|
 |
November 29, 2003 SCORING BUSH....I'm not sure I really want to open this can of worms, but I'm sort of curious about something, so I guess I will after all. Here's the background question: was it reasonable back in January for a liberal to believe that George Bush was serious about building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq? I believed that for a while, but once Bush's plans (or lack thereof) started to become clear I changed my mind, and that combined with some extreme fishiness about Iraq's WMD eventually led me to turn against the war. But how could I possible have believed this in the first place? After all, my friends tell me, you know what Bush is like. He's a corrupt, thieving, crony capitalist and everything he touches turns to shit. Why would you give him the benefit of the doubt even for a minute? The reason is simple: I loathe Bush primarily because I loathe his policy goals, not his ability to execute them, and in this case it seemed reasonable that his policy goals and mine might be pretty similar. Sure, he'd try to throw some business to his pals, but even a completely cynical reading of the man would tell you that a peaceful, stable, moderately free and democratic Iraq was something Bush genuinely wanted. After all, it's good for reelection and it's good for business. So given that there were decent reasons to think he really wanted to accomplish this, the next step was to figure out if his administration was competent enough to pull it off. And this is the question I'm curious about: in general, how competent has the Bush administration been? In other words, if you accept his policy goals as worthy (just close your eyes and pretend, OK?), how good has he been at achieving them? So I mentally went through some of his major policy initiatives:
And since the Iraq war there have been a few others:
So that's about 37 out of 80, or 46%, which is probably a pretty average score for a president. (Remember, this is based on his policy goals, not mine or yours. Based on my policy preferences, he'd score less than 10%.) So there you have it. My take on Bush is that he's fair to middling at accomplishing the stuff he wants to accomplish, and unlike the economy, where he really doesn't need to worry about long-term disaster, he does need to worry about short-term disaster in Iraq. So given that he really would like to see Iraq turn out well, why did he allow the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Feith gang to work out a plan that was so obviously divorced from real world considerations? And why did the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Feith gang believe this stuff in the first place? There are plenty of cheap answers to this question, but few satisfying ones. It's a real mystery. Posted by Kevin Drum at November 29, 2003 05:21 PM | TrackBackComments
"Was it reasonable back in January for a liberal to believe that George Bush was serious about building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq?" No. It was pathological. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 05:30 PM | PERMALINK"He's a corrupt, thieving, crony capitalist and everything he touches turns to shit. Why would you give him the benefit of the doubt even for a minute?" Maybe you're not really a Liberal, Kevin. Maybe you're just A MORON! Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 05:31 PM | PERMALINKThe factor you're leaving out, I think, is the underlying *reason* for the policy positions that you loathe. He's terrible at managing the economy because he and/or his staff are willing to talk themselves into believing absolutely anything no matter how ridiculous, as long as it serves as a justification for a tax cut. If he didn't have that far more fundamental flaw, of believing whatever he wants to believe regardless of evidence, then he'd probably be a great deal more successful at managing the economy. By the same token, he's been terrible at managing this war because he and his staff were capable of being talked into absolutely anything, so long as it served as a justification for a war that they already wanted. Posted by: Evan at November 29, 2003 05:33 PM | PERMALINK"So given that there were decent reasons to think he really wanted
to accomplish this, the next step was to figure out if his
administration was competent enough to pull it off. And this is the
question I'm curious about: in general, how competent has the Bush
administration been? In other words, if you accept his policy goals as
worthy (just close your eyes and pretend, OK?), how good has he been at
achieving them? No good at all. Worthless. Except to the dleusional who'll believe anything. Cathy Seipp for instance. "Education: given his policy goals, I'd say NCLB accomplished them reasonably well. Let's score it as 6 points out of 10." What on EARTH are you talking about? He's a Republican. He wants nothing more than to destroy public school education in this country, keep the poor stupid (they make better cannon fodder that way), and keep what's left of the middle class in line. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 05:35 PM | PERMALINK"Stem cells: again, given what he wanted to accomplish, he straddled pretty well on this. 6 out of 10." He wants to eliminate stem cell research, Kevin. ELIMINATE IT!!! HE'S A RELIGIOUS FANATIC!!! "Afghanistan: there are lots of problems here, but the initial war went well and it's not a complete disaster in any case. Let's say 4 out of 10." What would be "a complete disaster" by your lights? The Taliban is back in power. No sight of Osmama. THOUSANDS DEAD AND THEIR BLOOD IS ON OUR HANDS!!!!
"Homeland Security Department: he fought it for a long time, but once he decided to get behind it he got what he wanted. 7 out of 10." What he wanted was to stop all further investigation of 9/11. I'd say 10 out of 10. "Partial birth abortion: good execution here. 9 out of 10." "Good execution" of who? Poor pregnant women, that's who!
Not entirely. He wants to end Medicare. The poor can't die fast enough for him.
Not at all. Halliburton is doing very well. Kevin, "My take on Bush is that he's fair to middling at accomplishing the stuff he wants to accomplish, and unlike the economy, where he really doesn't need to worry about long-term disaster, he does need to worry about short-term disaster in Iraq." No, he needs to worry about the economy too,Kevin. With the National Guard in Baghdad there's nobody to protect the "Homeland" when poor start rioting. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 05:45 PM | PERMALINKAs for his economic, fiscal, and trade policies: suppose his goals are 1.) to be re-elected in 2004, 2.) To dish out favors to his friends and contributors, and 3.) put the federal government in a disastrous fiscal crisis at some later date (the "bankrupt the government so you can shrink it" plan). Maybe it all makes sense. The protectionism and big-spending are vote-buying, tax policy is favors to friends, and all of them put together lead to fiscal crisis. Thus, whoever follows Bush, perhaps a Democrat (ideal for Bush), will have to impose austerity. "This isn't what I want to do, but the fiscal realities are forcing our hand". (Come on, David -- a lot of moderates are starting to come around. Let's not make it hard for them. ) Posted by: Zizka at November 29, 2003 05:47 PM | PERMALINKI'll spare the vitriol, but I think Ms. ExLurker has it right in that your scoring system is flawed. Legislatively or via Exec. Order he might get a passing grade on Education and Stem Cell research, but follow-up with money on the NCLB has been awful, and he took the most outlandishly optimistic finding he could get on the number of stem cell lines available, and hasn't adjusted. Posted by: Linkmeister at November 29, 2003 05:50 PM | PERMALINKI'm not sure I really want to open this can of worms So what did you mean by that, Kevin? Heh. Maybe you meant can of Ehrensteins. Posted by: Kevin K. at November 29, 2003 05:51 PM | PERMALINKAs for the economy the only way he measures it is by cutting taxes. He did this three times. To supply side idiots like Kudlow who wrote a book about how great the Bush economy is, it's been a smashing success. Never mind that that metric means nothing to real world people. Posted by: Elrod at November 29, 2003 05:52 PM | PERMALINKMr Ehrenstein, "Remember, this is based on his policy goals, not mine or yours. Based on my policy preferences, he'd score less than 10%." And also this: "There are plenty of cheap answers to this question, but few satisfying ones. It's a real mystery." Posted by: Dave at November 29, 2003 05:54 PM | PERMALINKAt risk of repeating the exact same run of arguments that probably prompted this posting in the first place (namely, the responses to the MY/New Yorker article posting Kevin put up yesterday), i think kevin is using "policy" goals when he should be using the term "political" goals. As no less an observer than Bill Clinton has noted, George Bush is a very able politician, and his political goals are quite clear: in addition to getting re-elected, they include playing to the base on tax-cutting, abortion, and similar hot button issues, while on all other matters, he works to strengthen what i'll call the interests of crony capitalism (just to keep this short). And he does a very good job at pushing this stuff through. But to me, these don't add up - and his performance doesn't add up - to anything resembling policy. Is it a sensible policy to cut taxes like a Reaganite and spend like LBJ? And along similar lines, is it a sensible policy to re-create the conditions of structural deficit on the eve of baby boomer retirement? Is it a sensible policy to talk favorably about free trade and then undercut it with your actions? Is it a sensible policy to complicate the medicare system for an incomplete, ill-considered, and unaffordable drug benefit? Is it a sensible policy to morph your rogue state missile defense system into an all-purpose Axis of Evil? And along similar lines, is it a sensible policy to conflate the problem of terrorism with the problem of undemocratic states? Is it a sensible policy to determine foreign policy choices on whether or not you like the head of any given foreign country? I could go on, but why bother? The point is, these aren't "partisan" complaints: almost everything in my list, for instance, has been uttered by Cato, and elements of my list can be heard from John McCain, George Will, the Weekly Standard, Chuck Hagel, Warren Rudman, and sundry other Republican and conservative luminaries. This is why, in my estimation, the outcome (and now i am being redundant with the previous round) in iraq shouldn't have been a surprise: there is nothing substantive in what Kevin is calling Bush "policies," although there is a great deal of political expertise underlying them. But while politics ain't beanbag, it ain't Noh drama either, and the disconnect between politics and policy on Bush's part is the underlying reason for the distaste so many of us have for what he's done in office. P.S. Me? I don't "hate" Bush, although i dislike the man intensely as I have disliked every spoiled rich kid i have ever met, but i do "hate" where he is taking the country.... Posted by: howard at November 29, 2003 05:55 PM | PERMALINKI think the answer to this question depends on where you think Bush is coming from. If he is a moderate, then you could say he is not doing too well based on employment figures, the situation in Iraq, and an absolute failure in coming to terms with the environment (which can't really wait until the economy is doing better). If he is a Norquist-style Republican, then he may be doing well in dismantling the government's social programs, but has not managed to curtail spending. Posted by: Chris at November 29, 2003 05:59 PM | PERMALINKAssuming you've not yet done so, you may want to look at John Dean's two-part series "An Early Assessment By Leading Presidential Scholars of George W. Bush's Presidency" at FindLaw. More important than Dean's articles are the conference proceedings he links to--the work of the "Leading Presidential Scholars." Posted by: &y at November 29, 2003 06:02 PM | PERMALINKThis whole shrink the government so it can be drowned in a bathtub
strategy. Whether that is Bush co's strategy or not, (which I believe
it is), as someone who hopes to still be around for 20 or more years,
just the SUSPICION that that is their plan is enough for me. If that
really is their plan, say goodbye to the middle class and the United
States even being a Superpower much less the ONLY Superpower. Can ya
all say CHINA? At least the leaders 50 years ago had a lot of sense
and didn't just look at the short term. "building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq" I think that given historical and cultural realities this was something of a pipedream in the first place. Not all "policy goals" are created equal. And the idea that Anglo/American force could accomplish this without the support of the other major world and regional players (let alone the UN), and still fight on effectively in Afghanistan, was also (to me) pretty obviously unrealistic. I'm a bit puzzled that you (Kevin Drum) are able to separate the above the above "policy goal" (building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq) from the clearly stated goals of the PNAC neocons behind the change in US policy that the invasion of Iraq represents, i.e., the establishment of US hegemony in the Middle East, beginning with Iraq. Or that invasion (conquest) was the only alternative to "doing nothing", as opposed to, say, a gradual tightening of the noose/smart sanctions/tougher inspection demands. Maybe I read you incorrectly. Posted by: Robuzo at November 29, 2003 06:05 PM | PERMALINKWhy did Bush believe it? I think he had neither the education nor the critical thinking abilities to see past what was, after all, a pretty good line. The Chalabi line was the sort of thing that often gets floated at a board meeting and then, eventually, gets shot down. Frankly, I think Bush was conned. He just wasn't smart enough to think his way around this. Why did the con men think it would work? They didn't. They thought it could work. And if it did, they owned all the oil in Iraq. Posted by: Finny at November 29, 2003 06:06 PM | PERMALINK"Come on, David -- a lot of moderates are starting to come around. Let's not make it hard for them." Tough Love, Zizka. Tough as nails. Tougher even. "There are plenty of cheap answers to this question, but few satisfying ones. It's a real mystery." The THOUSANDS we've killed don't constitute a "cheap answer." And there's no mystery to any of this at all. Read Sade. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 06:07 PM | PERMALINKMy favorite May '68 slogan was always "Nous sommes tous les juifs allemand." Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 06:09 PM | PERMALINKThat's blood on our hands, people! And we're going to pay for it!!! Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 06:11 PM | PERMALINKYou are just too kind. I never understood why the war liberals--whether temporary like you or semi-permanent--could not see the utter impotency we had put on Iraq with no-fly zones in the north and south as we regularly took out command and control centers and had weapons inspectors reporting back that there was no there there. As we know Powell said in Egypt in early 2001 Saddam was no threat to us or his neighbors. He had no air defense system; he had no air force. If ever there were a paper tiger, he was it. Our tanks in gulf war 1 killed his before they knew we were there. As I said in a post at Matthew Y's place, Bush2 has destroyed his father's greatest accomplishment in foreign policy and he has destroyed the pay for what you want policy that bush1 established back in 1991 that helped Clinton and the republicans generate surpluses by 1999. The son has indeed killed his father. I also do not understand why the word lie is so hard to apply to this current administration when it was so easy to apply to Clinton, on totally trivial things involving not life and death, but only Clinton's political and sexual well-being. thelrd in TEXAS Posted by: Larry Davis at November 29, 2003 06:14 PM | PERMALINKResponding to this post doesn't make much sense unless you're willing to try and evaluate Bush's success based on his policy preferences, and pretending that he doesn't have any and is interested in nothing more than filling the pockets of his contributors doesn't really shed much light on anything. All politicians want to reward their supporters. On stem cells, for example his policy preference was to stop stem cell research. He largely succeeded. On education he wanted to move a step toward support for vouchers. He partly succeeded. On Medicare he wanted to put private sector competition on the table. He partly succeeded. I don't like any of this, but the fact is that Bush has had a moderate amount of success in getting his policy goals implemented. Not a huge amount of success, but as I said in the main post, fair to middling. So given that, why has he failed so miserably in Iraq? It's still a bit of a mystery. In fact, I find Bush much more of mystery than any other president during my lifetime. With most presidents, whether I like them or not, I at least feel like I know what they're trying to do. With Bush I really don't a lot of the time. He's hard to get a handle on. Posted by: Kevin Drum at November 29, 2003 06:16 PM | PERMALINKI think part of the mystery can be cleared up by untangling the various pieces of what you refer to as "Bush" in the singular. That which has set and accomplished (to varying degrees of success) policy goals is not Bush the man but the White House organization, of which Bush is an important part but not the sole actor or motivator. The goals you list and the scores you give (to some of which I would take serious exception, but this is not the place) should be attributed to the organization, and with that qualification I would agree with you: this White House has been fair-to-middling at getting what it wants. (This is, BTW, consistent with my reading of Bush's PERSONAL track record, which is pretty damn poor and heavily dependent for success on the intervention of others, but again this is not the place.) So then the question becomes how did this middling-competent White House settle on a policy that was "so obviously divorced from real world considerations," and that becomes a question in organizational decision-making (OD; a specialty of OB). As any student of OD will happily run on about, OD does not follow the usual axioms of individual decision-making, or even what would seem to be common sense. The effects of a decision are not necessarily relevant to its purported topic. Not all relevant information known within the organization is applied to a decision. Groups decide on a course of action despite every individual in the group preferring an alternative (the SAME alternative, that is). Internal norms conflict with, and take precedence over, external norms. "Power" (whatever exactly that is) trumps rationality. In this case, a particularly relevant factor would seem to be that, as has been well documented by now, the information reaching the senior people (notably Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld, and from them Bush himself) was badly biased, first because people told them what it was thought they wanted to hear, and second because institutional rivalries (notably versus State and the CIA) blocked other points of view. A corollary thus would be that they really thought they were doing the right thing, given the information that was available to them. (Darker motives may also be ascribed, e.g., that they were also in it for the profits, or that like the Cold Warriors of yore, these guys WANT a terrorist threat, the better to build and solidify a National Security State. I would put more stock in the former than in the latter, since, now that it has been discovered that Iraq's oil industry is a shambles, we're scrambling for a way out, but again, this is not the place.) Good reading on OD in general can be found in James March's writings, or those of the "Carnegie School" in general. Posted by: bleh at November 29, 2003 06:18 PM | PERMALINK"With most presidents, whether I like them or not, I at least feel like I know what they're trying to do. With Bush I really don't a lot of the time." If you watch what they do (and what they've done and said in the past), not what they say, it's horrifyingly obvious. Posted by: alias at November 29, 2003 06:20 PM | PERMALINK"In fact, I find Bush much more of mystery than any other president during my lifetime. With most presidents, whether I like them or not, I at least feel like I know what they're trying to do. With Bush I really don't a lot of the time. He's hard to get a handle on." There's no mystery atall, Kevin.He wants what Grover Norquist wants. The only difference is Grover will admit it. Dubbya will say something suitably vague. Remember his "We are all sinners," bit when questioned about gay rights? It's all about display. Push the House Niggers (disgusting toadies who'd push their own mothers head first into the gas ovens) out in front and mouth inanities about "compassion" and wanting to "unite" people. Deeds not Words. And Results not "Goals." The Iraq attack is a disaster. We are now the most hated nation on earth -- and with good reason. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 06:25 PM | PERMALINKKevin, I had an instant gut reaction reading your last. He's a mystery to you because religion pervades this administration. I'm not sure I'm capable of explaining why, but since I'm a former conservative from a VERY religious family, I just think evangelical Christianity plays a HUGE part -- greater than most liberals realize -- in every decision Bush, and others in his administration, make. In their minds, the Iraq invasion was RIGHT, in a way that someone not raised in an evangelical environment can't understand. I don't know if that makes a bit of sense, but there it is :) And let me just add that, David Ehrenstein, you are the poster child for all the reasons anyone my age or younger votes for the thugs. Wise up, why don't you? There's a difference between being right and dumb, and right and smart. Posted by: jackson at November 29, 2003 06:30 PM | PERMALINKOkay, David, now you're just being plain dumb. And apologies to Kevin if he is religious and I haven't picked up on it. Posted by: jackson at November 29, 2003 06:33 PM | PERMALINKKevin, i know you're one of the nicest guys in the universe and all, and i truly appreciate your attempt to be fair-minded on the subject of george bush, but i don't get why you dignify any of his efforts with the term "policy." I think you'll find him much less of a mystery if you assume that he likes simple solutions and slogans and political advantage, all of which are much easier to formulate than actual, authentic policy solutions to problems and issues. Posted by: howard at November 29, 2003 06:35 PM | PERMALINK"was it reasonable back in January for a liberal to believe that George Bush was serious about building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq?" By any definition of reasonable it was. Many people believe this today (me). The only way this is unreasonable is if you define unreasonable to be: all viewpoints other than my own narrow ideologically influenced opinions. Posted by: Reg at November 29, 2003 06:35 PM | PERMALINKAre you differentiating between Bush's stated goals and the real intentions that can be discerned by studying the previous actions and positions of Bush and his advisors? Because if we're talking about his real agenda, you'd have to score the NCLB legislation much, much higher than 6 out of 10. What they want is to push vouchers for schools in order to kill off public education. By underfunding NCLB, by writing rules that ensure that eventually all schools must fail (there is no way that every school, every year, will always do better than the year before, no matter what you spend), and by cutting funding for schools that fail, they have guaranteed that vouchers will be introduced in every state in the very near future. NCLB therefore rates at least a 9 out of 10. Posted by: Michael at November 29, 2003 06:36 PM | PERMALINKReg, could you possibly explain why it was reasonable to believe such a thing? Forget, for the moment, every other aspect of his presidency. We can also forget everything we now know but could only surmise back then (the unwillingness of the DOD, for instance, to listen to any other viewpoints but the cakewalk/decapitation/everyone reports to work monday/chalabbai becomes president thesis). Simply show us where, in the many speeches that bush et al made about iraq, they discussed how the post-war would go. Because i'm happy to show you that they didn't offer a budget until after the war started. I'm happy to show you that they dissed general shineski and his informed speculation about the need for boots on the ground. I'm happy to show you that they assumed that oil would pay for reconstruction. I'm happy to show you how late in the day DOD started planning anything. In short, i can cite plenty of specific, concrete evidence unique to the backbone administration handling of iraq that made it clear to me. Posted by: howard at November 29, 2003 06:41 PM | PERMALINKWhat is with the spate of Liberal Hawk soul-searching? First Matt Yglesias and now you. I'll give you credit; unlike Matt's implicit insults (opposition to the war motivated by hatred of Bush or assessment of his character), you're just engaging in post hoc self-exculpation. There are several problems with your assessment of competency. First your exercise is rather artifical with a narrow definition of competency. Basically your definition of competency is political ability, the ability to make and sell your decision. If political skill were the determinative factor for policy execution, particularly foreign policy, then LBJ should have won the Vietnam War. Second your exercise has no sense of proportion. All the policy initiatives have the same base score, 10. Partial birth abortion versus economic policy, really? Even accepting your scale, it is still flawed as a measurement. One does not need to be particularly to accomplish a goal if it just involves you ordering something done (stem cell research: implemented by executive order). Nor does one need to be particularly competent to sheperd a bill through a Congress that agress with agrees with your goals (partial birth abortion). If you lop those two off, you have 22 out of 60 or 37%. A bit more incompetent, eh? Ultimately I think there are a couple of satisfying answers. First this administration is a bit Wonderlandish: decision first, trial second. It has a tendency to make a decision based on belief and then seek justification. The economic policy that so confuses you is an example. The Bush policy is tax cuts; it's the most consistent item in his agenda. He campaigned on it and has enacted them annually. You're confused because they are not related to any concrete end. Their rationale shifts with the prevailing mood. Return the surplus; stimulate an economy in recession. One is as good the other. It is an article of faith. Likewise Iraq. The ever shifting rationale for the invasion indicates that the administration made a decision on belief then looked for rationales. The administration could not and cannot provide a rationale based on a realistic appraisal of the threat there. Those problems were apparent in January if you could withstand being buffaloed by the administration and a compliant press. Of course, an administration without a realistic appraisal of the threat is not likely to have a realistic appraisal of the aftermath either. In addition, this is an administration that is impatient and scornful of nation-building. Bush campaigned against it. And again in January it was also apparent that job in Afghanistan was far complete and yet held little interest for the administration. Frankly I do not see why it's mystery. I never understood why people trusted an administration populated by neo-Straussians who believe lying is a legitimate and necessary means and political retreads of Iran-Contra and the First Gulf War headed by a man who clearly responds guided by an agenda and not facts. Posted by: pine at November 29, 2003 06:41 PM | PERMALINK"Push the House Niggers (disgusting toadies who'd push their own mothers head first into the gas ovens) out in front and mouth inanities about "compassion" " David Ehrenstein, what a classy guy you are. Posted by: Gracho at November 29, 2003 06:43 PM | PERMALINKNothing in Bush's academic and business careers suggests that he has any capacity to accomplish anything by his own efforts. Perot in contrast is a wacky little dude but was canny enough to coax a billion dollars or so out of his business career. Those of us who watched Bush's terms in the governorship of Texas from close up know that he did as little as it is possible to do in that minimally demanding office. His record amount of vacation while occupying the White House is quite in keeping with what he does best. Nothing! Finally we have someone who is more of a non-entity than Millard Filmore. God help us. Why is it so hard for people to figure this out? Posted by: Stuart at November 29, 2003 06:47 PM | PERMALINKMy take on Bush & Iraq is that they started beating the war drums in order to position Bush for the 2002 midterm elections. Everything about the timing, the shifting rationales (based on focus groups & polling) and the immediate use of the war vote to call anyone opposing it a traitor supports this conclusion. There is no other rational answer to the question "why now?" When they began, they figured they could exploit the broad world community support for the "war on terrorism" to get the UN and especially Europe to join in. That didn't work. But they were were stuck with the policy. Their decision was to move ahead with it as quickly as possible and with the highest hopes that things would fall into place and maybe the rest of the world would join in after the hostilities. (The 'mission accomplished' was as much for the rest of the world as it was for American voters). That didn't work either. Everything since then has been Plans B through Z. They didn't and don't have a workable plan because they never expected to be in this situation. They are flailing. And struggling to manage the marketing, which was the whole point to begin with. Posted by: James E. Powell at November 29, 2003 06:52 PM | PERMALINK""And let me just add that, David Ehrenstein, you are the poster child for all the reasons anyone my age or younger votes for the thugs." Yep. And the reason is you're a fascist. "David Ehrenstein, what a classy guy you are." I've had 56 years to learn about class in this county. And race. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 06:54 PM | PERMALINKKevin, Kevin, Kevin What are we to do with you? Leaving aside Bush's politics, by January of this year he had two years to demonstrate his abilities as a leader. When it comes to photo ops, he's tops, but when it comes to actually leading, he's a total zero. If it wasn't for DeLay and Frist, just what could you say that Dumbya has accomplished? Without the pitbulls masquerading as human Congressmen, nothing of any substance would have been accomplished. So to answer your question, it was not reasonable for anyone to assume Bush would have done better than he has. Posted by: pessimist at November 29, 2003 06:56 PM | PERMALINK"I never understood why people trusted an administration populated by neo-Straussians who believe lying is a legitimate and necessary means and political retreads of Iran-Contra and the First Gulf War headed by a man who clearly responds guided by an agenda and not facts." You've nailed it, pine! Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 07:04 PM | PERMALINKI think you are asking the wrong question: Bush, I believe, is going about creating the successor type of state to the Nation State. The successor state, the Trading State idea is drawn in a book called "The Shield Of Achilles," by Philip Bobbet. The book masquerades as a history of International Law, but to me it's main reason for existence is to prove that the Trading State is a legitimate state. I call it the Enron State. Everything you dislike about the Bush League is there. Fascinating book, by the way. Posted by: Jon Stopa at November 29, 2003 07:04 PM | PERMALINKHere's a tidbit that, for me, sums up policy a la Bush in a nutshell: Today, with unemployment at 6 percent, the continuing loss of factory jobs and the notion that trade is the culprit have produced a potent political issue. Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress constantly attack Bush for pursuing economic policies that have produced few new jobs. Congressional Republicans, particularly those from industrial regions, are also uneasy about political fallout that could affect their reelection campaigns next year. The administration responded by announcing a new position, assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing, but no one has been named to the post, which has not been funded with an appropriation, a department spokesman said. All hat, no cattle. Posted by: praktike at November 29, 2003 07:04 PM | PERMALINK Mr. Ehrenstein, I just read your bio and want to say congratulations. Interviewing Andy Warhol eight years before I was born...that's pretty amazing (my closest encounter with Andy Warhol is loving the velvet underground). I am most certainly not a fascist, which I'm sure you'd agree if we had a longer conversation. (which I would find illuminating, I'm sure. If nothing else than to pick your brain about Scorsese's films.) But you're still Ben Shapiro's wet dream :) Pessimist, a big part of Kevin's premise is that you're supposed to think of the question from dubya's POV. It's hard, I know, but otherwise it's sorta pointless to comment on the question. Posted by: jackson at November 29, 2003 07:11 PM | PERMALINKI agree with jackson. Never before has the USA had a radical evangelist President. It is like trying to explain John Brown?s invasion of Harper?s Ferry rationally, you can?t. Posted by: Jim S at November 29, 2003 07:12 PM | PERMALINKAs another poster above noted, what positions and policies Bush campaigned on and what he often ends up getting for policy are often very different. He campaigned as a moderate..he governs like a radical. I personally think he is a radical so I guess he has been successful in advancing his true agenda. Here is a partial list of what I remember Bush said during his 2000 election campaign. Remember the economy was sizzling and we had a surplus...remember he
said tax cuts as did Gore, but also remember he was going to use some of
the surplus for prescription drug benefits...never happened. Remember
lock box. Plus Bush's huge debts and deficits are leading toward radical
Grover Norquist policy of government. Do I think Bush has succeeded in what he really wants...yes for the most part. But this is very different than the policies that he campaigned on. As GeneralClark said the other day...Bush pulled off the biggest Bait and Switch campaign with this war on terror and war against Iraq in our history. As far as I am concerned, I think Clark was too narrow with his use of this term. This has been the Bait and Switch Presidency. Posted by: emal at November 29, 2003 07:13 PM | PERMALINK"I am most certainly not a fascist, which I'm sure you'd agree if we had a longer conversation." Perchance not. But my watch-cry is "Never trust anyone under 30." Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 07:13 PM | PERMALINKBuilding off of what "pessimist" said, where would GWB be at right now if not for 9/11? He is a miserable failure. Posted by: James E. Powell at November 29, 2003 07:15 PM | PERMALINKIf you measure the results by what Bush intended, I think you have to review what he believes is effective. He doesn't believe that the government is capable of doing anything except conducting a war. While he has no real interest in foreign policy he has Cheney and Rumsfield to advise him (and Rumsfield is under Cheney's control.) I'm with Josh Marshall in believing that the War has been almost entirely under Cheney's control. He does not believe that government can effect the economy except by controlling the money supply and the interest rates, and Greenspan does that. Not him. But if he can get the government to stop soaking up money from the economy and leave it to private investors, the economy will recover and grow on its own. Since government is not expert in business, any regulations will simply make it more difficult to conduct business. The economy will recover more quickly if regulations are taken off businesses. I think he sees the deficits as being like those of WW II. The economy is down AND he has to spend money to fight his war on terror. Again, I think he really believes that in the long run the economy will take care of the deficits if he can just get the interference by government to where it no longer stifles the economy. Medicare is another case in which the ultimate solution is to get the government out of the business and replace it with profit-seeking businesses. In the immediate case, the lack of prescription drugs is clearly a problem. The current Medicare bill brings in the politically needed prescription drugs while arranging to replace government by private businesses. He sees the same solution for public education. The education system will improve to the extent that public schools are replaced by private ones. Has Bush ever attended a public school? Energy? Same solution. The government can't predict what will work for energy, but entrepreneurs will figure something out and make a profit at the same time. That is the magic of the invisible hand. Yes, I DO think that is magical thinking on Bush's part. But there seems to be a real constant across the board. Replace government with private businesses, get the government out of the regulation of businesses, and all the problems that are being addressed will be alleviated. Sadly, I think that I would have to rate him a little higher than you
do based on what I think his intentions are. But then, his six years as
Governor of Texas included making the improvements to the environmental
waste by grandfathered businesses voluntary. The result has been that
Houston now has worse air than Los Angeles. Why wasn't Iraq a success- Because they didn't leave midlevel military and police forces intact. They took the wrong path and completely dismantled the Iraqi state. Traditionally, colonial powers would leave some elite intact and prop them up. Around Bagdad, it seems that the only elite really available was related to Saddam. The rest of Iraqis, the majority, tend to be a bit more fundamental about their Islam and dealing with the West. Not likely to be puppets.
