists, by Zarqawi and others, to foment civil war. That's been their strategy all along, but my view would be they've reached a stage of desperation from their standpoint.

SCREAM LAST THROES!!! Or don't: link to the CNN article

SCHIEFFER: Mr. Vice President, all along the government has been very optimistic. You remain optimistic. But I remember when you were saying we'd be greeted as liberators, you played down the insurgency 10 months ago. You said it was in its last throes. Do you believe that these optimistic statements may be one of the reasons that people seem to be more skeptical in this country about whether we ought to be in Iraq?

This is my favorite single piece of WTF horseshit ever:

CHENEY: No. I think it has less to do with the statements we've made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality, than it does with the fact that there's a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad. It's not all the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces in terms of making progress towards rebuilding Iraq.