← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · xmetalhead
Thread ID: 20180 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2005-09-13
2005-09-13 14:12 | User Profile
[SIZE=5]Now They Tell Us[/SIZE]
By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Monday, September 12, 2005; 1:33 PM
Amid a slew of stories this weekend about the embattled presidency and the blundering government response to the drowning of New Orleans, some journalists who are long-time observers of the White House are suddenly sharing scathing observations about President Bush that may be new to many of their readers.
Is Bush the commanding, decisive, jovial president you've been hearing about for years in so much of the mainstream press?
[B]Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don't emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test.[/B]
Maybe it's Bush's sinking poll numbers -- he is, after all, undeniably an unpopular president now. Maybe it's the way that the federal response to the flood has cut so deeply against Bush's most compelling claim to greatness: His resoluteness when it comes to protecting Americans.
But for whatever reason, critical observations and insights that for so long have been zealously guarded by mainstream journalists, and only doled out in teaspoons if at all, now seem to be flooding into the public sphere.
An emperor-has-no-clothes moment seems upon us.
Read All About It
The two seminal reads are from Newsweek and Time.
Evan Thomas's story in Newsweek is headlined: "How Bush Blew It."
"It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States," Thomas writes.
In this sort of environment, Bush apparently didn't fathom the extent of the catastrophe in the Gulf Coast for more than three days after the levees of New Orleans were breached.
"The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.
"How this could be -- how the president of the United States could have even less 'situational awareness,' as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century -- is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace."
[B]Among Thomas's disclosures: "Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. . . .[/B]
"Late last week, Bush was, by some accounts, down and angry. But another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as 'strangely surreal and almost detached.' At one meeting described by this insider, officials were oddly self-congratulatory, perhaps in an effort to buck each other up. Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat."
Mike Allen writes in Time: "Longtime Bush watchers say they are not shocked that he missed his moment -- one of his most trusted confidants calls him 'a better third- and fourth-quarter player,' who focuses and delivers when he sees the stakes. What surprised them was that he still appeared to be stutter-stepping in the second week of the crisis, struggling to make up for past lapses instead of taking control with a grand gesture. Just as Katrina exposed the lurking problems of race and poverty, it also revealed the limitations of Bush's rigid, top-down approach to the presidency. . . .
"Bush's bubble has grown more hermetic in the second term, they say, with fewer people willing or able to bring him bad news -- or tell him when he's wrong. Bush has never been adroit about this. A youngish aide who is a Bush favorite described the perils of correcting the boss. 'The first time I told him he was wrong, he started yelling at me,' the aide recalled about a session during the first term. 'Then I showed him where he was wrong, and he said, "All right. I understand. Good job." He patted me on the shoulder. I went and had dry heaves in the bathroom.' . . .
"The result is a kind of echo chamber in which good news can prevail over bad -- even when there is a surfeit of evidence to the contrary. For example, a source tells Time that four days after Katrina struck, Bush himself briefed his father and former President Clinton in a way that left too rosy an impression of the progress made. 'It bore no resemblance to what was actually happening,' said someone familiar with the presentation."
[URL=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html]Link to the rest of the Washington Post article[/URL]
2005-09-13 17:54 | User Profile
XM,
[url]http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,169041,00.html[/url]
Bush Supporters Question Iraq War Tactics
Monday, September 12, 2005
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON ââ¬â When President Bush (search) meets with his Iraqi counterpart at the White House on Tuesday, the administration and its supporters are sure to extol the virtues and the wisdom of the American role in rebuilding Iraq.
But there's sure to be some head shaking and criticism as well, and this time from some unexpected corners.
Staunch supporters of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq have become more vocal and public with their concern over the way things are going there, prompting observers to suggest that even Republicans are getting nervous.
"The Administration is now starting to lose its base on the war, and if this continues, it will come under increasing pressure to accelerate our withdrawal," said Larry Diamond (search), senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority (search) in Iraq. He recently penned the book, "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq."
"I have been struck that so many of the intellectual, neo-conservative supporters of the war have been quite critical of the Bush administration's management, or mismanagement, of the post-war situation in Iraq, both politically and militarily," Diamond told FOXNews.com.
Andrew Bacevich (search), a Vietnam veteran and professor of international relations at Boston University, said he sees a marked shift.
"There are people who view themselves on the Right, who were enthusiastic supporters of the war, who are now greatly concerned that the Bush administration or more in particular, the military, is losing its focus, its heart, and isn't fully committed," Bacevich said. "I think Bill Kristol (search) would be a good example of that."
