I am reading Matt Latimer’s book, just out today, Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor. Two things struck me. First is confirmation of the portrait of George W. Bush that I painted in my Impostor book of a bully who cannot stand to be contradicted, who thinks he knows everything despite being grossly ignorant most of the time, and who browbeats those beneath him into agreeing with him.
Second is how different the Bush White House was from the Reagan White House where I worked. Reagan’s White House was a model of thoroughness, adherence to proper procedure, and respect for the office of the president. Bush’s White House seems amazingly slipshod, showing total disregard for all of the things that were important to Reagan in terms of how his administration functioned.
On the first point, I was struck by this paragraph as the author discusses his first session with Bush reviewing a draft speech he had written:
The president’s editing sessions went like this: he talked, you listened and scribbled furiously whatever he said. On occasion, he might ask a question. But usually he wasn’t too interested in the answer. Sometimes in the middle of your explaining something, if he felt he wasn’t getting what he wanted, he’d interrupt and say, ‘Okay, here’s what we need to do.’ This wasn’t a process that encouraged dialogue or pushback on an important point. This was George W. decisively telling you what he wanted to say, and you writing it down. Got it?
The problem with such a bullying method is that the president isn’t just some guy expressing a personal opinion when he speaks. If he were, then it would be perfectly appropriate for him to demand that his speechwriters wrote whatever he damn well told them to say. But the president of the United States speaks not just for himself, not just for his administration, but for the country as a whole. His words carry weight. Consequently, it is appalling to see him treating those words in such a cavalier manner.
Ronald Reagan, of course, was a trained actor, accustomed to reading dialogue written for him by others. Consequently, he had respect for those who wrote the words he spoke. Reagan was a great writer himself and would often edit his speeches. But he did it privately with an editing pen and usually for style, not substance. I think every Reagan speechwriter had enormous respect for Reagan’s contributions to his own speeches and, in turn, he respected his speechwriters and didn’t treat them like manual laborers, as Bush seems to have done.
Further evidence of Bush’s disdain for explaining himself in public forums can be found in this quote from Latimer’s book about reviewing Bush’s edits to a speech:
By about page five or so, the president started to get bored. You could see it in his face. So, naturally, that meant the speech was too long. By page six, without really reading the ending, he decided it needed to be cut down.
Then, after all this effort, Latimer tells us that Bush completely ignored the speech that had been written for him and ad-libbed some remarks.
One of the things that Latimer talks a lot about is the importance of the president’s mood, which appears to have gyrated wildly. Apparently, the best way to get on his good side was to pretend to be stupid so that Bush would seem like a genius by figuring out some simple point for himself.
Latimer says that national security adviser Stephen Hadley was very good at doing this:
Hadley was a master at handling the president. Though he was a very bright man, he liked to depict himself as the dumbest person in the room. He’d say things like, ‘Oh, Mr. President. I’m sure I’m completely wrong about this, but…’ or ‘I have to apologize, Mr. President, and feel free to calibrate me, but…’ This was the perfect way to talk to George W. Bush.
Later, Latimer talks about Ed Gillespie, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee who was in charge of Bush’s communications strategy toward the end of the administration. Latimer explains the way plans for speeches were developed:
Whenever we talked about an upcoming speech, Ed almost never said, ‘Let me think about it’ or ‘What do you guys think?’ He never said, ‘Let’s figure out what the message of the week is going to be.’ He usually just offered an instant reaction. The whole White House was like that–infatuated with decisiveness, dismissive of deliberation.
I have highlighted the last sentence because John DiIulio said almost exactly the same thing in a famous memo that formed the basis of an article in Esquire magazine early in the Bush administration. I can’t now find a copy of the memo on the web, but here is the article that was based on it.
I continue to believe that a great many of Bush’s screw-ups, most especially on Iraq, resulted from his personal style, which eventually permeated throughout his entire administration. It disdained facts and analysis and glorified decisiveness and action. “Shoot first and ask questions later” could have been its motto.
Originally published at Capital Gains and Games.
