Two Plus Two Equals Paperweight
The Bush Administration has a bad habit of hiring people to add up all the facts, then looking the other way when the facts don't add up the way they like, writes Harold Meyerson in The American Prospect:
Step back a minute and look at who has left this administration or blown the whistle on it, and why. Clarke enumerates a half-dozen counterterrorism staffers, three of whom were with him in the Situation Room on Sept. 11, who left because they felt the White House was placing too much emphasis on the enemy who didn't attack us, Iraq, and far too little on the enemy who did.But that only begins the list. There's Paul O'Neill, whose recent memoir recounts his ongoing and unavailing battle to get the president to take the skyrocketing deficit seriously. There's Christie Todd Whitman, who appears in O'Neill's memoir recalling her own unsuccessful struggles to get the White House to acknowledge the scientific data on environmental problems. There's Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, who told Congress that it would take hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to adequately secure postwar Iraq. There's Richard Foster, the Medicare accountant, who was forbidden by his superiors from giving Congress an accurate assessment of the cost of the administration's new program. All but Foster are now gone, and Foster's sole insurance policy is that Republican as well as Democratic members of Congress were burnt by his muzzling.
In the Bush administration, you're an empiricist at your own peril. Plainly, this has placed any number of conscientious civil servants -- from Foster, who totaled the costs on Medicare, to Clarke, who charted the al Qaeda leads before Sept. 11 -- at risk. In a White House where ideology trumps information time and again, you run the numbers at your own risk. Nothing so attests to the fundamental radicalism of this administration as the disaffection of professionals such as Foster and Clarke, each of whom had served presidents of both parties.
The revolt of the professionals poses a huge problem for the Bush presidency precisely because it is not coming from its ideological antagonists. Clarke concludes his book making a qualified case for establishing a security sub-agency within the FBI that would be much like Britain's MI5 -- a suggestion clearly not on the ACLU's wish list. O'Neill wants a return to traditional Republican budget-balancing. The common indictment that these critics are leveling at the administration is that it is impervious to facts. That's a more devastating election year charge than anything John Kerry could come up with.
There are a few of us out here -- me, for example -- who aren't glued to one party or another, but would simply like to see a little common sense, rationality, and respect for science and data from the people running this country. Evidently, that's too much to ask.
Uh, when was the last time the Republicans had a balanced budget?
eric at March 29, 2004 8:00 AM
http://brain-terminal.com/video/nyc-2004-03-20/
Lauren at March 29, 2004 8:57 AM
Lauren, per usual, you don't get it. It's not just Republicans or Democrats who lie. If somebody's in politics, pretty much, they're probably a sleaze.
Amy Alkon at March 29, 2004 1:03 PM
Lauren- I just saw the video you suggested. I don't see any point behind it. Everyone (who reads or follows the news) remembers that Clinton spent years bombing Iraqi military installations and enforcing the no-fly zone. That you can ask Americans to identify a statement to a specific politician is a pipe dream.
I have always thought this war was a family vendetta. It appears that now the truth is coming out more and more. I hope that Mr Bush felt he was acting on good intelligence with good conscious for the American people, but I really doubt it. That we sent troops to kill and die should be examined now, in the most public way possible. On Meet the Press Sunday, Mr Clark welcomed the proposal to declassify his meeting with the presidents advisors, including Rice and Powell. It seems the only ones not wanting to discuss the true issue is the administration.
Finally, if I may share a quote I cut out years ago from a history book:
Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honours and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing minds, are added to those of the subduing force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.... The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast: ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
See if you can identify who wrote that one. I will tell the answer tommorrow.
eric at March 29, 2004 2:47 PM
Fifty million people brought to freedom, and you think it's a family vendetta? Christian George Bush has probably done more for Muslim life than any single man in the last, oh, six hundred years. Snarktards are crawling from their wretched crevices, twisting their descriptions of recent history in the most despicable and cowardly manner imaginable. But a few of us, like the filmaker above, were paying attention last year, and recognize the WMD arguments for the minor element in W's reasoning that they were. The history of the US and Iraq in the past generation or two is a shitbath, and many of us are PROUD of this boomer President for risking sleep, treasure and blood to clean up a mess that WE created.
Your source is Madison, who might well have acknowledged that there are oppressions greater than war... Which is why war happens. It's like divorce: it sucks, but it's better than some marriages. You want to live in a world without war? Great, I can recommend some island nations I've visited. Of course, they don't have much liberty either.
The best handy collection of quotes on WMDs can be found here:
http://www.rightwingnews.com/quotes/demsonwmds.php
And I can mail you a few that he missed, if need be.
Crid at March 30, 2004 3:26 AM
Yes, it's wonderful that a murderous dictator has been brought to justice. But as I've said before, if that's our standard for acting as the world's policemen, well, there are many, many places we need to immediately enter to police. I am not a dove who advocated staying out of the Middle East. But Al Qaeda attacks the US? You go directly after Al Qaeda. You don't detour to North Korea. Ooops, how about their possession of WMD? When are we going in there?
Amy Alkon at March 30, 2004 4:34 AM
Could you remind me again when Jesus said it was the right thing to do to go in and bomb another country? After all, Mr Bush did say that Jesus Christ was the political figure he would most model himself after. 11,000 people may be a small price for 50 million, but didn't Jesus's Dad say something about "thou shalt not kill"? Maybe that was more of a suggestion than a commandment.
Everyone is glad Saddam is gone. I really can't see Iraq turning into a democracy any time soon. I see more of a civil war situation on the horizon. Religious and ethnic differences are not going to go away because now the can vote every couple years.
