Sorry To Have Left Out the Logic, But We're Improving
In this morning's NYT piece by Elisabeth Bumiller, who seems to be stirring to life now that Bush is bobbing along in the 30-plus-percent approval range, there's interesting confirmation of just how idiotically the White House has conducted itself for five-plus awful years.
"Mr. Bolten has a sharper management style than Mr. Card," Ms. Bumiller writes. "'Josh is a little more overtly demanding,' said one former member of the administration who was granted anonymity so that he could stay on good terms with White House aides. 'He's immediately playing the devil's advocate, and he'll challenge you on a lot of things, mostly to make sure it was well thought through and to see if there are any holes in the argument.'"
I read it this way: Paul O'Neill (as channeled by Ron Suskind in The Price of Loyalty) was right to have been shocked when he went to Washington as Secretary of the Treasury and discovered that Bush and the inner circle were not interested in memos arguing contrary opinions--a practice O'Neill had observed in both the Nixon and Ford administrations. There was no devil's advocacy, not even any half-logical angel's advocacy.
Bush, flying on a gut and a prayer, knew what he wanted. His chief of staff didn't care whether arguments were "well thought through" or whether there were "any holes" in them. The hell with logic, the hell with evidence. And his chief of staff didn't care because the Decider-in-Chief didn't care.
But never mind: Bush will now be "a little more overtly" well-advised.
Now, after 63 months of the steady catastrophe of the Bush years, it can be told.
As the first peek inside the Bush administration, I purchased O'Neill/Suskind as soon as it came out, and read it very quickly after that.
As I read it, I also saw how the MSM was misconstruing/missummarizing it. In the never-ending search for scandal, the media focused on the mangled deaf-leading-the-blind metaphor, and the stuff about the Iraq obsession (admittedly consequential). But what they missed/never even saw was the book's theme: O'Neill, a veteran of some really good policy planning processes, was genuinely shocked at the haphazardness of what Cheney had 'set up' for Bush.
'Policy planning process' isn't sexy (except for people who went to certain governmental schools); its sleep-inducing for anyone who cares what happened to Nattie Holloway. The result is that it never gets covered. But out of O'Neill/Suskind and everything that has happened since, we can now understand why all of Shrub's other ventures failed.
April 24, 2006 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cobra II seems to be describing the same process at Rumsfeld's Pentagon. Rumsefeld did not like the size of the force of the Pentagon's plan for ousting Saddem, about 380,000 troops. Meyers asked Rumsfeld what number he would choose and Rumsfeld chose 125,000 troops. No one said anything and that was not number given to Tommy Franks to plan.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
April 24, 2006 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
why does Elisabeth Bumiller still have a job? This is the "reporter" who allowed as how it was hard to ask the president a hard question when everyone is, like, looking at you and stuff....
April 24, 2006 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I liked this later part of the article. The job of being president, despite all the bad news and low approval ratings, has never really been a full-time job for Bush, never prevented him for fitting in lots of time for a nice bike ride.
Mr. Bush also blew off steam in two intense mountain bike rides. On Saturday he rode in a foggy redwood forest high above the Napa Valley wine country, and yesterday he rode in the mountains surrounding Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage.
Mr. Bush was accompanied on Saturday by a small group that included Scott Lindlaw, a former White House correspondent for The Associated Press who now works for the wire service in San Francisco. Mr. Bush told Mr. Lindlaw that he liked both the solitude and the social aspect of biking.
"Generally when I ride it is the one time when I feel alone, even though I know people are behind me," Mr. Bush told Mr. Lindlaw in an interview for The A.P. "I ask people a lot of times not to be in my line of vision because all I can see straight ahead is, you know, space."
Mr. Bush also told Mr. Lindlaw that when he is riding with his usual group near Washington he often plugs headphones into his ears and cranks up his iPod, "and it's like I'm alone."
April 24, 2006 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Mr Bush is so intent on being alone, we can arrange to have his presidency annulled and he can go home to momma. Al Gore will be happy to stand in for three years; albeit with a new Vice President.
April 24, 2006 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting. Insight Mag (Moon's Washington Times spinoff, I still cannot figure the reasoning for that sudden separation) has raised what is apparently a trial balloon on Rummy being forced out:
Issue Date: April 24-30, 2006, Posted On: 4/24/2006
Prominent Republicans warn Bush that Rumsfeld could cost GOP its majority
Several prominent Republicans in the House and Senate have urged President Bush to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as part of an administration shakeup.
April 24, 2006 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are absolutely right. But consider the rest of the media. Can one even imagine a more pathetic excuse for a news media than that which exists here today. From the cable stations to the broadcast news to the major print chains to the NYTimes and the (yecch!!) Washington Post, the corporate media and its adjunct Public Radio and TV is a sad joke with disastrous consequences for the country. And because of this media (and other factors too...of course) I think things will have to get much worse before people really insist on changed policies.
April 24, 2006 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bruce Bartlett was unhappy ("Conservative Compliments Clinton Staff") that the administration didn't offer supporting material for their policies, even to supporters like him. In fact, he got the cold shoulder instantly after he wrote what he considered a midly ctrical piece.