43 responses so far
1 SFTor1 // Sep 23, 2009 at 2:20 am
It’s nice of everyone to write books to confirm what was quite visible from the outside.
Republicans would do themselves a favor by helping restore the dignity of the the Presidency. That means teaching heels like Joe Wilson some proper manners.
2 mlindroo // Sep 23, 2009 at 2:23 am
> I continue to believe that a great many of Bush’s screw-ups, most especially on Iraq,
> resulted from his personal style, which eventually permeated throughout his entire
> administration. It disdained facts and analysis and glorified decisiveness and action.
> “Shoot first and ask questions later” could have been its motto.
Right. And I suspect we would have had the same problem with John McCain too, if he had won the 2008 general election…
MARCU$
3 sdspringy // Sep 23, 2009 at 3:14 am
Bartlett realized, same as the rest of us, that Bush was no fiscal conservative. Which lead to the eventual losses in 06 & 08. Conservatives, who the republicans hate but can’t live without, abandoned the Republican party.
However Bush was a social conservative, which I thought was equally important. And did approve of the Supreme Court picks.
The books critical of Bush are not an issue with most conservatives. The libs love them and run to embrace the authors while calling anyone critical of Obama racist. What will count in the end is the one undeniable fact, that Bush held two terms while Obama one.
4 rbottoms // Sep 23, 2009 at 5:59 am
Defend GW to the hilt, get the dimwit re-elected and come forward with the truth now that he’s spent a trillion dollars in Iraq and destroyed the American economy, instead of in 2004 when it might have done some good. Very brave indeed.
Americans shouldn’t trust the GOP to run a carwash much less the country.
5 joemarier // Sep 23, 2009 at 7:59 am
“Reagan’s White House was a model of thoroughness, adherence to proper procedure, and respect for the office of the president.”
If you say so, but there are plenty who said otherwise.
6 Chekote // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:24 am
This is weak. So Bush was not fond of spending time refining speeches. Big deal.
7 joedee1969 // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:24 am
Bush and Obana need to answer some of this:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/09/911-truthers-a-view-from-the-right/
8 Churl // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:35 am
Mr. Bartlett has every right to schlep his book anywhere he wants, but I wonder how his schlepping is helping in “building a conservatism that can win again”.
9 sinz54 // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:01 am
As I’ve always said: “Nothing succeeds like success.”
If Bush had gotten Osama bin Laden in November 2001, and found WMD in iraq, then his casual dismissal of the ideas of some of his speechwriters would now be lauded as “having the vision and guts to go it alone when necessary.”
How do we know?
Because there are lots of precedents:
Because in 1960, JFK disregarded the advice of his science adviser, Jerome Weisner, that the Mercury space program be abandoned as a failure. Instead, he told NASA to push ahead despite the missile failures and the schedule slips on the spacecraft. And aren’t we glad he did? Alan Shepard managed to get into space in 1961, and the U.S. space program was back on track.
And Reagan disregarded the advice of the scientific community on his Strategic Defense Initiative and went into negotiations with Gorbachev with SDI in his hip pocket. The Cold War ended, and now nobody (except a few historians) cares what scientists told Reagan back then.
If you want an example from the other side:
In 1980, SecState Cyrus Vance resigned from the Carter Administration in protest against Carter’s decision to launch a rescue mission to try to free the American hostages in Iran. If that mission had succeeded, Carter would have been a hero, Vance would have looked short-sighted and weak, and history would have taken a different turn.
The problem with Bush was not that he disregarded the advice of some of his advisers. The problem was that he seemed to trust Cheney as a wiser mentor, more than he trusted Condi Rice or his speechwriters. And Cheney was the lead figure in the Project for a New American Century which got Iraq wrong, dead wrong, totally wrong.
Historians don’t like this version of history because they are always looking for “reasons” why things turned out as they did. But often those “reasons” are “Just So Stories”–they rationalize what could have really turned on sheer luck or emotion.
10 sinz54 // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:07 am
Chekote:
I agree.
