Fri, May 7, 2004
Politics Not Policy—4:22 PM
Events in Iraq Test President as Leader [LAT]
I'm not here to give Bush a hard time for the prisoner abuse because (as far as we know) he didn't personally do any of it. There's probably an argument to be made that the low morale of troops fighting a bloody war for purposes that have been misrepresented and for longer than they should have is the sort of thing which leads to these sorts of activities ("blowing off steam" and all that). But I'll leave it to O'Franken to get apoplectic about that – here's what I found interesting:
"There is a general sense out there that the administration does not tolerate any points of view that are contrary to theirs," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who has argued that the U.S. should seek more international support for the Iraq mission. "Good, sharp critical thinking is absolutely imperative to good policy."
From the Suskind book to the Clarke book (to, presumably, the Woodward book – I only read nudie mags, so I'll have to defer to my learned friends), we keep hearing this about the Bush administration. There's almost no focus on policy; all energy is devoted to politics and creating diversions for the media. (Also, one of my chief complaints has always been that if you disagree with them, they label you either a traitor, a terrorist, or a whiny malcontent who can be marginalized and ignored. Nice to see someone from their own party is hip to this as well.)
(I had to laugh that – at least when I viewed it – the advertisement on the page for this article was for the Canadian tourism board's comeseecanada.com)