At any rate, the Iraq Mess seems to preventing us from going on to Syria... Posted by: Robin at November 29, 2003 07:19 PM | PERMALINKwas it reasonable back in January for a liberal to believe that George Bush was serious about building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq? Perhaps but I guess it would depend upon how one interprets the term serious. That same liberal would also have be aware at the time that this was, at best, tangential to the most prominently stated goal and vigorously promoted rationale for this engagement. The notion that Iraq was some sort of real threat was as pathetic and laughable as such previous claims of the looming menace of Panama or Grenada, even if one accepted all the "evidence" of wmd in the iraq scenario. The fact that the administration was actually trying to sell this to us with a straight face threw the issue of the seriousness of any stated humanitarian or democratization related goals into considerable doubt. Posted by: brent at November 29, 2003 07:19 PM | PERMALINKKevin, as a krugman booster you should realize Bush's true economic goals! GWB's goal is to bankrupt the government in order to "strangle government like a baby in a bathtub", so he scores a 10 out of 10. Another four more years and it'll be accomplished. Posted by: GFW at November 29, 2003 07:21 PM | PERMALINK>>So I mentally went through some of his major policy initiatives: There's ONE overriding "policy initiative" which, after 9/11 takes overwhelming precedence over all others - and which you (and, I'm sure during the next year, all Bush supporters) glaringly gave a complete 'pass' on: Finding Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive". Considering the blank check that the country gave Bush after 9/11, absolutely nothing else should matter. And Ehrenstein - when are you going to learn not to drink and post? Posted by: Andy at November 29, 2003 07:23 PM | PERMALINK...or protecting his cronies when enron hit the fan, for that matter. 10 out of 10. Posted by: GFW at November 29, 2003 07:23 PM | PERMALINKBy the way, the Department of "Homeland Security" is a fucking joke, okay? Can we stop pretending that it has anything to do with making us safer? The problem we were trying to address, intelligence failures, has nothing whatsoever to do with the DHS. The DHS simply put all the loser agencies under one roof. It's a giant pork machine. Now what happens is that money that use to go to infrastructure, say, Coast Guard Stations, instead goes to put a boat in NY Harbor to "protect us" from waterborne terrorists. /rant Posted by: praktike at November 29, 2003 07:23 PM | PERMALINKHa ha! Damn, I missed your cutoff by two months, David E. And I have to agree with James E. Powell....if not for 9/11, all we'd be talking about right now is the millions of jobs lost and the other failings of bushco. But here's a question: would bush have been able to "accomplish" everything he has without 9/11? Maybe not: would there ever have been a patriot act, for instance? Posted by: jackson at November 29, 2003 07:24 PM | PERMALINK"I find Bush much more of mystery than any other President during my lifetime." Kevin, I think the mystery can be explained easily enough. GW Bush is just a hollow shell, a semi-conscious empty vessel whose designated role is to serve as front man for the agenda of Cheney, Rove, Norquist, Lay, Delay, Scaife, and others of their ilk. There is nothing to understand about Shrub- he's a pathetic little nobody, a puppet whose strings are being jerked by the entrenched interests. Posted by: peter jung at November 29, 2003 07:25 PM | PERMALINKI think the apparent semi-competence of the Bush administration has a clear explanation. The successes in the list are success in getting things they want out of congress. If that is the measure they are doing fine on economic policy (they got the tax cuts they wanted) and Iraq (they got a blank slate). The failures are when the Bush administration gets the policy it wants out of congress and does not achieve its policy goal (stable Iraq, no child is left behind, secure homeland). In the entire list, I do not see a case where evidence is presented that they have achieved a policy goal rather than achieving a policy.
"was it reasonable back in January for a liberal to believe that George Bush was serious about building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq? " No. It has been apparent to anyone that is familar with our history of FP, that democracy is furthest from our main objectives. Stable? Yes, insofar as we can do bidness. But anyone that thought that we would spend billions of dollars and lots of lives and believed that Iraq was going to be allowed to form any type of Democacy that wasn't totally accepted/controlled by us is just...well....naive. Posted by: jdw at November 29, 2003 07:31 PM | PERMALINKInteresting post. Kev: If I'm not mistaken, you grew up in Orange County. Indeed, you've mentioned your father attended USC- so, perhaps, you're a second, third, or maybe even 4th generation Southern Californian. As every native knows, historically there has been a great divide between North and South in this state (I confine my comments to this obvious divide, although we both understand that's too simple). A few years ago, I was in Orange county for the first time. I struck up a conversation with a shuttle driver, and asked her where Nixon's library was in relation to our van. She pointedly replied that "MR. NIXON'S" library was thataway, and pointed to the southeast. I had been upbraided, and admired her for it. I'm a native San Franciscan. In this neck of the woods, and throughout my life, Richard Nixon has never been held in anything but the most gut wrenching contempt. Family, friends, acquaintences, people on the street- it didn't matter. The man was loathed by generations, from his days in the House until the day he died. I think it likely that the "political culture" in which you were raised (and don't expect me to define the term) had a lot to do with your willingness to cut Bush slack when it involved an issue of war. In short, you were prepared to accord that piss-ant the type of respect you felt a president should be dealt when the issue was war and/or peace. Most people hereabouts were not so inclined- although a surpringly large number were. It boils down to the fact that a President of the United States told
a breathtakingly bald-faced Big Lie to us all, so that his
administration might war. The enormity of the Lie caught you, and a lot
of other people, flat-footed, that's all. The onus of his/their
treachery rests with them alone: that is, until November, 2004.
Posted by: Sovereign Eye at November 29, 2003 07:34 PM | PERMALINK Kevin, I don?t know enough about the ?blocking and tackling? of politics to use your scoring methodology, but I can render an opinion about Bush?s competence. I see him as an incompetent, clueless Chief Executive who uses the old theory of stretch management to run the presidency. From my own experience, the exec who uses this method runs his organization ragged because he literally doesn?t have a clue, strategically or operationally. Setting unrealistic goals is a bureaucrat's way of keeping control of his subordinates. It?s the most common style of management used when your entire staff is smarter than you are. (Can anyone deny that in Bush?s case?) The impact of stretch management in the corporate world is that resources get spread thin, quality suffers, and budgets run out of control. Sound familiar? Aside from the impact on workers, most of the downside is financial. In the political world, unfortunately, the downside is not financial and the stakes are much higher, like human lives. Here is an example of why I drew this conclusion about Bush?s management style. This is from his interview with Britt Hume in September. The questions aren?t important, just look at Bush?s answers: -I say let?s work together on BIG issues. -The toughest job for a President is to achieve objectives, and I believe the president must set BIG objectives. And I set BIG objectives. -One of my most important jobs is to set BIG goals. -My attitude about all that is our goals and ambitions are noble. -I?m in a position now where I must set goals and inspire and lead. -Why not join nations together to achieve those kind of BIG objectives? All came from the same interview. No wonder they say everything?s BIG in Texas. He sure sounds different when he?s speaking his own words and not the speech-writer?s. Bush came into the presidency with an MBA/CEO mentality (mangement 101 by the way.) The CEO type lives in a big cushy buffer zone where screw-ups are covered up by the excesses of the corporation. Unfortunately, in the presidency, the screw-ups affect ? well, I don?t need to repeat it. For the record, I bought the whole bit about WMDs and the imminent threat, etc. I still didn't support the war because I didn?t think our economy could take another hit. But then, I was the complete sucker and fell for it when they said Iraqi oil would pay for the war. After that, I was one of the 70% or whatever the number was that supported Bush?s position on the Iraq war. Colin Powell?s pitch to the UN also persuaded me, but it has also been shown to have been bunk. If the administration had presented the truth, I would not have supported the war. Liars or morons, it doesn?t matter. They deliberately misled everyone by presenting their hunches as facts. They may have believed in their heart of hearts that their hunches would later be supported by facts, but they knew they were hunches going in. I've learned my lesson of not being involved politically and that's why I come here to learn on your board. I think you do a fabulous job of taking a position, facilitating the discussion, and offering a venue to us. For that, I say thanks. (Sorry for the long post everyone.) I believe I undestand the sense of disconnect here, Kevin. And it's kind of amusing, in a sad way, to see everyone get all crazy-worked-up about this here. But... I think I know the real reason why it's taking so long for everyone to mobilize. And it's entirely possible you'll think I'm full of shit for it, but that's the chance I'll take. It has to do with the conclusion I've reached: Bush and his people are really evil. Actual, perhaps indeed Biblical evil. Everything they have done -- everything -- has been for the benefit of their corporate cronies or political allies. Several of the programs you mentioned, e.g., NCLB, were given great huzzah press, and then quietly underfunded, in some cases down to the bone. The Kyoto Treaties were slapped down because they might get in the way of US industrial interests. Environmental laws have been gutted to help benefit old and dirty, but well-entrenched, technologies. The Bill of Rights is being put through a shredder, so Attorney General Lost To The Dead Guy can build his police state. The hunt for Osama bin Laden. The ignored information the Clinton administration tried to give them about bin Laden. The lies about the Clintons trashing the White House. North Korea. The U.N. The E.U. Valerie Plame. Mission Accomplished. Tax Cuts From Hell. Rising unemployment and the "jobless recovery". Stripping rights from workers, unemployment benefits from those in need, and basting everyone's wounds with a pittance of a tax refund. Spending $29 million telling everyone about the tax refund that they'd found out about on the news. Spending $20 million telling people about the new frickin' $20 bill that they already had in hand. And on. And on. And on. So damn many things, that the mind reels and the blogosphere groans under the strain of merely reporting it all. I genuinely think the problem is that, having got into power, these evil fucks took every chance they could on every front to enrich themselves and their friends and contributors and cronies. And their lies sound plausible until you actually parse the words, interpret the phrases, and compare them to the facts. And I think, Kevin, that you wanted to believe because it simply didn't seem possible that what these jokers do, day in and day out, can be pretty much uniformly, maliciously wrong. We want to at least believe they have good intentions, but perhaps are horribly misguided in approach or technique. I don't think so. I was willing to give Dubya the benefit of the doubt at first, even though I disagreed strenuously with the Supremes' appointment of W-A, and was waiting for the Dems to do something about it. Nothing. Our side is too reasonable, too polite. We want to believe that the power of reason can work -- and it can, unless you're dealing with greedy sociopaths. You want to know how I really, really knew? When Dubya appointed Spencer Abraham to head the Department of Energy, a Department Spence had tried to eliminate when he was a Senator from my state of Michigan. He was a terrible Senator, constantly working for oil companies and such, and basically there as a suck-up-to-money vote. When his voting record was noticed, his pasty ass was voted out. And Dubya puts him in charge of energy. Oh, yeah. That'll work. What it comes down to is, BushCo are villains. Real, world-killing bad guys. For all we know, they're trying to steer us towards the Rapture. They certainly do things as if there's no tomorrow -- because, perhaps, they don't believe there is... or, at least, they believe in making hay while the sun shines. They don't want to help people who aren't their friends, they don't respect anyone with a lesser income level than them, and they will do anything they can to consolidate their power. And it takes awhile to wrap the mind around that, because we are so used to our leaders -- even Bush I, even Nixon -- at least having the best interests of our country somewhere at heart. We don't want to believe that they could possibly be this wrong, all the freakin' time, and we hope for the confident, positive outcomes of which they speak. But those confident, positive outcomes are smokescreens. They are there only as verbiage, a barrage of vaguely soothing words to distract people long enough for the next act of evil to be set into motion. (For a sobering list, check out The Wage Slave Journal's George W. Bush Scorecard of Evil.) That's part of the reason I think Dubya pooh-poohed the World Court: He, and the entire top tier of his administration (Powell included), should be in chains before it. Posted by: filkertom at November 29, 2003 07:42 PM | PERMALINK"could you possibly explain why it was reasonable to believe such a thing?" Well for one, if half of the population of this country believes
something, it is rather hard to say the belief is unreasonable. Why would Bush fight a war, go about occupying a country and trying to pacify the hostile remnants if he wasn't serious about a stable tolerant democratic iraq? I don't know why you would think he wasn't serious. I have read no theory as to why Bush would fight such a war if he was not serious about stabilizing Iraq and making it a decent country. I suppose you could think that he fought the war as a way to siphon cash to Haliburton, but such a belief would make no sense whatsoever and would be obviously unreasonable. I suppose you could also think that Bush did it to get war points like daddy, but I don't think anybody, including Republicans thought it would be easy. Everybody seemed in agreement that Bush was taking the more difficult and more risky path. Posted by: Reg at November 29, 2003 07:55 PM | PERMALINKKevin if you no longer believe that George Bush wants to build a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq what is it you think he wants to do? I came across this web site a few days ago. I?ve enjoyed reading the
perspectives of the posters. I think I'd be best decribed politically
as a Libertarian that came from Republican roots. I do differ with
Libertarians on some things and don't belong to the party. But it gives
you an idea of where I'm coming from on a lot of issues. It has been
very interesting to read the thoughts of the people on the far left. Do
you welcome people that have very different perspectives on the subject
that are discussed here to participate or would you prefer to just keep
this a left wing club? Also, this is an aside, I don't get John Isbell's argument that this war was illegal. Surely the 91 peace treaty gives the US a right to enforce it, otherwise it would be meaningless. And what right did we violate? Did Sadaam have some right not to be invaded unless France and Germany agreed? That seems like a stretch. The US certainly never agreed to limit its military action to when the UN approved. Posted by: Reg at November 29, 2003 07:57 PM | PERMALINKDavid: Kevin *said* "according to what Bush wanted to accomplish." So stuff like this: "He wants to eliminate stem cell research, Kevin. ELIMINATE IT!!!" Is utterly irrelevant. I mean, okay, if Bush wants to eliminate stem-cell research, d'you think it's working? Because, if so, then *according to what Bush wanted to accomplish,* the policy has been a success. This is about how well Bush executes goals, not about the nature of those goals themselves. On a sidenote, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to take you seriously if you use four exclamation marks. It's a sure sign of a diseased mind. Posted by: Shoshana at November 29, 2003 08:04 PM | PERMALINKWay OT - Don't miss the extraordinary speech by Tom Brokaw on the National Press Club Awards. It's showing again on C-Span right now in the midwest. He says he remembers the day when you couldn't find a conservative reporter anywhere, and remarks how much that has changed now. He spoke about commercial nihilism coming from talk radio today and how the people are being coerced into conforming (no discussion) He should see blogosphere. Very interesting speech. Posted by: poputonian at November 29, 2003 08:13 PM | PERMALINKSomebody put David Ehrenstein back on decaff. It's too early to rate Bush as a president - though accomplishing goals as Kevin suggested is a far more neutral yardstick than political preferences. Bush - like LBJ, Truman, Reagan, Wilson and FDR - has initiated major changes in government policy that may take decades to play out. The world is still shaking from the effects of Wilson's two big ideas - national self-determination and collective security through a world organization of states - so it's a little early to declare Bush a success or failure.