The Bush Administration turned out to be a disappointment because its POLICIES were wrong. To infer that this is because Bush went it alone is simply incorrect. Bush took plenty of advice, from Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
Ironically, the Left, which has now made Cheney into a hate figure, has conveniently forgotten that before 9-11, the Left said that Bush was totally inexperienced to be President, and that Cheney’s older, wiser experience was America’s only hope from the Bush administration! (Go check it for yourself. Back then the Left HOPED that Cheney would take the lead.)
I also think part of this was due to the Left believing that Cheney was less beholden to the Christian evangelicals than was born-again Christian, George W. Bush.
11 Chekote // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:22 am
My biggest beef with Bush is what he did to the Republican party. Rove’s strategy of creating a governing Republican majority for years to come by buying constituencies (Medicare Part D, Faith Based Initiatives, No Child Left Behind) and relying on social issues to motivate the Religious Right destroyed the GOP. As far as Cheney, I think he and the dreaded neo-cons will be vindicated 10 or 20 years from now when the Middle East is no longer the fertile ground for extremism and instead is on a path of self-government. Somehow, we had this expectation that in six months after toppling Saddam, Iraq was going to be a vibrant democratic country. No one could meet those ridiculous expectations.
12 balconesfault // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:27 am
(Go check it for yourself. Back then the Left HOPED that Cheney would take the lead.)
It’s really hard to “check” such a thing … without knowing who you are referring to as the “left”. For example, every time I read someone calling the Fred Hiatt led Washington Post “liberal”, particularly on National Defense issues, it indicates either hypartisanship, or a lack of critical thinking. And leading up to the invasion of Iraq, even the NY Times was hardly liberal.
So yeah, I’d like to know who you are talking about before I buy this one.
13 balconesfault // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:28 am
Somehow, we had this expectation that in six months after toppling Saddam, Iraq was going to be a vibrant democratic country. No one could meet those ridiculous expectations.
And yet, without selling those expectations (and the Saddam-Al Qaeda lie, and the WMD misinformation) the US support for invading Iraq would have been limited to the 20% who still think it a good idea.
14 Observer // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:33 am
As a pre-Bush Republican, I have to chime in with the critics who say that this criticism is the weakest I’ve seen from both Latimer and Bartlett. It’s the kind of complaint you’d see from a junior staffer unfamiliar with the complexity of working FOR a pol as opposed to working as one.
A few million politicians have thrown away notes from time to time, and if Reagan was an exception, he was a lonely one. It’s not like Churchill made himself famous by waiting for the scripted version, not least because his scripts were his own; even Clinton could manage to deliver several presidential graphs worth in front of Congress when the teleprompter failed and no one noticed, and Giuliani’s best moments were breathless moments of improv while the City was tumbling around him, to pick a few examples. It is the speechwriter’s lot to write words for someone else, not the other way around, and anyone who complains about that and thinks they’re proving the President is disrespectful to the office is, in fact, doing the disrespecting himself.
In the end, what the President chooses to say is what the President said, regardless of what was drafted And like him or hate him, that’s his right as the guy who’s name was on the ballot. The words carry weight not because they were staffed out expertly, not because some staffer spent lots of time on them, not because they were stylistically brilliant, but because the President of the United States actually stood somewhere and delivered the remark(s). Period.
For awhile, I was tempted and teased by leaks about this book, but I’m no longer interested. I’d much rather hear some intelligent criticism of why an Administration that claimed to be fiscally conservative made political and policy decisions to ignore those principles, and why a government that claimed to be in war for the survival of its very principles fought it so casually with so little focus and so little attention to those principles. Those are worthwhile debates to have, lessons to learn, and incidents to study. Everything else is just gossip, the politics of entertainment, and “these are serious times which call for serious people,” etc.
15 SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:48 am
Sdspringy wrote: “The libs love them [Bush critics] and run to embrace the authors while calling anyone critical of Obama racist. ”
Really? I have yet to hear any liberal call Cantor, Boehner, McConnell, McCain, Graham, Cheney, Gringrich or Frum racist, and you cannot cite any significant liberal calling any of these Obama critics racist. However, you can and should find many people calling those who make racist statements or hold up racist signs racist.
