History is Written by the Victors, and by the Losers who Play the Blame Game

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, in his new book, accuses the Bush administration of pressuring him to raise the terror level for political purposes.

He is one of a long list of former Bush administration officials who have sought to cover their butts by blaming others for what went wrong during the "war on terror": Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, George Tenet, William Fallon, Paul Bremer, and others.

When things go wrong, people start a blame game, which emphasizes mistakes that were made, big and small, playing to the advantage of the enemy. History records this as failure.

When things go right, people don't feel the need to blame each other. All's well that ends well. They enjoy the victory together. Those defeated will play the blame game amongst each other.

So Winston Churchill's quote "History is written by the victors" might need to be completed with "and by the losers who play the blame game."

Condoleezza Rice once admitted that the US has made tactical errors in Iraq, "thousands of them."

Did the US make mistakes during the first Gulf War of 1991? It probably did, but that doesn't matter. It succeeded.