It occured to me recently that the Jedi and Senate basically handed Palpatine the galaxy on a silver platter. I know you must be thinking, "Duh that was completely obvious!" but hear me out.

Let me start off by saying this is part one of a 2 part series. The second part will be blogged tomorrow. This entry is about the Jedi, part 2 is about the Senate. Palpatine was an absolute genius. He took over a Republic, trashed it, built an Empire and most of the galaxy loved him for it! What a tactician! But that isn't the point of this entry so let's move on, what do ya say?

When you think about it, taking over the galaxy wasn't that hard, the Jedi were arrogant and the Senate was naive. First off, the Jedi were flat out told in huge letters that THE SITH ARE BACK and they did.........nothing! Man if it was me and I heard that my arch enemy was back I'd kick it into high gear! Instead the Jedi refused to believe it because they thought that "IF the Sith had returned we'd know about it." Well let's think for a minute here, a Sith just attacked Qui-Gon Jinn and nearly killed him, but no, the Sith haven't returned cuz we would know. How arrogant can you get?

And then when they were presented with the Chosen One, they denied him and refused to train him. Isn't that smart? Let's not train the Chosen One and possibly allow the Sith to grab him. With the Sith threat back, how can you not afford to train the boy? Chosen One or not, you cannot allow him to be turned to the darkside. Then Obi-Wan actually killed the Sith who had been discovered and the Jedi even knew that there are always two Sith. So common sense tells the Jedi that if you killed one of em', the other is still out there. Yet they did nothing to find out who the other Sith was and just forgot about it. But at least they let Obi-Wan train Anakin, a smart move, but not good enough because Obi-Wan was neither ready or qualified to train Anakin.

Yoda himself said at the beginning of Attack of the Clones that "the darkside clouds everything." Hmm, so you're telling me that a darkside presence is clouding and interrupting your Jedi abilities? Hello! The answer was right in front of them. Obviously the Sith or "darkside influence" had to be close to disrupt their powers. Then they learned about the order and purchase of a clone army from a DEAD Jedi master for the Republic. That should have sent off alarms in their heads. How could someone do something like order an entire army and hide it from the Jedi? Then they also learned that the army was for the Republic and paid for by it. That must mean that the Sith is a major part of the Republic, possibly in the Senate? Duh! Yet the Jedi seemed puzzled? But at least they realized that their powers were being messed with and that this Sith was a real threat. But they still didn't go on the offensive or defensive.

To me, the creation of an army means that a war is coming, which means it's time to get prepared. Now I understand that the Jedi wanted absolute 100% comformation that their suspisions were true, that's understandable, but at least get ready just in case. Then Obi-Wan discovered that the Sepratists were also building an army, right then and there they should have prepared themselves, war was without a doubt coming. Then Mace and 200 other Jedi went to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan. They lost many Jedi during that battle but they missed the main objective, Capture Dooku. They instead lead Clones on the battlefield instead of focusing on capturing Dooku and halting the war, they left the door wide open.

Then the Clone Wars began, and due to the genius of Palpatine, the Jedi were stuck in between a rock and a hard place. If they did fight, they would look like hypocrites because they always say that they are "Keepers of the peace, not soldiers," but if they didn't fight, they would again look hypocritical, one of their mandates is to protect the Republic. So naturally if the Republic goes to war, you have to fight and protect it. I think that if they were going to fight, they should not have become the leaders of the Republic army. It made them spread out very thin and diminished their already limitted numbers. Also, their duties as leaders stopped them from hunting down Dooku and his master.

Another blind sight was their assumption that Dooku was a liar just because he was a Sith. Even if Dooku lied about Darth Sidious controlling the Senate, the fact that there was a chance that it could be true should be recognized. Instead the Jedi "kept an eye" on the Senate, not giving it their full attention. BIG MISTAKE. They allowed Palpatine to keep gaining more and more power. Right there they should have realized that Palpatine was the Sith they were looking for. He was drawing mass amounts of power to himself and he was close enough to the Jedi that he could be disrupting their abilities. By the time they wanted to do something about it, it was too late.

The Jedi were already strecthed thin across the galaxy, some thing they should NEVER have allowed to happen. By allowing that, they weaked their chances of standing up the Palpatine and kicking him out of office. Then they took a grand total of 4 Jedi to go arrest Palpatine, even after they found out he was the main Sith Lord they were looking for. Geez talk about understatements. Why not bring EVERY SINGLE Jedi available, just in case? Even if Palpatine is only one Sith, he was strong enough to cloud the Jedi's vision and use of the force. That alone says he's a huge threat. Then Palpatine easily defeated the first 3 Jedi Masters. Some Masters they were, they died in 10 seconds! And they were supposed to be the best swordsmen around? That's a big indicator that Jedi were stretched too thin.

That's all I can think off now cuz it's late. If I remember anything else I'll edit it in, thank you for taking the time to read this beast of an entry. Tomorrow I'm going to cover the Senate, Enjoy!