You may want to do a little more thinking before you make another post. Otherwise, people will fail to take you seriously.
16 SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:53 am
Sinz wrote: “If Bush had gotten Osama bin Laden in November 2001, and found WMD in iraq, then his casual dismissal of the ideas of some of his speechwriters would now be lauded as “having the vision and guts to go it alone when necessary.” ”
Maybe if Bush had been willing to listen to those with different opinions he would have gotten OBL at Tora Bora and he would have been willing to wait for the weapons inspectors to finish their job and tell him there are no WMD in Iraq.
17 Chekote // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:57 am
balcon
I said several times that without the WMDs the invasion was not justified.
18 SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:59 am
Sinz wrote: “Left said that Bush was totally inexperienced to be President, and that Cheney’s older, wiser experience was America’s only hope from the Bush administration! (Go check it for yourself. Back then the Left HOPED that Cheney would take the lead.)”
You myopic hatred of the left reveals an impotent mind and it’s patently ridiculous to blame the “Left” for Cheney. First of all, who are you referring to on the Left?
Under Bush 41, Cheney wisely recommended against going into Baghdad. Under Bush 43, Cheney insisted on it. He also insisted on a connection between Al Qaeda and Hussein. He was dead wrong on both counts and most people on the Left called him on it.
You, too, should do a little more thinking before posting again.
19 Cforchange // Sep 23, 2009 at 11:00 am
For the average voter, GW’s inability or lacking desire to communicate with his constituents was far more damaging than is estimated. That is why Palin flew, and why Jindal, Pawlenty and probably Romney won’t. We flatly do not have an likeable, charasmatic and smart leader that is unless you count Rudy.
20 SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 23, 2009 at 11:04 am
Chekote @ #11,
Your assessment of the failings of Bush is correct. However, Bush and Cheney won’t be vindicated in 10 or 20 years if the Middle East is peaceful. Four thousand dead Americans, 25,000 wounded Americans, 100,000 dead Iraqis and $1 trillion just to produce a stable and non-threatening Iraq 30 years later will vindicate no one.
21 Raider1 // Sep 23, 2009 at 11:16 am
Just out of curiosity. Did any of these gemtlemen ever resign when these unseemly events took place according to them? I guess when you are sitting on a gold mine of material for a nice book deal after the damage is done why leave right? Hey, I’ll write all this and write it convincingly Mr. President. So what if young men die. If budgets bust and the country goes into a tailspin. I just need a few moe chapters to have enough for Putnam! I love when unprincipled men write tell-alls about how unprincipled the men they cotinued to serve for their own ends day in and day out actually were.
22 balconesfault // Sep 23, 2009 at 11:18 am
Chekote balcon
I said several times that without the WMDs the invasion was not justified.
True. That wasn’t the point of my comment. Rather, the claim being made by many on the right at the time that Iraq would be quickly stabilized, and would hardly cost the US anything, was key to gaining widespread public support for the invasion.
Thus, when you say Somehow, we had this expectation that in six months after toppling Saddam, Iraq was going to be a vibrant democratic country. you are reflecting on an expectation that should best be seen as part of a comprehensive propoganda campaign. The expectation wasn’t created from the left – most on the left were screaming that we had no clue what kind of hornets we were taking on – but from the neocons who were ready to do or say whatever it took to convince Americans to make the down payment on a shiny new 2003 Iraq Invasion.
23 mlindroo // Sep 23, 2009 at 11:45 am
Sinz54 wrote:
> The Bush Administration turned out to be a disappointment because its POLICIES were wrong.
> To infer that this is because Bush went it alone is simply incorrect.
> Bush took plenty of advice, from Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
I largely agree with this, but the problem is that virtually all the key officials (some of which were very experienced) during Bush’s first term were absolutely convinced they were right about Iraq and consequently they refused to consider other possibilities. Unlike Clinton (and Obama), Bush preferred to surround himself with like minded folks from a similar background.