The show is called "American Perspective" on c-Span. Posted by: poputonian at November 29, 2003 08:16 PM | PERMALINKReg, thanks for a nonresponsive answer. The question at hand is whether it was reasonable to believe that Bush was serious. We would know that he was serious by the things that he said and did. Sadly, the things he (and his administration) said and did revealed a complete lack of seriousness. That a good number of Americans didn't see through this lack of seriousness is a reflection of the trust that people put in their commander-in-chief, not an indication of the reasonableness of that trust. Essentially, what you're saying is that he must have been serious, because why else would he have done this? And my answer to that is that this is the shallowest, most ill-equipped man to hold the presidency at least since warren g. harding, so the fact that he thought he was being serious isn't the same as his actually being serious. Or, to put it another way, Reg, as the old joke goes, you seem to believe that there must be a pony in here somewhere, whereas I think that horseshit is just horseshit. Posted by: howard at November 29, 2003 08:18 PM | PERMALINKReg, Reg: A. "Well for one, if half of the population of this country believes something, it is rather hard to say the belief is unreasonable." Not hard at all. There's an old saying "If sixty million French say something stupid, it's still stupid". This was said by a Frenchman when the population of France was about 60 million. Someone who actually believed in reality, instead of public opinion polls like you and Rove.
For some other reason, Reg. You figure it out.
Just people holding responsible positions in the administration. they really did say "cakewalk". They really did say we'd be greeted with flowers and dancing in the streets. Posted by: Zizka at November 29, 2003 08:25 PM | PERMALINK"We would know that he was serious by the things that he said and did. Sadly, the things he (and his administration) said and did revealed a complete lack of seriousness." ???
What kind of response is this? He objectively wasn't serious though
he subjectively thought he was serious? This is nonsense. KD's question
concerns Bush's seriousness. How is it possible for a person to think
himself to be serious, without really being serious? Reg-- Again, the question is what is meant by "serious" in this formulation. Yes, I think many would argue that Bush would like there to be a stable iraq (of course many would disagree) but we all have our fantasies. The real question is, is he willing to make the sort of difficult sacrifices and compromises to make it happen. Have the people in charge of this operation done the right sort of analysis to make this goal realistic? In fact it would seem that when faced with any sort of analysis that contradicts their rosy scenario, they have either ignored it or actively sought to suppress it. Hopefulness is not the same as seriousness, especially when seriousness might involve admitting your mistakes with elections around the corner. Another way to ask this question is how "serious" this administration
has been about achieving a similarly hopeful result in Afghanistan.
There is no doubt that achieving a positive political situation in this
country would be extraordinarily difficult and faced with that
difficulty, will this administration expend the extensive resources that
will be required to make a real change? Thus far, it seems that we
intend to do little more than throw a few "bones" Hamad Karzai's way.
But then the political consequences of afghanistan don't demand the same
attention to "seriousness." Well Kev, you got the first part of this sentence right.... Responding to this post doesn't make much sense
Does it make Americans mad that Bush has been cutting veterans benefits, denying benefits, denying medical care, charging US troops for hospital food and trips home, hiding flag draped caskets, dangerously rationed water to US troops in the summer, and is now denying the first gulf war veterans injury award money BUT still turn around and ask American to do this: President Bush, having surprised the nation with his Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, asked Americans on Saturday to volunteer to help military personnel and their families. And notice how NO pundits conseravtive or otherwise responded to Bush visit to Iraq in the major newspapers? In fact some conservatives are being to complain rather loudly like this op-ed about "The Bush Betrayal". Now repeat after me everybody. Bush is unelectable. Reg -- My 12 year old daughter often states that she is serious about improving her grades and at the time that she makes the statement, I believe she is sincere. The problem is that the moment she is forced to make a painful sacrifice in order to make focus on schoolwork, she balks and whines and fusses. Nonetheless she certainly believes that she is serious about improving her grades, she just doesn't understand or is not willing to apply the discipline that is necessary if she was actually serious. Posted by: brent at November 29, 2003 08:51 PM | PERMALINKReg, let's put it this way. If i want to end up as a high net-worth individual (which, i'm sorry to say, i'm not), but my complete plan for becoming a high net-worth individual consisted of playing the lottery, then it doesn't matter how serious I claim to be about achieving my aim: i'm not serious. I have no doubt that Bush believes that he's serious: the question is whether that's a reasonable belief. And the answer to that is based on what he actually does. I've asked you to demonstrate how any reasonable person could have determined Bush's seriousness about building a stable, tolerant, democratic (and fill in any other words you want). You can't find it in his words or deeds, or those of his administration. In fact, we now know, without question, that he wasn't serious, but i was willing to waive current knowledge and settle for what a reasonable observer could have known before the war started. And here's what that reasonable observer knew: that Bush was devoting perhaps 1% of his speechmaking on iraq to the postwar; that the intel services were going crazy about cherrypicking of intel; that the military leadership was being ignored by the civilian leadership in the pentagon; that a known con man, ahmad chalabai, was the fair-haired boy of the administration decision-makers; that bush, cheney, rumsfeld, and feith all were on record hating nation-building; that there was no budget even for the war, much less the postwar; that despite there being no budget, the administration was sure that oil would pay for the reconstruction of iraq; and that, when russert asked cheney, on the sunday before the war, what if the iraqis didn't greet us as liberators, cheney refused to answer on the grounds that he really expected that we would be greeted as liberators. In short, as i said, horseshit. Now, if you spotted a pony there somewhere, please share it with us. (And no, $87B doesn't count; that's well after the time period in question, and if you insist on it, it gives me the right to bring up everything we know now: that the work of the state department planning group and the army war college on postwar iraq was ignored; that wolfowitz testified that it was impossible to conceive of needing more troops after the war than during the war; that garner was told to fire people who knew something about iraq; and a bunch more like that.) Posted by: howard at November 29, 2003 08:52 PM | PERMALINKIf taken at face value, that your question is not what Bush has done, but why you believed him, I would argue you need to ask yourself that question. Although, I think everyone here has very salient points addressing the political aspects of your question/s. I think the more important question, however, is why both sides of the political aisle thinks the other is untruthful, cynical and full of malice (And, I don?t mean the historical, philosophical or economic reasons for this). I sigh a heavy breath whenever anyone, no matter their political stripe, claims truth. I am Protestant and I am a long time progressive (I prefer the straight fight) but I don?t think ANYONE has license to the truth, as I believe there are many truths in this world. Kevin, you know why you asked the question and I?ll bet you know the answer. I hope you will share. Posted by: Aimie at November 29, 2003 08:58 PM | PERMALINK>The problem is that you seem to rate success by whether a bill was passed or not, this requires completely different skills than achieving real world results. This is an excellent point. Bush can get his legislative agenda enacted because of his legislative majorities. His failures have been rare (media consolidation, energy). But when he has to encounter REALITY, things go a bit whopperjawed for ol' Duhbya. Posted by: grytpype at November 29, 2003 09:00 PM | PERMALINK>why you believed him I always doubted, especially after the disasterous SOTU, but I found it hard to believe the Administration could lie as flagrently as they were doing. It's just so shocking and unfathomable. How could they do it? One of Bush's secrets is that his crimes are so huge, if you describe them accurately you sound like a lunatic. Posted by: grytpype at November 29, 2003 09:02 PM | PERMALINKlets make a deal MH: do you want fabulous democracy for Iraq behind door number 1. Or what's behind door number two: osama bin laden GWB: (clapping secretly in his mind: number three, number three) mmm (aahk) Number Three, Monty. Doors open up: Cluster fuck simple he has no luck ha ha herman Posted by: Ha Ha Herman at November 29, 2003 09:02 PM | PERMALINKThis is how you define serious (in the context of Iraq): In other words, hasty Iraqification and talk of standing down our military presence (which we'll need for the stability of the country in lieu of ANY alternative force for the forseeable future) means Bush is not serious about Iraq. Committing to long-term military and economic support, with an explicit statement of the MINIMUM amount of time we're likely to be there - not just hints like "whatever it takes", I want Bush to say we will be there for at least a decade in order for me to believe it - a willingness and flexibility to surrender some of the less important items like oil and reconstruction contracts in order to gain more international political support, and a frankness with the American people that American lives and dollars will be lost in this fight (going to Iraq is a good start but how about showing support for those families and soldiers who've already given their lives and limbs for the cause) will convince me that Bush is serious about the mission in Iraq. Posted by: Elrod at November 29, 2003 09:04 PM | PERMALINKOFF Topic: How many debates do you think bush will endure? Will the press actually expect him to perform like a man that been president for the past three plus years? Posted by: Texan at November 29, 2003 09:07 PM | PERMALINKReg: The US certainly never agreed to limit its military action to when the UN approved. In fact, Reg, the US did exactly that when it signed the treaty joining the UN. You may want to brush up on your familiarity with the US Constitution, especially Article VI, Clause 2: "...all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." Therefore, the supreme Law of the Land is that we will only use force when the UN approves under Chapter VII of its Charter. The only exception in found in Article 51 of Chapter VII: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security." Obviously the invasion of Iraq did not fall under Article 51. This is why the Bush administration used such preposterous, tortured readings of UN Security Council resolutions to claim it had the authority to invade Iraq. No one on earth believed it, except maybe for the State Department's lawyers, and probably not even them. Richard Perle was honest enough recently to say the invasion in fact was illegal under international law. The rest of your statement: I don't get John Isbell's argument that this war was illegal. Surely the 91 peace treaty gives the US a right to enforce it, otherwise it would be meaningless. And what right did we violate? Did Sadaam have some right not to be invaded unless France and Germany agreed? That seems like a stretch. shows many other, and just as profound, misunderstandings of this issue. In any case, the point is that before you go making any more pronouncements in this area, it would be a good idea to gain the most basic knowledge about it. Posted by: Evan Weisberg at November 29, 2003 09:18 PM | PERMALINKKevin, as your score is purely subjective, I would love to see you score the other Presidents on their first term accomplishments (start with JFK and work your way up). Interesting to see how objective you are in your historical analysis. Posted by: Timmy the Wonder Dog at November 29, 2003 09:20 PM | PERMALINKMy score Bush 64% in the first term Clinton 40% in the first term now go ahead and quibble Posted by: Timmy the Wonder Dog at November 29, 2003 09:30 PM | PERMALINK"And Ehrenstein - when are you going to learn not to drink and post?" Conservabot Boilerplate: Anyone who departs from the script must be an alcoholic. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 29, 2003 09:37 PM | PERMALINKReg: "Also, this is an aside, I don't get John Isbell's argument that
this war was illegal. Surely the 91 peace treaty gives the US a right
to enforce it, otherwise it would be meaningless. And what right did we
violate? Did Sadaam have some right not to be invaded unless France and
Germany agreed? That seems like a stretch. The US certainly never agreed
to limit its military action to when the UN approved." "You seem seriously confused, sorry. The cases you cite (Haiti,
Liberia) don't fit the categories of either preemptive (imminent threat,
clear and present danger) or preventive (anticipatory self-defense)
wars, because neither country presented any danger to the US at all. But then the US wants to obscure the meaning of the word preemption so that it simply means - we will attack anywhere, anyplace, anytime whenever we feel there might be a perceived terrorist threat: Legal scholars and international jurists often NSS 2002, p.15 Building off of what "pessimist" said, where would GWB be at right now if not for 9/11? He is a miserable failure. what's worse -- 9/11/01 is in itself a failure of the Bush admin -- the most fatal failure of federal law enforcement to protect civilians and property since . . . . . . . . . shit, ever? I pay my taxes for keeping track of potential terrorists, not whorehouses in New Orleans, you asshole ASHCROFT! A democratic Iraq being good for business? Why would anyone assume Bush would think that? Not when Cheney and the other oil/military contractor men were friendly with Saddam and every other dictator in the region. Posted by: dan at November 29, 2003 09:47 PM | PERMALINKso it's a little early to declare Bush a success or failure the rest (partial birth abortion ban, right-to-death crackdowns,
medical marijuana crackdowns, Enron, california energy rip-off games,
whacked judicial appointments, etc etc) is just chickenshit in
comparison. I take your point about different goals, but I think you're being way too generous about the most direct comparison: Afghanistan. I'm not a pacifist and as an abstract concept you could have sold me on a war to topple Saddam on the grounds that while sanctions were reasonably effective they were intolerably punitive on the Iraqi people. However not only had Bush run on a platform against nation-building, it was abundantly obvious well before the Iraq war that the administration hadn't lifted a finger to live up to its grand promises of nation-building in Afghanistan. Recall that they "forgot" to budget the $2bn that they had initially promised. Posted by: Mark Barton at November 29, 2003 10:09 PM | PERMALINKKevin, Bush represents the TX wing of the Republican party - you posted the the TX Republican Party platform here awhile back. Connecting the two dots should clear up any confusion. Posted by: dorsano at November 29, 2003 10:13 PM | PERMALINKdorsano, It looks like Texas finally won the War of Texas Independence (1832-2004)! Posted by: grytpype at November 29, 2003 10:19 PM | PERMALINKI admit I don' know much about international law, but I've never
