Molly Ivins: The definition of insanity

06.14.05 - AUSTIN, Texas -- Sometimes you look at the people Bush appoints to high public office and the only possible response is, "What were they thinking?"

Zalmay Khalilzad for U.S. ambassador to Iraq? Why not just send Richard Perle? Khalilzad is a second-rank neo-con with all the same credentials as the rest of those bozos -- pre-emptive war, world hegemony, Project for a New American Century... the whole stinking lot of it. Plus, he's been a big booster for Iran's ayatollahs, the Afghani Mujahideen and the Taliban, not to mention an oil company consultant. Isn't that just jim-dandy?

What this tells us is that the administration has learned exactly nothing from the past three years of insurgency in Iraq. The 1,700-dead, $1 billion-a-week mistake will continue to be run in exactly the same way we have already proved doesn't work. We'll keep trying to put out a growing insurgency with too small an army as the country drifts ever-closer to civil war. It's like Ben Franklin's definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.