I have a problem with Jon Chait’s argument that President Bush hadn’t been particularly incompetent prior to the invasion of Iraq and that he shouldn’t necessarily have been mistrusted to undertake the war. Chait says that Bush had built a reputation as a ruthlessly successful president on issues of importance to him (tax cuts, the education overhaul). But these were political successes -- achievements at shepherding controversial legislation through Congress -- not policy accomplishments (as subsequent economic and educational performance would attest).

The divisions within his administration, a harbinger of the subsequent chaotic chain of command in Iraq, were already apparent before Sept. 11; evidence of the politicization of policy was available during the height of the debate before the war.

Or again, consider his pre-election record as a chief executive. Bush had been a disastrously incompetent and wrongheaded governor. His handling of environmental issues and children’s healthcare and, most notoriously, his maladministration of one of the nation’s most active death penalty systems (Texas executed more people than any other state in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000) received considerable press coverage in the runup to the 2000 presidential election. Bush’s primary and general election debate performances suggested he was something of a lightweight, intellectually speaking, when judged against the demands of the job.

Chait should admit that there was abundant reason, based on Bush’s record, to doubt the administration’s ability successfully to manage Iraq after an invasion. The tenor of the debate, which was often frighteningly simplistic at best, should have been another clue: few of the practical concerns of opponents were given much public discussion. Arguments in favor of at least mobilizing for war are well known. The arguments against war were not -- and President Bush and his leadership style ought to have been treated as one of them.