The Road to Hell...

I was reading the Christian Science Monitor’s reportage on the Bush Administration’s legal follies, and it reminded me of a New Testament parable (Luke 28-31) about counting the cost before beginning an enterprise:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, `This man began to build, and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That’s what papa Silverfiddle taught me. President George Bush is a good man with good intentions, but good intentions are not enough when you are the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. You also must have a brilliant staff that understands the constitution and knows how to think things through and plot long-range strategy. You need advisers who can count the cost.

The latest Supreme Court decision granting habeas corpus rights to the scraggly bearded rabble we have locked up at Guantanamo leaves us less safe. It is also a logical response to a seat-of-the-pants legal hodgepodge cobbled together by amateurs that are not even qualified to sell ice cream in front of the White House, let alone advise the president.

This decision is a direct consequence of the Bush administration not knowing what the hell it is doing. They have been making stuff up as they go along. There was no legal strategy, no coherent long-term plan to fit the president’s vision. And that’s a shame, because it was a righteous vision. Some serious thought up front followed by solid legislation could have avoided all this. The tragic lesson here is that vision without strategy is just a dream; and this one has turned into a nightmare.

Sometimes, doing something badly is worse than doing nothing at all. Botching something this thoroughly discredits an entire ideal, which is a shame. This administration’s incoherent bumbling and utter failure to articulate anything higher than “Freedom good, Terror bad,” has contributed to its troubles while dooming the noble project of spreading freedom, fighting tyranny, and killing jihadis.

President Bush has kept us safe, and for that he should enjoy our eternal gratitude. But, you’ll have to excuse those who, standing at the airport in their bare feet, being herded like cattle, contemplate their constitutional freedoms and wistfully count the cost.