Breeding ignorance

Watching Have I Got News For You last night - a programme that always makes me laugh despite being dominated by left wing thinking - I was amazed when someone brought up the recent Bush quote about Iraq.

Bush had recently said that - as far as Iraq was concerned - the goals remain the same, the strategy remains the same, but the tactics are changing. For some reason this was considered funny by the panel, as if this was evidence that Bush was stupid.

Now the panelists don't strike me as being stupid - well certainly not Hislop or Merton. Jeremy Bowen doesn't come across as the sharpest, but we're used to that anyway. So how come they don't understand the difference between a goal, a strategy and a tactic.

In military terms a goal is the objective to be achieved. The strategy is the broad approach to be used to achieve the goal - usually a long term view. The tactics are the military manoeuvres required to execute that strategy - usually immediate to short term view.

I can not believe that the panelists did not know that. What I suspect instead is that they recognised the opportunity to extract a cheap laugh from a willingly ignorant audience. In other words the left leaning panel made a deliberately inaccurate distinction which the left leaning audience were willing to accept as proof of Bush's stupidity even though everyone in the studio knew that what he said was perfectly legitimate.

This is a typical example of the self delusional approach of the left. The way they close their eyes to facts in order to indulge in a round of right wing bashing and self congratulation. It's the same as the way they close their eyes to the abuses in Cuba to fawn over Castro or their rose tinted view of the Soviet Union before it's collapse.

You can find this tactic in everyday leftist use. From abortion to Islam. From animal rights to climate change. The strategy is to blur the truth and make the point until it becomes accepted as mainstream.The goal is to destroy everything we believe in.