actually heard much of a defense of the theory that the war was illegal
before. I'm still unconvinced, but I'll likely read more about it. I
assume Kosovo was also illegal, as we didn't have UN Support. kevin, just a basic rule of thumb. if a politician proposes invading another country you need to become very skeptical. more skeptical than you would be about any other policy. you cant just accept it if it sounds like sort of a good idea. its way more serious than that. if they claim they are liberating an independent country with tons of oil, you should just assume they are lying until it is proven otherwise. especially if the people proposing it are all in the fucking oil business. i can understand matt getting suckered. hes a little boy. you are old enough to know better. Posted by: Olaf, glad and big at November 29, 2003 10:24 PM | PERMALINKLet me state, out front, that I essentially agree with David Ehrenstein's assessment of matters regarding the Bushites. I think, as well, that therre are two different levels to Kevin's mystery. First there is the one driving Kevin's question: Given Bush's middle-of-the-road sucesses, why is the Iraq venture failing? I don't think this is hard to understand. Go through Kevin's list. With the exception of Afghanistan, the issues Kevin rates are all domestic. Why should anyone be surprised that the Repugs, who control the Executive and Legislative branches, as well as a growing piece of the Judicial branch, area able to ram shit through? This is as surprising as a basketball game where Shaq is on one team and Kobe on the other - trying to throw the game toward Shaq's team. Should anyone be surprised if Shaq's team wins? The U.S. consumer/citizen (in that order) was stunned on 9/11. Bush's comfort was to exhort us all back to the mall. We obeyed. We must buy cool shit. We shop therefore we are. This, sadly, is one of our greatest freedoms. We want a McDonald's in Baghdad. We can no longer read the classics in Latin like Jefferson could. We can barely make it through the disclaimers on the warranty of our DVD players. When our way of life was threatened on 9/11, we retreated under the protective wings of the Big Government the Repugs say they hate (when they're not in power). When you throw in the religious factor - which I agree is HUGE - with its totalistic oppositionalism, and the fact that the Bushites have attempted to throw anything at the wall since 9/11 and have gotten alot to stick, they've really done a rather average job. They don't believe in compromise. The fatal flaw of the Democrats has been believing that the Repugs would compromise. The Democrats in Congress have attempted to compromise, and at every turn the Repugs grab the compromise while giving nothing. Afghanistan was also no big surprise. Geez, they're about the poorest country in the fucking world. How surprising was military success against them??? Except - oh yeah - where's Osama? And Karzai - he worked for - who - Chevron??? Great success story. Iraq, on the other hand, failed because it involved people and places we couldn't control. A 9/11 event in the Middle East would just be another day in the Middle East - or Africa. 9/11 shocked us because we saw our frailty and impotence against the insecurities of this world on TV. But 9/11 was nothing compared to so many other events. No one saw the 1 million Rwandans hacked to death on TV. One MILLION. Just a few years ago. That was a far worse event, objectively, that 9/11. The Holocaust - where 12 million Jews and others were murdered - didn't get captured by a mobile-cam. Iraq has demonstrated a similar truth - we cannot control the world. If we piss off the 1 billion Muslims, they have a crack at really fucking us up. I hope that doesn't happen. But we imagined that framing Saddam as an "evildoer" would do the trick, that God would use us to strike him down, that Bush, like Moses of old, would declare it so and the waters would part and Saddam would Get It Good - for reasons that some of us are still waiting for. It just didn'r work, though. Hubris. We cannot just get our way. Which brings me to a bigger point. This talking about Bush's "successes" nauseates me. If one looks at everything he did neutrally, sure we can have this discussion. One could also talk about the success of the various aspects of Hitler's execution (pun intended) of the Final Solution - that is, if that person were a real sick fuck. Hitler did do some good things in Germany in the interbellum period. The economy in Germany did OK. People in Germany felt proud to be German. That doesn't reduce the enormity of Hitler's evil. The fact is that, for many of us, Bush has done Real Bad Shit. Objectively Bad Shit. Although I won't personally compare him to Hilter - yet - I fear that if these people continue in power for four more years, we could see some even worse stuff. It could get really ugly here in the good ole U.S. of A. So I, for one, don't give a flaming fuck about any of his successes. Yes he's gotten his way. But so what? Posted by: Jon at November 29, 2003 10:34 PM | PERMALINKReg, re: Kosovo. "threat of genocide," as john pointed out, is a legitimate basis for intervention. Posted by: howard at November 29, 2003 10:36 PM | PERMALINKTurning Iraq into a peaceful, stable democracy (favorable to US interests) is simply a daunting task. bush was willing to risk his presidency on achieving success in Iraq. He failed to anticipate the Iraqi resistance to the US occupation. Without the Iraqi insurgents, bush's Iraq policy would be successful, not a democracy but perhaps a Karzai-type government. bush has shown a willingness to take risks to achieve right-wing policy goals. But bush's most important goal is (re-?) election in 2004. Posted by: obruni at November 29, 2003 10:38 PM | PERMALINKBush scores highest points for coddling the Whores to dance with him. That is the underlying proponent to all his "successes". Posted by: Pancho & Lefty at November 29, 2003 10:48 PM | PERMALINK>I don't see how a law that has no agreed upon enforcement mechanism really is a law. We're finding out, as much-better governed countries are failing to rush to America's aid in Iraq. The occupation has taint of illegality, because this was in truth a war of aggression -- and there is no way to avoid mentioning Nurmberg in that connection. Posted by: grytpype at November 29, 2003 10:52 PM | PERMALINKPancho, another secret to his success is that his crimes are so extreme that if you tried to describe them accurately, you would sound like a lunatic and no one would believe a word you said. Posted by: grytpype at November 29, 2003 10:53 PM | PERMALINKgrytype, "It looks like Texas finally won the War of Texas Independence (1832-2004)!" Yes! but if Bush is relected, and we are forced to endure 4 more years, there will be a large scale revolt in the country and the hard earned majorities that the GOP worked for 30 years to obtain will be lost for a generation. So far, the TX wing of the GOP seems more intent on ruling than on governing. And that will be their downfall. Posted by: dorsano at November 29, 2003 10:55 PM | PERMALINKWhy would you give him the benefit of the doubt even for a minute? Here is how I almost got looped by his sucker punch: At its root helping Iraq is a liberal agenda. The argument to lend a hand to the politically oppressed used to draw this sneer from my corporate Uncle: you do-gooder liberals... you want to save the world. The sucker punch is that suddenly a new creature seemed to appear: the "do-gooder conservative." Rebuild Iraq? Take money from the rich and give it to the poor? Democracy? Give the oil wealth back to the Iraqi people? Crush the creature reagan empowered? Sounds great to me. But the realization that conservatives didn't become do-gooders over night allowed me to duck in time. In the end I couldn't believe the bush crowd cared a dinar about the normal pious and poor Iraqi. I still don't believe.
>And that will be their downfall. And the downfall of all of us! Posted by: grytpype at November 29, 2003 11:08 PM | PERMALINKKevin, Getting back to the meat of Kevin's question, I'm a little curious about one of the statements, namely that Bush the Lesser has about a 46% success rate which is "typical" for a presidency. Now we can quibble about numbers all night, but I wonder about the implications of that number. I mean, this is a guy who has Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and on the Supreme Court bench, so what does it mean that he only has a 46% success rating? To me, that seems very low when your party owns all three branches of
government. To be that low just confirms how unbelievably right-wing
this administration really is. It's kind of frightening when the only
real defense against extraordinarily poisonous legislation (e.g. the
energy bill) is the shaky conscience of a few moderate Republicans in
Congress. Economic policy: I have no idea what he thinks he's doing here. I really don't. So score this as a major vote for incompetence, 0 points out of 10. His only policy goal was to cut taxes, and he accomplished that. Give him at least 8 points. Posted by: rachelrachel at November 29, 2003 11:24 PM | PERMALINKI meant his only goal with respect to economic policy. Posted by: rachelrachel at November 29, 2003 11:25 PM | PERMALINKWe ruined global good will in the wake of 9/11 by doing what we did, and how we did it. It's too bad that some people were debating the merits of the war, whatever the going justification happened to be that day, rather than focusing on the means by which we were going to accomplish our goal, and the damage it would do irregardless of what eventually happened in Iraq. That is where American and British liberals betrayed the cause. Betrayed the people. Because the people in free nations worldwide were clearly against this war. And President Bush dissed them as if a "focus group". In those moments, liberals and lovers of representative democracies earned their stripes. By opposing the war. Good God. This is the first thread I've read on Kevin's blog where "Bushphobia" has struck me as the most appropriate term. Okay, moving on and ignoring all previous comments: So given that he really would like to see Iraq turn out well, why did he allow the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Feith gang to work out a plan that was so obviously divorced from real world considerations? And why did the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Feith gang believe this stuff in the first place? I think the answer to the first question is that Bush isn't really in control of Dick Cheney: it's the other way about. I intend no cheap slur of Bush by this comment, but I think that just as Quayle was picked to be Bush Senior's "pretty face" running mate, Bush Junior was picked to be Dick Cheney's "pretty face". I think Bush let Cheney & Co do their own thing with regard to Iraq: I doubt if it was ever a policy that particularly mattered to him. (I suspect that education, stem cell research, and a partial ban on abortion, were policies that mattered - Bush isn't a very internationally-minded person. Before he became President, he'd left the US exactly twice, and one of those times was to Mexico.) Further, I don't think Bush sees himself as the man in charge of his administration, but as the team leader: the most significant comment with regard to the Plame Affair was his statement that most likely the "senior Bush administration" leaker would never be identified. If we assume he genuinely felt this to be a serious crime, and if he genuinely felt that this was his administration, wouldn't there have been some more outrage? Some more committment to finding who was responsible out of a very small pool of people and having them sacked? I'm working on the assumption here that Bush does consider the betrayal of a CIA agent to be a serious crime - but doesn't feel that he can take any very drastic steps to find out who was responsible. I think he was probably more committed to attacking Afghanistan. It was a simple solution to a very terrible event: bomb the country you've been told is responsible. After that, ignore it. Which is what has happened: let's not forget that the Bush administration had to be reminded by Congress to add funds for Afghanistan to the budget. But invading Iraq was PNAC territory. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfwowitz, Feith - they're all committed to PNAC, and have been well before they became part of the new Bush administration. I think they were let to get on with it because Bush never saw it as something he was responsible for: he might have been team leader, but Cheney was project manager. And as for why Cheney & Co made such a mess of it: because it was something they'd wanted to do, in theory, for years. They were committed to doing it: they had a theory about how it would work: and they didn't listen to anyone who was telling them that their theory that they believed in wasn't going to work. So, your final question: was it reasonable back in January for a liberal to believe that George Bush was serious about building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq? I don't think so. No offense to you, Kevin, but January is just about the time it became absolutely clear that Bush & Co were determined to invade regardless. Committment from the UN and from UN agencies is absolutely essential in the program to build a stable, tolerant, democratic Iraq. You can't do it simply by having the biggest baddest army. Bush's SOTU speech was bullshit - attempts to link Saddam Hussein with 9/11, claims about Hussein trying to buy yellowcake in Africa, all of which were disprovable. (It was clear before January, as I remember, that the Niger documents were fakes.) Okay, I'm cynical. I believed it was possible for the US to conquer Iraq. I did not believe that it was possible for the US to create democracy in Iraq by conquering it. Chalabi's name kept appearing as an advisor: and Chalabi has no good reputation as a reliable source on Iraq. In January, Bush was claiming the pre-emptive strike as doctrine - and claiming that Iraq was such a looming threat that it was necessary to plan for immediate invasion. Neither of which I believed. God knows if anyone will read this! I am not fond of Bush, but the 110 previous comments on this thread put me off. Posted by: Jesurgislac at November 30, 2003 12:57 AM | PERMALINKGod knows if anyone will read this! I am not fond of Bush, but the 110 previous comments on this thread put me off. Once you take out the 25% or so that are Ehrenstein's comments, Jes, the thread becomes much more manageable ;) Posted by: Anarch at November 30, 2003 01:36 AM | PERMALINK"was it reasonable back in January for a liberal to believe that George Bush was serious about building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq? " Not for me. Here is a blast from past: Another reason not to invade was the sheer disregard for "democracy" America was obviously going to have to display when going it alone, rather with the colalition of the purchased... Another reason not to invade Iraq is the 20,000 or so dead Iraqi people, the orders of magnitude more physically wounded, and the orders of magnitude more than that mentally wounded. The only silver lining in this dark cloud is the potential for Iraq to be safer without Saddam. But, while that potential exists, it has not materialized, and its unlikely to do so with the current plan.