In contrast, he says, Clinton staff would nearly hug him while offering stacks of papers and trying to win him over.
April 24, 2006 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Everyone should have known Bush was a horrible president on Sept. 12, 2001. His excuse for allowing 9/11 to happen was that he'd only been office for 10 months. He hadn't time to figure things out yet. What a joke!
He never once had a single meeting on terrorism. I think there was one schedule for Sept. 14. Clinton warned Bush that terrorism was the single greatest threat. Bush argued with him the Iraq was.
He admits that he doesn't read the newspaper. I would be surprised if even reads anything at all. Sure they say he read this book or that, but has anyone grilled him on the content. His staffers give him some talking points and prop him up in front of a mic.
Look at his life. What has he ever done on his own? Nothing. He has not had one single accomplishment that can't be chalked up to his daddy. Bush should go down as the worst president ever. Nixon was better than Bush, at least he was interested in politics, something other than exercising.
In my opinion Bush has replaced booze with exercise. I think Al Franken said the same thing, or was it Michael Moore. Anyway, Bush really is a dumbass.
April 24, 2006 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Were we not well warned of the coming eclipse of substance by form when G-dub furrowed his mostly untroubled brow and delivered himself of the pithy
"Jesus is my favorite political philosopher".
The warning, btw, was not his utterly insipid answer to the interlocutor's question; the warning was contained in the utter absence of guffaws from those assembled, and the wider public.
Once you have gotten away with a line like that, it is no great leap to "The world is safer with Saddam out of power"
If there is one truth that really needs no elaboration, it is the exponential increase in danger to the world that has flowed from his freudian venture into paternal penis envy.
And still there are none to laugh in his lying face.
Consider that in July 2001 all vacations of essential personnel were cancelled, pursuant to the mounting indicia of impending catastrophe.
All vacations, that is, save one.
Clearly the category "essential" excluded this commander-in-chief; the incontrovertible metacommunication: Efficacy and G-dub were not to be found in the same zip code.
And yet, when the August 6 PDB was torn from an unwilling adminstration (information which should have triggered the emergency impeachment of a manifest incompetent) he was not only left in charge, but permitted to frolic along unencumbered by the slightest scrutiny from those capable of critical thought.
While we are quick (and correct) to blame the media--they have been shamelessly willing to be played--withal, the incompetence was obvious on its face, needing really no commentator to highlight.
Our predicament is so much the product of an electorate willing to drink, not Koolaid, but sewage packaged as Koolaid, that it bespeaks a profound inability to discriminate between the taste of grape and the taste of shit.
They should have laughed him off the stage that night in Des Moines, and nothing that has happened since should surprise us.
There is something seriously amiss in the peoples' ratiocination, arising (I think) from the cherished fantasies of American Exceptionalism that are entertained even by many purporting to be of the left.
Denial, like they say, is more than just a river in Egypt.
Is there a 12 step program for an entire nation? Sign us up.
"Hello, I am the United States of America, and I am addicted to self-love"
April 24, 2006 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Were we not well warned of the coming eclipse of substance by form when G-dub furrowed his mostly untroubled brow and delivered himself of the pithy
"Jesus is my favorite political philosopher".
The warning, btw, was not his utterly insipid answer to the interlocutor's question; the warning was contained in the utter absence of guffaws from those assembled, and the wider public.
Once you have gotten away with a line like that, it is no great leap to "The world is safer with Saddam out of power"
If there is one truth that really needs no elaboration, it is the exponential increase in danger to the world that has flowed from his freudian venture into paternal penis envy.
And still there are none to laugh in his lying face.
Consider that in July 2001 all vacations of essential personnel were cancelled, pursuant to the mounting indicia of impending catastrophe.
All vacations, that is, save one.
Clearly the category "essential" excluded this commander-in-chief; the incontrovertible metacommunication: Efficacy and G-dub were not to be found in the same zip code.
And yet, when the August 6 PDB was torn from an unwilling adminstration (information which should have triggered the emergency impeachment of a manifest incompetent) he was not only left in charge, but permitted to frolic along unencumbered by the slightest scrutiny from those capable of critical thought.
While we are quick (and correct) to blame the media--they have been shamelessly willing to be played--withal, the incompetence was obvious on its face, needing really no commentator to highlight.
Our predicament is so much the product of an electorate willing to drink, not Koolaid, but sewage packaged as Koolaid, that it bespeaks a profound inability to discriminate between the taste of grape and the taste of shit.
They should have laughed him off the stage that night in Des Moines, and nothing that has happened since should surprise us.
There is something seriously amiss in the peoples' ratiocination, arising (I think) from the cherished fantasies of American Exceptionalism that are entertained even by many purporting to be of the left.
Denial, like they say, is more than just a river in Egypt.
Is there a 12 step program for an entire nation? Sign us up.
"Hello, I am the United States of America, and I am addicted to self-love"
April 24, 2006 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink