Call it ‘Dumb and Dumberer’ By Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate

Our problem now is that we’re not fighting the people who attacked us — they’re still running around on the Afghan-Pakistan border while we battle Iraqis who don’t like us occupying their country.

As of Sept. 11, 2001, there were a few hundred people identified with al Qaeda’s ideology. Even then, it was unclear that the U.S. military was the right tool for the job. Now, Rumsfeld is apparently prepared to put the full might of our forces into this fight indefinitely, backed by the full panoply of ever-more expensive weapons and the whole hoorah. I don’t think the people who got us into Iraq should be allowed to do this because, based on the evidence of Iraq, I don’t think they have the sense God gave a duck.

On top of everything else, Rumsfeld is now circulating a grand strategy for the long war written by Newt Gingrich. Am I the only person covering politics who ever noticed that Gingrich is actually a nincompoop? When Newt bestrode the political world like a colossus (Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1995), many people took him seriously — but he was a fool then, too. The Republicans were so thrilled to have someone on their side who had ideas, they never seemed to notice Newt’s were drivel. …

Republicans are so amnesiac, they didn’t even snicker when Newt turned up recently posing as a respected party elder to give them advice on ethics. Ethics. Next, family values.