MARCU$
24 mlindroo // Sep 23, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Lots of good observations.
Cforchange wrote:
> For the average voter, GW’s inability or lacking
> desire to communicate with his constituents was
> far more damaging than is estimated.
In contrast, Reagan was always trying to persuade voters that he was right.
I think you could say Bill Clinton and Obama, at somewhat different levels, have tried to explain their policies or at least make clear they “share the pain”:-) I remember the Administration’s proponents @ THE WEEKLY STANDARD and National Review were constantly frustrated by the fact that the Bushies largely refused to engage the press and the American public.
Chekote added:
> Rove’s strategy of creating a governing Republican majority for years to come
> by buying constituencies (Medicare Part D, Faith Based Initiatives,
> No Child Left Behind) and relying on social issues to motivate the
> Religious Right destroyed the GOP.
Poor execution of the Rovian “compassionately conservative” strategy killed the GOP.
It’s worth noting that a significant fraction of the conservative intelligentsia (Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, David Frum, to some extent David Brooks, Ramesh Ponnuru & Yuval Levin…) keep arguing that the hard line anti-government, anti-tax liberal approach favored by Gingrich & co. in 1994-1998 represented a political dead-end. There seems to be a rough consensus that Bush could not have become president without distancing himself from the excesses of the 1994 “GOP revolution” a bit.
MARCU$
25 Observer // Sep 23, 2009 at 1:10 pm
“Poor execution of the ‘compassionate conservative’ strategy?” How about NO execution of the strategy. They never seriously tried it at all.
26 Jewels // Sep 23, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Interesting that the “bully” that Bartlett describes seems strangely absent from David Frum’s book “The Right Man”. Frum describes the private President Bush as a controlled, confident man who was very aware of the thoughts and feelings of his team.
There was one incident described by Frum that involved some important project that had fallen vastly behind schedule. Bush brought the team into the office and gave them a long lecture. When he was through, he called the lowest ranked member of the team aside and spoke with him privately. He let the man know that he knew the blame didn’t lie with him, and proceeded to ask after the man’s wife and children. Hardly the actions of a bully.
In another passage from the same chapter, Frum describes a moment when, after listening to a round of compliments and praises from his staff about the state of affairs, Bush replied regretfully that people these days were far to eager to please him. That as governor, he could ask someone how they felt, and they would tell him.
I’m a little curious to know how it is that these accounts could contrast so vividly? Were messrs Bartlett and Latimer working for the same man as Frum? Was Frum dishonest in his description? Or is this a case of a couple of guys whose opinions were not given the serious weight that they thought was deserved?
27 Latimer: Bush 2008 Speeches Excuses for Taxpayers to Pick up Tab for Political Events // Sep 23, 2009 at 1:58 pm
[...] here for Bruce Bartlett’s first post reviewing Matt Latimer’s Speech-Less: Tales of a White [...]
28 balconesfault // Sep 23, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Were messrs Bartlett and Latimer working for the same man as Frum? Was Frum dishonest in his description?
There is plenty of evidence from multiple sources that Bush was a bully – more stories than worth going into here. At the same time, Bush clearly had/has a way of relating to certain people which generates fantastic loyalty, to the point where those individuals seem pretty willing to overlook any flaw, to shift the blame for any failure to others rather than pin it on W.
He didn’t get to be President simply because some very wealthy men decided to do what it would take to get him there, and because of his family name. In evaluating Bush, you have to always consider his innate talent for being the Big Man on Campus, the Frat House President, the guy in HS who everyone wanted to be on the right side of because being on the right side made you “in”, and being on the wrong side made you “out”. And Bush cultivated that by prizing loyalty to him above any special knowledge or talent or competency when filling his staff and cabinet (and trying to even do so to fill a Supreme Court slot).
29 sinz54 // Sep 23, 2009 at 8:41 pm
spartacusisnotdead:
Rumsfeld made those decisions.
The CIA, hot on Osama’s tail near Tora Bora, sent an urgent request to Rumsfeld for thousands of U.S. troops to surround the place. For reasons that have never been made clear, Rumsfeld said no. Capture of Osama was to be left to the Northern Alliance. And we saw how well that turned out.
