I Cogitate
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Let's give due credit to George W. Bush
I don't often quote David Ignatius because he comes off too often as not bold enough, a little too accepting of the conventional wisdom to me. But he recently penned a column that demonstrates his eyes are at last becoming more wide open and he is finally beginning to see the Bush-aholics for what they are: people who could care less about good governance and serving the American public and entirely focused on greed and power and the acquisiton of more and more and more...
"...The Bush political operatives have become the people the Republicans once warned the country against -- a club of insiders who seem to think that they're better than other folks. They are so contemptuous of government and the public servants who populate it that they have been unable to govern effectively. They are a smug, inward-looking elite that thinks it knows who the good guys are by the political labels they wear.But still, what is missing is that Ignatius is simplistically attributing all of the above to "the Bush political operatives." to the leader and members of the CPA, to Porter Goss and his appointees and Michael Brown--as if these people somehow appeared out of a void. Earth to David Ignatius: who approved and appointed the Bush political operatives? Who approved and appointed Paul Bremer? Who approved and nominated Porter Goss? Who approved and appointed Michael Brown? And while we are at it, who approved and nominated Donald Rumsfeld? Which doofus selected Dick Cheney?
This contempt has been evident in many of the administration's failures. The disastrous incompetence of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 flowed from its status as a clubhouse for ambitious conservatives eager to punch a political ticket in a country they knew nothing about. The political purges that enfeebled the CIA in 2005 were the work of a conservative former member of Congress, Porter Goss, and a coterie of political aides he brought from Capitol Hill who thought they knew more about intelligence than career professionals. The administration's signature failure, its bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, was the work of a right-wing political appointee who knew almost nothing about disaster management and who scorned many of the bureaucrats who worked for him..."
The common denominator in all these debacles and travesties are George W. Bush and his faithful sidekick Karl Rove.
Here Bush described Bremer as "a can-do type person who shares Americans' deep desire to have an orderly country in Iraq that is free and at peace, where the average citizen has a chance to achieve his or her dreams." Here he waxes eloquently about Goss. And who can forget Bush's laudatory remark "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" during Hurricane Katrina? Rumsfeld, even after his dismissal, was being described thusly: "Don Rumsfeld has been a superb leader during a time of change."
Ignatius closes his column with:
"...Let the GOP be the party of smart alecks and know-it-alls and smirking e-mail writers. The Republicans have made a bed of political arrogance; let them sleep in it for a good long while.My correction of Ignatius: We cannot allow any shortchanging here. You're describing George W. Bush to a T. Bush is the primary employer of smart aleck-ism, of know-it-all-ism and he has smirking down to a science. Yes, the GOP has made a bed of arrogance but it's been trumpeted, cheerleaded and the lifelong trademark of one George W. Bush. Give discredit where discredit is due.
Go here for Ignatius' entire column.
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