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It was said early and bears
repeating, Pres. Bush is all hat, no cattle. The new mantra for this “New Tone is
Washington” administration is “Duck and Cover””. That’s bad enough, but it
appears with each passing month that the Bush2 administration is just
pretending to have the interests of everyday Americans in mind, but is in fact
creating class warfare and increasing the division within the country, using
the parlance of religious fervor and faux patriotism as cover. It makes one wonder if Bush2
didn’t want war simply for economic reasons. I read recently that if
another terrorist attack comes during 2004 but early, it will hurt Campaign
2004, but if it comes late it will serve to rally voters around the
administration. Something to think
about. Also read Broder’s piece
today, asking What took so long?
(for the president to make this speech).
It was, and these are my words, unwillingness to accept reality and unwillingness
to speak the truth. - KWC A
Long Time Coming @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45000-2003Sep8.html Closing remarks excerpted: “Now, finally, reality seems to have set
in. But by insisting that the American military force does not have to grow,
and by saying that only one division of foreign troops will be added if new
nations can be persuaded to offer their help, Bush still appears to be
committing less to Iraq than many of those who have traveled to the country
think may be required. And the president was strikingly
silent on the degree of power-sharing he will accept in order to
obtain fresh United Nations help in reconstructing Iraq. When you are losing
credibility this fast, what do you do to recover some of it? No wonder there are rumors of more high
level departures. Very Reaganesque
again. September 9, 2003
Presidential Character
It is useful at times like this to look
back on the road that brought a president into trouble and try to divide bad
luck from bad guesses, and both from the wrong turns that stem from the innate nature
of the presidency itself. In the case of Iraq, there is a little of each. Early
in his term, Mr. Bush was stuck with trouble that was not of his making,
including both the terrorist attack and the sinking economy. His judgment about
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq appears to have been wrong — and, worse,
hyped. But over all, it was a bad guess that was shared by intelligence experts
from the Clinton administration and many allies. Other wrong turns, however, were chosen
because of a fundamental flaw in the character of this White House. Despite his
tough talk, Mr. Bush seems incapable of choosing a genuinely tough path, of
risking his political popularity with the same aggression that he risks the
country's economic stability and international credibility. For all the trauma
the United States has gone through during his administration, Mr. Bush has
never asked the American people to respond to new challenges by making genuine
sacrifices. He committed the military to war, but he
told civilians they deserved big tax cuts. He seems determined to remake the
Middle East without doing anything serious about reducing our dependence on
Middle East oil. His energy policy is a grab bag of giveaways to domestic oil
and gas lobbyists. He refuses to ask for even the smallest compromise when it
comes to fuel-efficient cars. The pattern goes further. Mr. Bush rolled
out a domestic agenda that included some ambitious programs aimed at lifting up
America's least fortunate, particularly his No Child Left Behind education
package. But in this — as in the African AIDS initiative and even his
controversial faith-based initiative for social services — Mr. Bush has been
content to take the credit for proposing, without paying the political dues
necessary to get things done. Certainly most American parents, whose public
schools are racked by state and local budget crises, are not feeling that their
children are enjoying better educational opportunity. The AIDS program that got
such a positive response when the president unveiled it has been underfinanced
by Congress, with the White House's encouragement. Even the administration's foreign policy
reflects its tendency to go for quick gratification without much thought of the
gritty long haul. The invasion of Iraq appears to have been planned by people
who assumed that after a swift military assault, Saddam Hussein would be gone
and Iraq would quickly snap into a prosperous, semidemocratic state that would
be a model for the rest of the Middle East. When it turned out that things were far
more complicated, the president hedged on the price tag — apparently out of
fear that if Congress knew how high the bill was going to be, there would not
be enough votes for another round of tax cuts. Congress, however, was happy
enough to be deluded until it was too late. Now we know the cost is going to be
massive, with much of the tab to be paid by the future generations who will be
saddled with the Bush debt. The United States has no clear exit
strategy from Iraq or immediate hope of a turnaround in a violent, complicated
and expensive commitment. The hard realities of postwar Iraq have convinced Mr.
Bush that he needs the United Nations support he snubbed before the invasion.
But even there he is avoiding the hard choice of acknowledging his error and
ceding real authority to other nations. Diplomats are wondering, with good
reason, whether Mr. Bush is embarking on a new era of international cooperation
or simply giving them permission to clean up his mess. Mr. Bush is a man who was reared in privilege,
who succeeded in both business and politics because of his family connections.
The question during the presidential campaign was whether he was anything more
than just a very lucky guy. There were times in the past three years when he
has been much more than that, and he may no longer be a man who expects to find
an easy way out of difficulties. But now, at the moment when we need strong
leadership most, he is still a politician who is incapable of asking the people
to make hard choices. And we are paying the price. |
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