At the very first emergency war meeting at Camp David, only 48 hours after the 9-11 attack, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz told Bush that Saddam had to go. They didn’t condition that on finding WMD.
30 sdspringy // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Bacon, that description fits so accurately to Obam as well. How else could you end up with 37 Czars.
The big difference is of course Bush was not a minor league player when elected Pres. Obama’s rise is astonding only in the fact he is completely unqualified. Minor league state rep, 2 year Senator with no distinction and now Pres. In only 8 months his fall from both lefty grace and national grace beats even Carter.
Whether you read Camila at Salon or DailyKos the left’s disappointment is mounting even faster than the rights.
The fact that Bush has already generated so much ink from inside and outside the administration is mainly the result of the hught issues which literally exploded during his term in office. Many of Clinton’s insiders stated that they had the opportunity at those same issues for the acclaim that would have resulted from Clinton handling them. When in fact no matter the person, somebody will disagree with you decission and of course write a book explaining their position.
Especially when the book is critical, which of course would endear you to the good graces of the Main Stream Media and you would then receive their warm reviews.
31 Jim // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Spartacus:
Quick question, sparky. Do you think that oppression is wrong and should be fought? Or is “wait[ing] for the weapons inspectors to finish their job and tell him there are no WMD in Iraq” more important than freeing the people Saddam was terrorizing…..
Stunning. Just stunning. You’re a genuine credit to your name, pal.
32 balconesfault // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:55 pm
springy: MBacon, that description fits so accurately to Obam as well. How else could you end up with 37 Czars.
Ummm – first off, Wikipedia counts it at 32. Whic is apparently 1 more than Bush’s 31.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars
Although the reality is that Czar isn’t a real title. Obama hasn’t been calling his appointees that. The lazy media has, since it’s become a shorthand.
But really – how the hell does this tie in to Bush cultivating a cult of sycophancy in the White House … or an allegation that Obama is doing the same thing?
and for jim – it is not America’s job to drop a couple trillion and sacrifice a few thousand of our young men and women every time some asshat around the world is oppressing his people.
33 sdspringy // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Spartacus says:”you cannot cite any significant liberal calling any of these Obama critics racist.”
Spartacus may not be dead however he does appear computer illiterate. How else could you explain the inability to Google, “are Obama critics racist” and not come away with thousands of examples of people being referred to as racist for criticizing the Messiah.
Spartacus would like to narrow the field of critics but in fact every critic, in and outside of government, public servant and private citizen is a racist. ExPres. Carter thinks so, so does every Main Stream Media source, which have run numerous stories providing examples.
Sparty, better mount a charge in the opposite direction, this hill is too steep to assault.
34 balconesfault // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:30 pm
and not come away with thousands of examples of people being referred to as racist for criticizing the Messiah.
You realize that the “Messiah” thing is pretty much a declaration that you don’t take Christianity seriously.
Meanwhile, there are lots of examples of people making patently racist attacks on Obama. Not a surprise that they get cited a lot.
35 agentprovocateur // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:50 pm
What will count in the end is the one undeniable fact, that Bush held two terms while Obama one.
So you have psychic powers? Do tell us all which stocks we should buy next week.
As far as Cheney, I think he and the dreaded neo-cons will be vindicated 10 or 20 years from now when the Middle East is no longer the fertile ground for extremism and instead is on a path of self-government.
You really believe that the invasion of Iraq will lead to that? I guess that magic ponies were found rather than WMD.
Do you think that oppression is wrong and should be fought?
So, when do we invade Saudi Arabia, Burma, and Sudan, among many other countries?
36 sdspringy // Sep 23, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Try as you might Bacon to deflect, Obama is turning out to be exactly as the Right imagined and a huge dissappointment for the Left. When the Left starts to criticize Obama will the term racist be used to describe them?
