Almost there:In an
essay critical of Sen. Lugar, Bill Kristol ends with this: (emp add)
.. too many of our politicians are not serious. As retired General Jack Keane told the New York Sun last week, "The tragedy of these efforts is we are on the cusp of potentially being successful in the next year in a way that we have failed in the three-plus preceding years, but because of this political pressure, it looks like we intend to pull out the rug from underneath that potential success."
Got that? We are "on the cusp". Meaning very close to, but not there yet. And if we get there, what can look forward to? Why, "potentially being successful". And when might this potential success manifest itself? Sometime in the future, up to a year after the cusp passing.
How encouraging.
You know, looking over that quote by Keane it seems that that is the kind of language you use when you've internalized failure in Iraq but can't say it outright to yourself or to others. Keane comes off a kind of defeatist, and he's ostensibly a big fan of the surge and the Iraq war in general.
posted by Quiddity at 6/30/2007 11:42:00 AM
Sounds more like someone's been 'tweaking' and is now convinced themselves that they're 'peaking'. Likely to be rapidly followed by the sad realization of 'crashing'.
Referencing conservative political behavior via the tropes of drug abuse and psychosis seems ever more apt.
Well, at least he had enough sense to apply at least two "Friedman Units" instead of just one. Admitting that we are over two FU's away from this thing even remotely getting better is the most honest admission any of the pundit class has made to date.
There's something to the use of the phrase "not serious." That has been cropping up. Watch for it. They may be trying to develope something or they have convinced themselves that they are fucking geniuses and the rest of us just don't get it.