Going back to Madison (whom I applaud you for knowing) I would like to go back to the old days when the president went before Congress and asked for a declaration of war. Anytime we need to send a missile overseas to protect ourselves, the checks and balances that were designed into our government should be used. Just another unrealistic liberal opinion...
eric at March 30, 2004 8:11 AM
>> if that's our standard for acting as the world's policemen...
It's not just that he was a murderous thug. He was OUR murderous thug. And a neighborhood belligerent whose humiliating takedown had wonderful exemplary value for his many thuggish imitators. If you want to argue about standards, consider Bush's speeches from last November: If he meant what he said, then he's Honest Abe Lincoln for a new millennium, and the USA has entirely new method of dealing with vendor nations. About time, doncha think?
>> ...North Korea. Ooops, how about their possession of WMD?
I dunno, let's ask HANS BLIX. He's the one who certified NK as working strenuously to comply with international demands to dismantle their nuclear program in the mid-90's. You can find this on the web in ten seconds, he was General Director of the IAEA. Your question answers itself; their possession of WMDs sucks, and we should discourage such empowerment elsewhere.
>> Could you remind me again when Jesus said it was the right thing to do to go in and bomb another country?
After the decades years of gruesome Hell we've put those people through, your question is simply not decent. It's not decent to savage a nation as brutally as we did Iraq, then throw up our hands squealing "Sovereignty!" and wait for some imaginary array of international forces to repair our damage. Just as a f'rinstance: If you look at the world section of your newspaper this week, you'll read that the U.N. oil-for-food program was a corruption that made Enron, Worldcom and Tyco look like a rollaway nickels at the lemonade stand. Real, starving Iraqi children went hungry, and sickly ones were given bad medicine. Meanwhile Russian oligarchs and French ruffians cleaned up.
While not a practicing Christian, it's my understanding that the best translation reads "Thou shalt not commit murder." That's a different ball of wax, isn't it?
>> Anytime we need to send a missile overseas...
What is it about liberals that makes them want to squirt missiles to the exclusion of all other intercourse?
>> ...the checks and balances that were designed into our government should be used.
Bush had the votes from Congress and he moved forward. Representative government is not about paralyzing bureaucracy.
>> Going back to Madison (whom I applaud you for knowing)...
I Googled him. Has it occured to you that he might have been wrong? That there are worse things than war, such as abject servitude?
That's what offends most harshly about the people who say we had no business liberating Iraq. It hurts to know there are so many people walking around today who would never, ever have lifted a finger to liberate American slaves.
Crid at March 30, 2004 11:52 AM
Crid- I think we are kinda sorta arguing the same thing. First, I agree that the West has more than a little responsibilty for turning Irag into what it is. If I understand you, you are saying that this was the best way to clean up the mess. On that I disagree with you.
Starving children are a perfect motivator for overthrowing a corrupt government. America should have helped almost did after first gulf war. Then Bush#1 betrayed the (I believe) Sunnis. (gotta look that up later if it was Sunnis or Shiites).
Second, I agree that war is more palatable than other things, such as Facism or slavery.
Third, I definitely prefer intercourse to military solutions. I'm a "make love not war" kinda guy. (Funny thing, this is a complete turnaround for me when I was ready to go to El Salvador/Nicaragua when I was a 19yo hawk. I just mellowed with age.)
Lastly, I find the wisdom of the American founding fathers more inspiring as I get older. Madison and Jefferson did make mistakes in their Presidencies with pacifism, but the philosophies they created took into account the corruption of power and sought to control them.
eric at March 30, 2004 1:53 PM
>>this was the best way to clean up the mess. On that I disagree with you.
We note that no counterproposal is offered. Presumably, you'd have wanted Blix in there even to this day and for years ahead, doing the same bang-up job he did in NK. (As it is, Kim Jong Il has fewer potential destinations for export of his wares.) Meanwhile Saddam & his sons would still be filling mass graves, and schoolgirls in Afghanistan would still be illiterate.
>>Then Bush#1 betrayed...
That's the beauty of this. American foreign policy has changed! How cool is that? I've been waiting my whole life for it. And I'll always remember that it was Republican boomers who did it, not Democrats.
Crid at March 31, 2004 1:32 PM
Is Bush #1 a boomer? I may not be following this thread very well.
A.Ho at March 31, 2004 5:44 PM
George Herbert Walker Bush/41 formed a prissy coalition to sweep Iraq out of Kuwait, then allowed Hussein to sweep the Shia in Kerbala and environs with helicopter gunships when the victims had every reason to expect US (coalition) protection. George Walker Bush/43 chased Saddam out of power, killed his sons, dragged his ass out of a hole in the ground and made of fun of him when he complained about a toothache. See the difference? I bet there have been some really interesting moments at the Kennebunkport dinner table during recent holiday meals.
LOOK CAREFULLY at those photos of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in 1984!
http://images.google.com/images?=hussein+rumsfeld
Rumsfeld doesn't do that any more. Get the picture? Foreign policy has CHANGED.
Crid at March 31, 2004 9:14 PM
Right. What I also took away is that you referred to HW Bush as a 'boomer'. I assumed baby-boomer. Did you mean something else?
A.Ho at April 2, 2004 8:15 PM
or maybe you were referring to Rumsfeld and the crew?
A.Ho at April 2, 2004 8:23 PM
Read carefully. This isn't you're Daddy's Bush Administration.
Mark at April 3, 2004 10:19 AM