37 SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 24, 2009 at 1:13 am
Sinz @ #29,
The assertion that Rumsfield decided not to approve more troops does not relieve Bush of culpability for his decision not to ensure that the Afghan was adequately resourced and prepared to take advantage of an opportunity to capture OBL. I don’t know if Bush was advised to put more troops in Afghanistan or not, but if he wasn’t he should have fired his advisors for not giving him the right advice. However, we know for a fact that Bush Gen. Shinseki right after foolishly rejecting his advice to put 300,000-500,000 troops in Iraq.
With respect to Iraq, your reference to the recommendations of Cheney, Rumsfield and Wolfowitz to go to war in Iraq only proves my point. Bush, who was the ultimate decider, did not listen to those who advised to at least wait until after the inspectors had completed their jobs.
38 SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 24, 2009 at 1:14 am
I meant to say we know Bush fired Shinseki . . .
39 SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 24, 2009 at 1:21 am
Jim asked: “Do you think that oppression is wrong and should be fought? Or is “wait[ing] for the weapons inspectors to finish their job and tell him there are no WMD in Iraq” more important than freeing the people Saddam was terrorizing…..”
Well, I think oppression is morally wrong, but Idon’t think all instances of oppression are worth the price America has had to predicatably pay to remove Saddam. And, policy makers of both Democratic and Republican administrations have consistently agreed with me. We did not go to war in Iraq to stop oppression and neither Bush nor any of his Democratic or Republican predecessors eever argued we should go to war there to stop Saddam’s long-running oppression.
If oppression is your prerequisite for sending American troops to war in a foreign land, then you are neither conservative nor wise.
40 SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 24, 2009 at 1:36 am
Sdspringy thinks that a google search that cites articles that discuss whether Obama’s critics are racist substantiates his initial claim that liberals will call anyone who criticizes Obama a racist.
You really should try to think this through on your own, but I’ll help you out anyway.
You said liberals will call anyone who criticizes Obama a racist. I provided many examples of people who have criticized Obama and have not been called racist. You then respond by referring to Google search results, none of which provide any evidence that any of the critics I listed have been called racist.
Seriously, this is not that difficult and you should be able to figure out that the things you’ve said – twice now – make absolutely no since whatsoever.
41 mlindroo // Sep 24, 2009 at 6:17 am
> The big difference is of course Bush was not a minor league player when elected Pres. Obama’s rise is
> astonding only in the fact he is completely unqualified. Minor league state rep, 2 year Senator with no
> distinction and now Pres.
This is highly debatable. I will agree that Obama does not have tons of experience, but he did prepare himself for the job well while with the U.S. senate by getting himself a place on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He lacks practical experience, true, but I think he did an impressive job during the 2008 campaign when he usually held his own in the debates against far more experienced candidates.
—
I would argue that Bush’s six years as Texas Governor aren’t much of a merit considering the limited powers of the office. But biographies such as Latimer’s clearly suggest lack of experience was not his major shortcoming as president: I think his personality(lack of curiosity, “faith based” decision making etc.) and choice of advisers had more to do with it.
> In only 8 months his fall from both lefty grace and national grace beats even Carter.
Well, I read the mainstream liberal blogs and I sense no major disappointment! “Politics is the art of the possible” and right now the blogosphere left seems quite confident that the Democrats will manage to pass some sort of health care reform by the end of the year, although it will not have all the features they would like.
—
Any presidency is like a long distance running contest. Even Reagan was unpopular while the economy was not in great shape, and this remains the main reason why Obama is “only” doing .500 right now. My guess is the 2010 midterms will resemble 1982, i.e. the party in power will be wildly unpopular because of the recession but the opposition will only make comparatively minor gains since they have no solution to the problem either. But we will see.
MARCU$
42 Jim // Sep 24, 2009 at 7:39 am
Spartacus:
Fine, but I think you should probably change your screen name to Jane Austen.
43 Jim // Sep 24, 2009 at 7:43 am
Agentprovocateur asks:
“So, when do we invade Saudi Arabia, Burma, and Sudan, among many other countries?”
I’m not saying I have the answer, but isn’t it a question at least worth discussing?
You must log in to post a comment.