Two Thoughts: "If you're going to tell a lie, tell a big one and stick to it!" Wasn't that Himmler or Goebbels or someone like that who said this? Back when I was a kid in school, 46% success on a test or project was graded with a big, fat "F". Antoinetta III Posted by: Antoinetta III at November 30, 2003 01:38 AM | PERMALINKThis is why so many supported the war: "FAIR did a a study. In the week leading up to General Colin Powell going to the security council to make his case for the invasion and the week afterwards, this was the period where more than half of the people in this country were opposed to an invasion. They did a study of CBS evening news, NBC nightly news, ABC evening news and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. The four major newscasts. Two weeks. 393 interviews on war. 3 were anti-war voices. 3 of almost 400 and that included PBS." "Independent Media at a Time of War" Anarch, I truly wish it were possible to blank out comments on a
blogthread by poster. Imagine never having to read David Ehrenstein or
Californio/CarolinCalifornia again! Kevin, Long post. Those uninterested in the question of the war's legality may skip. I see we're once again hashing out the question of whether or not this war was illegal. I thought that one had been settled some time ago, but I'd forgotten that the paper-thin legal umbrella the administration concocted to CYA is still an article of faith on the pro-war side of the aisle. Hold on a sec whilst I dig up some dusty links. In determining the invasion's legality, we must consider the following relevant points: 1. International law consists of those rules by which countries mutually agree to respect and be bound by. These take the form both of "international custom(s)" and "the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations" (Statute of the International Court of Justice, Article 38) and multilateral treaties to which states are signatories. 2. All countries which are signatories to the United Nations Charter are thereby consenting to be bound by its laws and strictures. In the case of the United States, this also makes the United Nations Charter, in effect, an extension of Federal law by way of Article VI of the US Constitution. ("...all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.") 3. Chapter VII, Article 51 of the UN Charter clearly and expressly prohibits the kind of "pre-emptive self defense" doctrine the Bush Administration has put forth. No justification under international law exists for this. Any war waged in violation of the UN Charter would by extension be unconstitutional, and quite possibly a violation of Federal law. The sole potential source of legal cover for this war lies in the claims that UNSC Resolutions relating to Iraq's disarmament from the first Gulf War provide an explicit or implicit mandate for US military action. Some of these arguments are compelling, but a critical and objective reading of the full texts of these resolutions is sufficient to eliminate any pretense of such a mandate. I believe the best and most authoritative treatment of the relevant GW1-era resolutions (S/RES 660, 678, 686-687, 689, and S/RES 1154 from 1998) can be found here--it is a long read, but it is worth reading in its /entirety/ for a full understanding of this. In summary, it leaves no question but that the GW1-era resolutions, by themselves, provide no mandate or legal justification for military action. This treatment, while neutralizing any justification based on GW1-era
resolutions, predates S/RES 1441, which was adopted in November of
2002. S/RES 1441 specifically recalls S/RES 678 and 687, as well as
recalling that the cease-fire in 687 was contingent on Iraq's
cooperation with disarmament efforts. This resolution does not, however,
authorize any specific military action whatsoever--quite the opposite;
1441 stakes out a "holding pattern" with its last two paragraphs,
leaving the threat of military action hanging, but falling short of
establishing an automatic "trigger" if there is noncompliance. The last
two grafs are: Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations; Decides to remain seized of the matter. Arguments can and have been made to the effect that military action was morally required, regardless of the legal aspects--but no justification that assumes UN authorization, and thereby legitimacy under international law, can survive scrutiny. Arguments have also been made that the veto threats by France, Germany and Russia made passing a resolution authorizing force impossible. This may even be true--although it is notable and significant that, when faced with said vetos, the US chose to /not/ submit a resolution for a vote, correctly judging that having said resolution voted down would make the lack of UN authorization much more explicit than not seeking the vote at all--which is essentially equivalent to doing something without asking your parents because you know they're going to say no. The US outrage over the French-German-Russian veto threat also has a transparently hollow and hypocritical ring to it, considering the dozens of UNSC resolutions Israel is in violation of, and the numerous resolutions the US has vetoed which would have authorized consequences for Israel's continued violation of such. The US has, in fact, historically exercised its veto power (usually in defense of Israel) more times than all the other permanent members combined--which, as mentioned, makes the US moral outrage over "French and German intransigence" more than a little suspect. Posted by: Catsy at November 30, 2003 02:40 AM | PERMALINKBefore the war, just about any argument for the war was known to be shaky or plain wrong to anybody who followed the international media. This definitely includes the "Oil will pay for it" issue. Before the war the Economist had an article that demolished it with a detailed discussion of the state of the Iraqi oil industry. At least the people in the US government with links to the oil industry *must* have known this - or qualify as liars or total incompetents. BTW 'liar' and 'incompetent' are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they often go together when incompetents try to hide their failures. Posted by: khr at November 30, 2003 03:12 AM | PERMALINKCatsy, that is a very informative summary. Thanks! Posted by: Robuzo at November 30, 2003 04:06 AM | PERMALINKYou neglected to mention an important factor in Bush's success in achieving his ghastly goals: a craven, disorganized Democratic party that rolled over and played dead every time the Republicans pushed one of their greedy, destructive policies. One thing I've learned over the past few years is that those who are supposedly representing my interests, aren't. Posted by: PZ Myers at November 30, 2003 05:43 AM | PERMALINKI don't know if anyone's reading this, but hey. I don't know why david ehrenstein's comments seem to tick people off, they seem pretty much on point to me--maybe posting too frequently is a no no? I find myself agreeing with both David Ehrenstein and Jesurgislac, perhaps I'm misunderstanding one of them. But to get back to Kevin's question, which is why it might have been "Unreasonable" to believe that Bush, wanting democracy and etc... in Iraq could/would bring it about through his "fair to middling" managerial skills. I think most posters have pointed to the clear distinction between an ability to win a political victory involving a limited number of players (senate, house, lobbyists) when three branches of the government are controlled by your party and actually winning a real world struggle for something as complex as Democracy in a universe of players not limited to a single country, single language, single currency, single history, single religion or any other unifying force. I don't see that Bush's history as a political player (born on third as he was) gave us any confidence that he would be able to handle the multiplex problems of bringing democracy to a crushed economy and society in the middle east. But that begs the question: was he ever interested in "democracy" as we know it? And of course the answer there was: obviously not. How do we know that? because we have treated the actual democracies in the middle east with contempt, while handling the dictatorships and tyrannies and monarchies with kid gloves. Another way we know that is that even before the war it would have been necessary to define the terms of our intentions on specifically Iraqi issues like nationalizing or privatizing the oil wells. If you are proposing to pacify and co-opt the majority of citizens of a country you are invading you would at least want to invade with a big blue book stating everything you intend to do to calm their fears. We didn't do that, although educated people were raising these questions prior to the actual war. As soon as we went in the government began rolling out a badly thought out, but obviously important series of economic initiatives like privatizing nearly everything in the country, selling off assetts and companies, no-bid contracts to our own side, and etc... that could never--never!--be consistent with a true iraqi democracy since they went against iraqi sovereign intersts and the economic interests of the iraqi people. Long before the war itself people who were paying attention realized that either we had no plans, or no good plans, for an actual Iraqi democracy. The whole chalabi thing was a huge red flag, but even without chalabi as the front man it was clear that cheney et al would never allow an actual iraqi democracy to flourish. It wasn't in their interrests and, arguably, it isn't in "our" interests either since it would most probably end up being not the complacent economic and political partner they dreamed of, but just another Iran. I"m sorry if it distresses Kevin, who is obviously a very nice and thoughtful person, but anyone with half an eye could see what was going to happen before the war started: posit incompetence, posit venality, posit what you will but there were lots more ways for Bushco to fail at delivering on their half hearted promises than there were ways for them to succeed. And in that, they have proven the skeptics right. Its not for the skeptics to explain why we were not easily fooled, its for those who were fooled to suck it up and admit they were blinded by something and get on with the fight to get these criminal morons out of office. aimai Posted by: aimai at November 30, 2003 06:45 AM | PERMALINKIf the invasion of Iraq was justified, then the War Against Serbia You know, I'm really growing to despise Bush, (You'd think he could
have vetoed SOMETHING by now...) but let's be serious: There's a
difference between his Iraq policy not having succeeded, and it's having
failed. The ultimate judgement on that won't be in for years. Does anyone really bother reading to the bottom in a long thread like this? Anyway, getting back to Kevin's original point, I think the analysis is flawed because of the difficulty in defining precisely what it is we're reviewing. Take economic policy, for example. If you consider tax cuts as an end, rather than a means, as Timmy does above, then Bush easily gets at least a 9 out of 10 for passing three successive tax cuts in three years and getting just about everything he wanted in those bills. The problem is that tax cuts are a means, not an end and, hence, Timmy's analysis is dead wrong. But even knowing this, we're still not out of the woods, because what is the desired end? Is it job creation? Economic growth? Cutting the flow of money into the federal budget to encourage and enforce fiscal responsibility? Setting up an economic crisis which will eventually require that the federal government be shrunk so that it "fits in a bathtub?" The jury is still out on some of those, but the expert consensus on the first two is that Bush's policies are a failure, both in the short term and in the long term (and yes, I know about last quarter's growth -- I stand by what I say). With regard to the third and fourth, it's not quite as clear. So how do we score Bush on the tax cuts? 9 out of 10 for getting the tax cuts? 0 out of 10 for harming the long-term economic prospects? 5 out of 10 for causing a problem that's going to require shrinking the federal government? The rest of Bush's efforts are equally suspect. Does Bush get a high score for education simply because he got a bill passed? Or do we once again have to look at the desired end and fail him because the bill won't have the desired effect? Or is there another unspoken desired end that Bush has in mind, in which case his score might be higher? The same type of thinking applies to Homeland Security, Medicare, Energy, the Environment, and stem cells. If all we look at is bills and policies, Bush gets decent marks. If we look at the ends and results, however, Bush's marks drop precipitously. If we look at potential unspoken ends, Bush's marks rise again. So which are we reviewing? Posted by: PaulB at November 30, 2003 07:02 AM | PERMALINKaimai, most of the 110 previous comments upthread from me (at the time I started composing a response to Kevin) ticked me off because Kevin had asked a serious, reasonable question - and no one appeared to be making any attempt to give a serious, reasonable answer. Posted by: Jesurgislac at November 30, 2003 07:06 AM | PERMALINKKevin makes critical mistake. He fails to distinguish between getting what you want legislatively and executing policy effectively. Legislating is getting what you want. Executing is making sure that what you want works. I would say that Bush has generally been very successful at getting what he wants out of Congress. He has also been very successful in getting the war and reconstruction that he asked for. The question is: Back in February, was it smart to predict that Bush's post-war reconstruction plans would likely be successful? I think the answer is clearly "no." Have Bush's domestic economic policies been effective? Have Bush's homeland security policies made us more prepared and more secure? Is NCLB going to lead to better educated children? I could go on and on, but the point is that managing Iraq is an executive function and Bush is a terrible executive. Posted by: space at November 30, 2003 07:07 AM | PERMALINKCatsy, that's one of the best succinct yet detailed summaries of "why the invasion of Iraq was illegal" that I've seen. Do you have a blog or a livejournal where you could post it? If not,
may I post it on my livejournal, crediting you, of course? I feel it