Kristol, a FOX News contributor and editor of the Weekly Standard, advocated toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. But in the Aug. 15 edition of the magazine, Kristol accuses Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of "weakness and defeatism," for lowering the standards for success in Iraq and "emboldening" the enemy through his commanders' suggestion that U.S troops may come home as early as next spring if Iraqi forces are trained to secure the country in that time.
He also continues to blame Rumsfeld for not putting more U.S troops into Iraq at the start.
"The president knows we have to win this war. If some of his subordinates are trying to find ways to escape from it, he needs to assert control over them, overrule them or replace them," Kristol wrote. "What the president needs to do now is tell the Pentagon to stop talking about (and planning for) withdrawal, and make sure they are planning for victory."
President Bush has tamped down ideas of a spring withdrawal and has said repeatedly there will be no exit timetable. "As Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down," he said last month from his Crawford, Texas, ranch. "The important thing for Americans to know is that we are making progress."
Some of his supporters are now saying a more realistic view is necessary.
Ret. Col. David Hunt (search), a FOX News contributor, expressed frustration with how the administration is handling the war.
"This has been a terribly conducted war. It's been 28 months of this ââ¬â it's time to get upset," he said. "We're getting shot at by people who put bombs in dead dogs. Weââ¬â¢re not fighting it right."
Hunt said more troops are needed on Iraq's borders, but unlike Kristol, he advocates slimming down the force by 100,000 and putting in small special operations teams to counter the insurgency.
Ret. Col. Gary Anderson (search), another administration supporter, said, "I'm absolutely in agreement with the president" on not setting timetables for withdrawal, but he is also disappointed that clearer "milestones for success" haven't been established, particularly with regard to when the United States can start handing over security to the Iraqi forces.
"I do think there is some tension there, I think there is a need to hear from the field that at this point in time, we have stood up this many soldiers, and the reluctance to do that is causing some people to have some problems," he said.
"I think there are definite cracks" in the president's Republican support, said Peter Beinart (search), editor of The New Republic magazine, which has supported the invasion of Iraq from the beginning.
He said that aside from Republicans who have always been war critics, like Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, other Republicans have been more vocal about needing clarification on the war strategy and a better explanation to the American public.
ââ¬Ëââ¬ËAny effort to explain Iraq as ââ¬ËWe are on track and making progress' is nonsense,'' former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (search) told the New York Times recently. "The daily and weekly casualties leave people feeling that things aren't going well.''
In July, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (search), R-Md., a Vietnam War veteran who has supported the war in Iraq, became the fourth Republican to sign on to a bipartisan resolution urging the president to lay out a clear exit strategy, and has said publicly he's concerned about the effect of public opinion on congressional Republicans in 2006.
But David Winston (search), Republican pollster, cautioned against interpreting concern over war strategy as skittishness from the President's base and a lack of support for war overall.
"There is still support for this war," Winston said. What people are looking for from the President, he added, are more specifics and measures for success. "There is more demand for that right now."
Bush still has big guns to bolster his position, including the entire Republican leadership in Congress. Appearing on FOX News Sunday on August 14, Sen. John McCain (search), R-Ariz., warned of any whiff of troop withdrawal.
"I've got an idea for our Pentagon planners," he said. "The day I can land at the airport in Baghdad and ride in an unarmored car down the highway to the Green Zone is the day I'll start considering withdrawal from Iraq."
But Hunt told FOXNews.com that he believes "you will start seeing guys come out of Iraq before the 2006 elections" ââ¬â and he isn't the only one.
"The conventional wisdom is the Republicans will have to reduce the force before the 2006 elections," said Harold Meyerson (search), editor-at-large for the conservative American Prospect magazine. He did not support the Iraq invasion.
"There are certainly a lot of leaks inside and outside the Pentagon and administration suggesting that is going to happen," said Beinart. "I wouldn't be surprised."
Maybe Bush will send these guys to "Club Gitmo".
2005-09-13 19:04 | User Profile
Sert, the Bush administration and it's pathetic sycophants more and more resembles the administration of Louis XVI in 18th Century France or Czar Nicholas in early 1900's Russia.
Deny, deny, deny reality....and let the masses eat cake.....
2005-09-13 20:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]President Bush (search) meets with his Iraqi counterpart[/QUOTE]At first I found this preposterous, comparing the President to the little Iraqi puppet. Then I realized Bush was a puppet too.
2005-09-13 23:00 | User Profile
Stanley,
LOL! :biggrin: