The Hoagland Variations
It's hard not to trip over this series of assertions from Jim Hoagland:
Bush's floundering since he was caught off base and off guard by Hurricane Katrina strips the veil from a broad pattern of recurrent inattention to the duties of governance, of misplaced loyalty to incompetent subordinates, and a crippling refusal to look back at and learn from mistakes.
I take no pleasure from that harsh assessment. I have never shared the unreasoning conviction of many of his more partisan opponents that Bush as a national leader is illegitimate, moronic or both. He isn't.
Let's try that out of order. "I have never shared the unreasoning conviction of many of his more partisan opponents that Bush as a national leader is illegitimate, moronic or both. He isn't." Nevertheless, "Bush's floundering . . . strips the veil from a broad pattern of recurrent inattention to the duties of governance, of misplaced loyalty to incompetent subordinates, and a crippling refusal to look back at and learn from mistakes." So what is it Hoagland disagrees with about the "unreasoning conviction" of Bush's "more partisan opponents?" To reiterate, we're talking here about a "broad pattern of recurrent inattention to the duties of governance, of misplaced loyalty to incompetent subordinates, and a crippling refusal to look back at and learn from mistakes." Isn't that moronic?
For the record, I've never shared the view of Hoagland's more partisan detractors that his columns rarely make any kind of sense.
The cosmological illogic of reiterated phalanges has preempted the incongruity of the satiated cumbrance of anthropomorphically digressions. That is not to say that I disagree with afore mentioned reverberations of tacitly quiescent hodge-podges or any of their relatives.
The spatial inequities are dominant only in chromatic chromosomes of postulations requiring an oil change.
But I digress.
If all Dorian capitols were infused with Corinthian capitols would that not make them Ionian?
Surely you must agree with me on this point.
September 30, 2005 3:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is this a great country or what? I never thought I would see what is happening to Bush. To be so wrong about Iraq and to never suffer in the polls anywhere near his wrongness about Iraq, and then to be blamed with all that went wrong after Katrina no matter how much the true fault may be more local or how much he responded to Rita proves there is justice in this world.
No wonder the spinmeisters are having trouble sorting it all out. To be so well organized as the right is and to be caught in the blow with their organizational pants down has got to be way too good to be true.
Mars can be undone by too bad bitches from the Caribbean.
The fates are fickle, and Bush deserves the finger.
September 30, 2005 5:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not necessarily.
For example, it's not that Bush isn't smart enough to understand policy issues--it's that he doesn't care about them.
September 30, 2005 6:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
This a little bit like Andrew Sullivan writing 15 posts a day about things that Republicans have done wrong, but find just one liberal professor who opines that the invasion of Iraq is reminiscent of Hitler, and Andy will immediately spout, "See, this is why I hate liberals." It's a little out of balance.
Shorter Hoagland: the complaints of liberals are unreasoning because they're liberals, not because they're unreasoning.
September 30, 2005 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Isn't that moronic?" No, I'm afraid not. Incompetent, yes. Venal, yes. Even corrupt, yes. But moronic implies a lack of intelligence. And that is not the problem here. There is plenty of intelligence very badly and often haphazardly applied.
September 30, 2005 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wrote to Hoagy suggesting that the "Blunt Friend" might suggest to Bush that he resign.
As for Bush being illegitimate, I thought the jury came back "guilty" on that one long ago.
September 30, 2005 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
NYT has a superior op-ed page. Even though I don't agree with John Tierney I am curious about what he has to say. I have absolutely no curiosity about Hoagland, Will, Krauthammer, Applebaum, Cohen............boring, boring, boring.
I think part of the reason is that WP op-ed writers are all part of the same clique, attend the same coctail parties in Washington. NYT op-ed writers seem to be more eclectic. They can write about Washington from a distance, with irony.
September 30, 2005 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink