Like Banquo's ghost; victory down

Posted by ESC on January 09, 2005

BANQUO'S GHOST -- "The president prides himself on being a pig-headed guy. He is determined to win in Iraq even if he is not winning in Iraq. So get ready for a Mohammedan mountain of spin defining victory down.Mr. (Paul) Wolfowitz, who devised the debacle in Iraq, is kept on, while Brent Scowcroft, Poppy Bush's lieutenant who warned Junior not to go into Iraq, is pushed out as chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. That's the backward nature of this beast: Deceive, you're golden; tell the truth, you're gone.

Mr. Scowcroft was not deterred. Like Banquo's ghost, he clanked around last week, disputing the president's absurdly sunny forecasts for Iraq, and noting dryly that this administration had turned the word 'realist' into a 'pejorative.'." From "Defining Victory Down" by Maureen Dowd, January 9, 2005 Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times,

Shadow.
A ghost. Macbeth says to the ghost of Banquo - 1 "Hence, horrible shadow! unreal mockery, hence!" Shakespeare: Macbeth, iii. 4.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

My question is: what's "victory down"?

• Victory down Word Camel 09/January/05
  • Victory down Fred 10/January/05
    • Victory down ESC 10/January/05