deserves better than to be stuck down at the end of a long thread. Skipping to the end of a long set of comments is probably bad for my understanding. But too many people have taken the various things Bush has said he wants to be "what Bush wants" or "the Bush policy" ... at least, too many for my taste. I don't know what Bush wants or what his policies might be. But I do know that he has shown himself to be a habitual liar, and that he has surrounded himself with more of the same. His administration's track record, such as it is, is to say one thing and do another -- often within days. Remember the tortured months before GWII when Bush was still "making his mind up" about whether to invade? Lie. In March of 2002 he had already decided, "F*** Saddam -- we're taking him out." Think of all the awful treacly-named "initiatives" that do the opposite of what their names imply. Healthy forests = log the forests. Blue skies = fill the air with pollutants. And so on, and so on, and so on. Think of the campaign positions Bush put forward. Compassionate conservatism? A military budget of $50BB? Won't touch Social Security, even though it did turn out to be a gummint program after all? (Remember the "lucky me, I hit the Trifecta" comment? Remember that the feed-line to set up the so-called joke was also a lie?) All lies, many of them basically cheap lies, lies with not much invested in making them appear true, lies that could easily be shown to be false (not that our only media bothered to investigate). Lies that even GW didn't bother to learn the details of -- so that when Gore told him to his face during the debate that he was wrong on his own numbers, he could only waffle about fuzzy math. (Again, not that our only media bothered to look at the numbers, before or after -- they were right there on the Bush campaign web page at the time of the debate, and their variance from Bush-speak was universally ignored.) He. Lies. All. The. Time. How do you figure out what his policy goals ARE? I doubt they exist; I think the whole shebang is probably only about the money, for GW and Cheeny, anyhow. Their colleagues, including Rove, have spent much of the last three years enriching themselves and their friends at our expense and lately at the cost of thousands of lives in Iraq. That they couldn't be bothered to get it right in Iraq -- surely an important policy area? -- argues that their policy goals, so-called, are pretty much all short-term, and not about the succession of high-sounding "reasons" they've given for its conquest. In other words, I think they pretty much make it up as they go along. I think that they suit their "policies" to how they happen to feel about stuff at the time. And I think they don't care who gets hurt, as long as they get whatever fast food they happen to crave at the moment. Sociopaths? Anyone here study psychology while I was wasting my time on computers? The Bundy-McMuffin Administration. Posted by: JakeInTheHouse at November 30, 2003 07:14 AM | PERMALINKBefore I read all the comments, at the risk of repeating someone else, I'll just say this: Bush wanting a stable, democratic Iraq was never the issue. Nor was it his success/failure rate on various policies (especially domestic ones, which have naught to do with his international ambitions). Rather it was America's success/failure rate on remaking Third World countries in its image via warfare. Not Japan and Germany, but Third World countries. And that record wasn't and isn't very good. That's why I was against this war. The Iraq-as-awful-threat jive was enormously easy to see through, so we were left with the Hitchens argument that it would be a Good and Noble Thing to free the Iraqi people. But that's where our record on doing such things comes into play, at which point I conclude, nah, it's not going to work. It barely worked in Kosovo, it doesn't seem to working all too well in Afghanistan and we all know about Iraq (and Haiti and Somalia and Nicaragua and Vietnam and all those other places). Maybe if this was the 19th century we could do these sorts of things, but not anymore ... no on can. I can understand why a lot of people supported the Iraq War. Americans, especially younger ones who'd come of age in the Clinton boom years, tend to think we're almost superhuman in our ability to change the world for the better. On the other hand, our record of military involvement in the world since WWII belies that confidence. What gets me, though, is that so many liberals and moderates supported the war - not despite our record, but because of the insane pie-in-the-sky rhetoric coming out of the Bush circle and neocon opinion-makers. I mean, if remaking a single country - Iraq - should have been regarded as an enormously tough task, then the idea that we were going to remake the entire Middle East should have woke some of you folks up to the unreality of what was being proposed. Posted by: Damon at November 30, 2003 07:19 AM | PERMALINKPaul. Yes, there are a few of us down here at the end. Good post. Kevin. Yes, GWB may well have had some hazy notion of bringing democracy to the middle east back in January, but it is irrelevant. It is clear that such a notion was not the motivating reason for "regime change" RIGHT NOW. However, this notion may have been pivotal in the apparent lack of planning following the initial military victory. Just as Bush believes tax cuts for the rich are "good" in some sense, it is an unspoken corollary that they are "sufficient" to promote economic well being for the country at large. And if the rest of the country doesn't follow? Well, that's their problem, isn't it? Similarly for Iraq--regime change is both "good" and "sufficient" for freedom. Is this the thinking of an ideologue? Posted by: bobbyp at November 30, 2003 07:29 AM | PERMALINKsigh. If you believe that pushing legislation through a congress who were forced to support him by a terrorist attack and who were then packed with the support of a huge financial advantage and some of the most noisome dirty campaigns, like, ever, is success, then I have to grant you, he's been successful. He's also failed at accomplishing most of the policy goals he's set out to accomplish, unless you count leveraging a terrorist attack, crippling the government through historic levels of financial mismanagement, and packing congress through etc and so forth see above. He wins, he hands money to his friends and family, and he drops it. Not too hard to achieve, especially with a unified media and the supreme court on your side. On a level playing field, somewhere his family has made shift to see that he never has been, he didn't even win the election. All of this, however, is ignoring the fact that what the people responding to the last post took exception to was not the legitimacy of your reasons for supporting Bush, but your suggestion that his opponents are acting out of emotion and not reason. That's kind of an personal suggestion. Given the flood of bloggers from the right who accused you of being a tool of the Democratic party and dismissed you earlier in the week when you posted something about policy they didn't like, I'm surprised that this surprises you. Of course, they are more likely to respond to politics emotionally. Posted by: julia at November 30, 2003 07:44 AM | PERMALINKKevin, I really think you're giving Bush too much credit here for actually having real policy goals on a range of topics. You implied in something you said Bush must have larger goals than rewarding his supporters, but I don't see why he should. I think it's perfectly plausible that Bush has only two goals reward the rich (not really his supporters, but instead, people in the same social class as Bush) and get reelected. He's done fantastically well at the first, though with complete disregard to long term consequences, and only marginally well at the second. Both problems stemming from a quick fix mentality of doing what looks like it will have the most effect now, rather that ten years (or even two years) down the road. Whenever I start attributing more complicated motives to the Bushies, they're actions stop making sense. If you assume that this is all they're really out for, everything they've done seems pretty logical, if somewhat shortsighted. Posted by: Nick at November 30, 2003 07:48 AM | PERMALINK"At its root helping Iraq is a liberal agenda. The argument to lend a hand to the politically oppressed used to draw this sneer from my corporate Uncle: you do-gooder liberals... you want to save the world. The sucker punch is that suddenly a new creature seemed to appear: the "do-gooder conservative."" It turns out that 'conservatives' have no principle beyond winning, as long as the 'principle' being pushed is being done so by a 'conservative.' The idea of a democratic Iraq- if it had been pushed by a Liberal administration- would have been taunted mercilessly as the worst sort of stary-eyed idealism. It would have been excoriated as the plaything of pointy-headed think tank armchair generals. The 'democracy' slant was just part of the marketing ploy to get the support of the(no offense) Kevins, Matts, and Joshes of the world.
"...it's good for reelection and it's good for business." "So given that he really would like to see Iraq turn out well..." These, I think, are misguided: For instance, India (where I'm from) is, I think, substantially more democratic than America. There is a long-standing tradition of very small (i.e. village-level) governments, which actually work. We have a multi-party system where anyone can stand for election, etc. (Please don't interpret this as 'my country's better than yours', although it certainly sounds that way. In many, many areas, the US is much ahead of India, which is why I'm here and not there, but in this one sphere, I think the US is not very democratic.). Now, India was a socialist country till some years ago. [Add other examples here, enough to back up a theory.] Hence no connection between democracy & capitalism. In Iraq's case, another thing must be borne in mind: Saddam was, pre-1991, not bad for business. he did most of his trade with the US (and with Europe, etc.). Iraq was actually a relatively well-off country (healthcare for almost everyone, low infant mortality, etc.), primarily due to trade. So, there is no connection between 'what's good for business' and 'bringing democracy to Iraq'
Then, there's a missing premise in your argument, which is roughly: 'Bush and his advisors act rationally.' There's not much empirical support for this either. I think a source of Bush's 'mysteriousness' can be found in the
mistaken assumption, related to the missing premise above, that what
bush does is based on Policy. It's not. It's based on the (1) desire to get re-elected, (2) Religion, (3) continuing the rich-poor gap, and broadening it. Jesurgislac, my LJ is in my URL, but now that you mention it I hadn't posted that anywhere but here. I have now done so. Posted by: Catsy at November 30, 2003 08:04 AM | PERMALINKJesurgislac: Catsy has her livejournal site in the 'posted by' link at her comment above. Posted by: poputonian at November 30, 2003 08:07 AM | PERMALINKMaybe you should weight his policies instead of assigning each of them 10 points. The war in Iraq does not carry the same weight as signing a PRA restriction Posted by: ding7777 at November 30, 2003 08:09 AM | PERMALINKActually, I have a different question Kevin. How could you believe that our invasion of Iraq would result in a liberal democracy? It should have been obvious that if we let the people of Iraq choose their own government it would be closer to Iran than anything. We couldn't let that happen, so we had to enforce something else. We would then have to prop up that something else. The only way anybody could not see that is if you lived in some sort of Cloud KooKoo Land. There was simply no evidence at all to the contrary. When "evidence" was presented then it was refuted within 24 hours. Essentially, all those who were in favor of the war simply had their "Tinker Bell" moment and believed in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. How did I know the truth living in Zanesville, Ohio while you didn't living in a college town? You wanted to believe, so you did. Perhaps a quick review of "True Believer" by ERic Ericson might be in order. Posted by: Ron at November 30, 2003 08:16 AM | PERMALINKRemember John Diulio! Remember Mr. Faith-based Initiatives and his stunning interview with Esquire? He said, and it jibes with what many have observed from the outside, that there simply is no interest in this administration in policy. They simply do not want to use government to solve people's problems. Everything is politics. Everything is gaining and consolidating power. Thus, it doesn't really make sense to "score" the Bushies on policy grounds. They don't care about policy. Thus, the Iraq war only made sense (to them) as a wedge issue for the Democrats, as a way to make Dems look weak on defense, and as a way to give Bush a Victory in November! They didn't plan for the post-war because they genuinely believed the rhetoric about rose petals. They thought it was win-win for them. Posted by: Dan Perreten at November 30, 2003 08:17 AM | PERMALINKkevin, i feel like i am banging my head against the wall here. again, you make assumptions about the goals & motivations of the bush administration. as far as i can see, a critical analysis of the evidence does not support your assumptions. please, please let me in on your rational for your beliefs about the bush administration's goals & motivations. kevin, it's not just you... i have found myself in 100's of variants of this conversation over the past year... you are just kind enough to engage in the conversation... for which i am very grateful. maybe it is not a rational process at all - remember stanley milgram's experiment on obedience to authority vs moral beliefs? He found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks-up to 450 volts-to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority commanded them to... maybe something like this is happening here... many americans were willing to cause the death of thousands of iraqi's because our president (the authority figure) told them it was the right thing to do. hmm... i think i will give myself a homework assignment to read more about stanley milgram and the social psychological aspects of obedience to authority. it could be important to understanding american's willingness (so far) to tolerate (even value) the authoritarian aspects of the bush administration... especially as this work was initiated with a desire to understand the attrocities of fascism and wwII. Posted by: selise at November 30, 2003 08:22 AM | PERMALINKGod, this is worse than Josh Marshall. Equivocation layered on top of self-deception viewed through a maze of cobwebs-in-the-brain. You don't seem to understand Bush's policy goals at all. You need to do a more thorough accounting of Bush's moral and cognitive disabilities before you evaluate his accomplishments. Perhaps you intended for us to infer that as fuckup-in-chief, Bush is doing a great job; but you didn't come close to saying that. Posted by: NB at November 30, 2003 08:41 AM | PERMALINK"Building off of what "pessimist" said, where would GWB be at right now if not for 9/11?" Would Clinton have won a second term in 1996 if not for the Oklahoma City bombing? Posted by: jsr at November 30, 2003 08:43 AM | PERMALINKEducation: given his policy goals, I'd say NCLB accomplished them reasonably well. Let's score it as 6 points out of 10. ..as long as you understand that his policy goal vis-a-vis education is the destruction of public education system. this, more than the iraq fiasco, will be w's longest-lasting and most divisive "policy" outcome... Posted by: ruiningyoungminds at November 30, 2003 08:56 AM | PERMALINKjesurgislac, I guess I thought most of the posters were on target, even if they weren't on the target Kevin posted. I thought Kevin's question at the end of his post was kind of absurdist, I couldn't figure out what was puzzling him. For example: I actually thought that phrases like "given that he would really like to see iraq turn out well" were preposterously illogical on their face, when "turn out well for whom" was factored in. And "why did he allow the cheney...gang to work out a plan that was so obiously divorced from real worl dconsiderations" was also obviously answered by what many of us believe: that Bush is a hands off/uninformed president who believes what he is told and allows himself to be screened from information. And as for why did cheney etc...believe this stuff inthe first place? I don't think the answers are "cheap" and "Not satisfying." I think history is full of people who thought they were smarter than everyone else but who turned out to be misinformed. The short answer is usually the right answer: they were arrogant boobs. I think the thread as a whole has been fascinating and well worth reading, even if I thought the original post/question was kind of after the fair. aimai Posted by: aimai at November 30, 2003 08:57 AM | PERMALINK"I thought Kevin's question at the end of his post was kind of absurdist, I couldn't figure out what was puzzling him." He's not alone. Concurrent with the runup to the war, Josh Marshall was making a strong case for the incompetence of chimpco, esp. Cheney. Yet, somehow he must have figured these incompetents wouldn't bungle something as important as war/nation building. Somehow. "Here's the background question: was it reasonable back in January for a liberal to believe that George Bush was serious about building a moderately stable, tolerant, and democratic Iraq?" No, I don't think it was reasonable to believe this for anyone, "liberal" or not. First, there were just too many rationalizations being floated to justify the war, including the democracy one. One justification would get shot down; another would instantly surface. That should have been a red flag to indicate that the real reason was something deeper, something emotional, something metaphorical, and that the war should not be allowed to go forward: no clear mission objective. It was a war in search of a justification. Secondly, it's clear that Bush is not a compassionate man. He is a very nasty, angry and vindictive man who is in deep denial; hence the disconnect between his description of his actions and the reality of his actions. I think this also explains his attraction to the angry evangelical religion he espouses, which is wrapped in denial of its substance as well. It isn't reasonable to expect him to pursue a policy of compassionate assistance to the Iraqis when his very definition and understanding of compassion is false. We know that Bush was enraged at Saddam, and that he said, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." Bush also mentioned in one of his major speeches that Saddam had committed the offense of taking pleasure in America's misfortune during 9/11. He once mentioned how Saddam had once targeted Bush's father for assassination, then quickly bit his lip, as if afraid of giving away too much. I think that, at its core, this war has always been something personal for Bush, something about his ego, something about releasing his simmering rage at Saddam. I think that Bush took 9/11 as a humiliating personal affront to his manhood and lashed out at Saddam because he was given the opportunity and hated the idea of Saddam laughing at him. Even the idea of building Iraq up is, I think, not because Bush cares about Iraqis, but because he wants to prove that he can govern Iraq better than Saddam did. I think Bush is so loathe to withdraw from Iraq because Saddam is still alive. If Saddam came back into power, it would make Bush feel like a total loser. Posted by: DanM at November 30, 2003 09:51 AM | PERMALINKWhy should what George W. Bush "feels" be of anyone's concern -- or even interest? It's what he and his cabal have ACTUALLY DONE that matters. They have brought us to make war with a nation that has not attacked us on the grounds that the despot (and former U.S. ally/operative) who semi-ruled it (Saddam had control over only select portions of the country) had gathered Weapons of mass Destruction capable of launching a nuclear attack in 45 minutes. This was a lie. THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SLAUGHTERED BECAUSE OF THIS LIE. Can you comprehend this fact? Do you need flash cards? Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 30, 2003 10:14 AM | PERMALINK Why would you score anyone on what THEY wanted to achieve? Wouldn't almost all of us score about 93% on that scale? Posted by: serial catowner at November 30, 2003 10:59 AM | PERMALINKI think Bush has scored much better than this, say 60%. His talent isn't so much in policy that gets passed through congress, but in politicizing appointment positions that weren't politicized in the past. Bush's legacy will be in his appointments to government agencies and how they've shaped them, especially in science-based advisory positions. Posted by: Stoffel at November 30, 2003 11:18 AM | PERMALINKdavid ehrenstein, while i agree that we (americans/brits/...) have killed thousands of people in an illegal, imoral and unnecessary war... i do think it is useful to try to figure out how we allowed this to happen.... in order to lessen the chances of it happening again. i think it is especially helpful that people who were hawks or even fence sitters are willing to reevaluate their thinking. i still don't get why so many people are unwilling to consider the possibilty that the iraq invasion was really about power and desire for more. how is it we can see this possibility in the leaders of other countries.... but not in our own? Posted by: selise at November 30, 2003 11:26 AM | PERMALINKWe allowed this to happen because we do not have free elections in this country, or a political opposition worth a damn. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 30, 2003 11:36 AM | PERMALINKdavid ehrenstein, again, i agree... but, WHY don't we have free elections? WHY don't we have a political opposition worth a damn? WHY aren't most americans out in the street protesting? its not like i have the answers... i just think the questions are
worth asking. how could anyone of intelligence and goodwill (i
certainly include kevin) ever have considered killing thousands of
innocent people on george bush's say-so. that to me is the real
mystery. Do the words "Cognative Dissonance" ring a bell, selise? Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 30, 2003 11:51 AM | PERMALINKDacid - BTW, nice bitchslap. Meaner than I thought it'd be. Posted by: mndean at November 30, 2003 11:51 AM | PERMALINKI haven't really begun to be mean. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 30, 2003 11:54 AM | PERMALINKdavid ehrenstein, ding-ding-ding! do you mean something like: i am an intelligent person of goodwill, i would never contribute the the murder of one person let alone thousands. i'm an american and i pay my taxes. but, i can't believe those good things about myself, if the iraq war, which resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent people, was about power and the desire for more power. hence the resistance to even considering the possibility of malicous intent... cognative dissonance is a very uncomfortable place to be (speaking from personal experience)... but, if folks are willing to go through it they will end up radicalized for action... how can we help kevin and ourselves to confront the cognative dissonance? sorry about all the questions... but, i want to change the world... not just complain about it! Posted by: selise at November 30, 2003 12:35 PM | PERMALINKA couple of thoughts. First in answer to the original quesiton we could go back to David's first post, it's as good as any answer. The answer it gives not really satisfactory, but it really is the truth. As a criminal defense attorney, so many of the explanations by my (guillty) clients are not satisfactory, but they are accurate. Second, the country and western song with the line that "I'm Cleopatra queen of denial" does seem to accurately describe those liberal warriors who bought into Bush's BS. Third, what in the hell happened after the election in 2000? Why in the hell didn't the democratic presidental candidate try to stop the government from functioning at all? Why didn't he call out people to demonstrate until this country was ungovernable until there was real vote counting? In truth, the election was not stolen from him, it was stolen from us. So back to the original quesiton. Kevin why did you belive him --
David's original answer is as accurate as any, it is just not
sastisfactory, that's all. There is no sense in even worrying about, or scoring, Bush's domestic
policy efficacy if we are being attacked ala 9/11. The fact that we are
doing it means the most important Bush policy goal, preventing further
9/11 attacks, has been a success. Nor does scoring these others have
anything to do with whether the Iraq policy will succeed, except to
indicate that it might succeed, or it might not, which we already knew.
Obviously, so far Bush has scored 100% as to the policy goal of
preventing 9/11-like attacks, as achieved through imlementation of the
"Bush Doctrine", although the result could be artifactual, and likewise
has nothing statistically to do with the chances of success in Iraq.
[Though we could think very wonderously about why Bush scores so low on
domestic policy efficacy, compared to his 100% success so far in
preventing foreign attacks upon the U.S..] My fallback position on war with Iraq was that Bush has fucked up everything he's ever tried in his life and then relied on connections to bail him out (he even had to have his Dad's friends steal the White House for him). Invariably others are left holding the bag. If this is letting hatred of Bush blind to the merits of invading the Iraq, it certainly proved to be a reliable polestar, didn't it? Kevin's list is remarkable for omitting the fact of intractable, crippling deficits as far as the eye can see. Counting "policy successes" within this context is like giving Mobutu points for leaving office a billionaire. Posted by: TK at November 30, 2003 03:10 PM | PERMALINKObviously, so far Bush has scored 100% as to the policy goal of preventing 9/11-like attacks Excust me? WTF was 9/11 then? Posted by: Troy at November 30, 2003 03:35 PM | PERMALINKI really did read Ga-ne-sha's and I do think that it is something that we should all study. S/he is nuts. On the other hand if you are looking for an example of Cognative Dissonance there you go. Just a little thought, because it hasn't happened therefore Bush prevented it from happening. Let me think because B came after A therefore A caued B? I do believe that is what S/he was saying. Of course since there had been no 9/11s before 9/11/01 therefore Clinton, Bush I, Regean, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, and Kennedy all prevented those kind of attacks from happening? Actually, I do think that Ga-ne-sha is either nuts or perhaps needs a little class in logic. Posted by: Ron at November 30, 2003 04:22 PM | PERMALINKYou're conflating "ability to get bills through Congress" with "ability to accomplish policy goals." The policy goal of No Child Left Behind was a significant improvement in kids' achievement, separate from an improvement in kids' test scores on NCLB-required testing. That has not taken place. Bush did get a bill through Congress. The policy goal of Bush's economic policy is fairly straightforward -- high GDP growth combined with low inflation and unemployment without excessive Federal borrowing. This has not taken place. Bush did get his various bills through Congress. The policy goal of Bush's stem cell decision was to allow research to continue without causing further "harm." This has not taken place. Bush did issue the appropriate executive order. The policy goal of invading Afghanistan was to kill or capture bin Laden and his top lieutanants and to utterly defeat the Taliban. The former enjoyed some mild success and the latter significant success. Bush got his spending bills related to this through Congress as well as receiving a blank check for future adventures. Homeland Security: The purpose of the Homeland Security Department is to make us safer from terrorist attack at a minimal cost, both in government money and inconvenience caused to innocent civilians. In this it has been a miserable failure; we endure massive disruptions of our lives while the non-Homeland-Security portions of our domestic safety apparatus (FBI and CIA) do the lion's share of counterterrorism work. Bush got his bills through Congress. So, to sum up: Policy goals: 2/10 at best. This, I believe, resolves the conundrum. I share Mr. Ehrenstein's incoherent rage, but one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar. Gee, Ron, I foolishly thought the Bush Doctrine was designed to prevent further 9/11's. What did you think it was for? Good thinking, Troy: Bush had a policy to prevent 9/11 attacks before
9/11 occurred? But it was Clinton's policy, right, and even the Wonder
Boy did not envision 9/11, though I do not blame him for it. Admittedly,
no one had a policy to prevent 9/11, which apparently had to occur
before one was formed. That's the way it often works. "one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar." Not being a frog, I have no use for flies. Bush had a policy to prevent 9/11 attacks before 9/11 occurred? One would assume so, otherwise wtf are we paying $5000/taxpayer/year on "Defense" spending??? But it was Clinton's policy, right No, Clinton's post USS Cole anti-AQ planning gathered dust throughout 2001 -- the first meetings on it were scheduled for mid-september 2001. On 9/10/01 Ashcroft released his FY2002 funding requests -- and anti-terrorism was conspicuous by its relative absence as a priority, even though he had stopped flying commerical earlier that summer, and the president had his still-secret briefings during his month-long siesta in August. I'm not playing a blame game -- just assigning responsibility as I see it. Posted by: Troy at December 1, 2003 02:35 AM | PERMALINKThe report on global terrorism was on Cheney's desk. He was going to take over as the terrorism czar just as soon as he got done with the energy legislation. Until then, it was on hold. Sadly, the terrorists weren't. Posted by: julia at December 1, 2003 03:06 AM | PERMALINKYou left Iraq out of your calculus. That would be like FDR botching WWII, and then disregarding that minor detail when assessing his presidency. Posted by: Buck at December 1, 2003 08:29 AM | PERMALINKHow about we judge Governor Bush's effectiveness by how well he has accomplished his campaign promises? How about we issue Dubya a first term report card to see how his actions have measured up with his promises? I suspect he will receive a failing grade in most areas. Promised to be bipartisan, including appointing Democrats to his Cabinet? F. Promised to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant? F. And so on. And these failures were apparent long before the invasion of Iraq, so really there was never any reason to suppose that Bush might actually perform on any of his promises once American boots hit Iraqi soil. That is the decision making process that otherwise intellignet liberals such as Kevin should have applied in regard to the Iraqi invasion. Posted by: The Big Texan at December 1, 2003 12:29 PM | PERMALINKEconomic policy: I have no idea what he thinks he's doing here. I really don't. So score this as a major vote for incompetence, 0 points out of 10.
Stocks Jump; S&P 500 Hits 18-Month High Factories Hum, Construction Booms Manufacturers hit 20-year record pace
A good recovery for whom? Not the unemployed. Or the dead. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at December 1, 2003 02:37 PM | PERMALINKBig Texan, Bush did appoint Democrat Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. He delivered on his major promises to cut taxes and to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare. (Whether these steps were good policy is a separate question.) Posted by: David at December 1, 2003 03:45 PM | PERMALINKMaybe for you it's a separate question. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at December 1, 2003 04:58 PM | PERMALINKPointless as it may be to post this far down, this line got to me: I loathe Bush primarily because I loathe his policy goals, not his ability to execute them Having lived in Texas before, during and for a little while after Dubya was governor and having the media there report on him in detail, I've seen a little bit about his ability to execute things, which extends to people on death row and that's about it. Okay, seriously, look at Bush's record in business and point to one instance where he succeeded in a project where he wasn't bailed out by a business 'partner' who was either a friend of Daddy or trying to buy favor with the Bush clan. Can't be found. So, I never could figure out where you and other left bloggers found the ability to believe in his ability to lead. Other than a desire to think that he could. The guy is a failure, a prop - always has been. He is the classic figurehead. His ability to get policy initiatives passed is more a ranking of what the political mood of the country was at that time than his leadership. Homeland security, Afghanistan and Iraq? A ranking of the fear quotient and revenge quotient at those times. Economic policy? A ranking of how much people wanted the boom times of the 90s back. Education, stem cells, and partial birth? Fluff that most voters aren't paying attention to. His political handlers certainly are good. But to give credit to George is handing out praise where most certainly it isn't deserved. Posted by: han at December 1, 2003 10:54 PM | PERMALINK1. Would you please ban Mr Ehrenstein until he sobers up? I happen to share Kimmit's rage (even incoherent rage) with George Bush, but I don't think I share much of anything with Ehrenstein. Certainly not the self-indulgence to fill up inches of someone else web site with smug, self-satisfied, vicious, hysterical rants. Since no one is persuaded by your shrieking, Ehrenstein, it's obvious that you are writing primarily for personal catharsis and secondarily out of displaced anger and fury. Why don't you go dump this load over at a place like Little Green Footballs? 2. Turning to the original question, I think the valuable distinction between Bush's success at his political goals (smashing his boot on the face of the masochistic Democratic Party) is disguising his failure at implementing any of his noble, grand visions. Another way of seeing this is he always gets his means (tax cut, war, etc.) and you are conflating this with his ends. Posted by: Andrew Lazarus at December 1, 2003 11:34 PM | PERMALINK"Would you please ban Mr Ehrenstein until he sobers up?" The drunk charge is absolutely boilerplate, isn't it folks? Depart form the script and you're a drunk! "I don't think I share much of anything with Ehrenstein." Awwww! I'm crushed.
My anger and fury is not displaced. It smoked you out, didn't it? Because YOU showed up here. david ehrenstein makes more sense than anyone else here. Posted by: Olaf, glad and big at December 3, 2003 05:17 AM | PERMALINKMake sure you still have something worth wishing for. Posted by: Khurana Sarita at January 19, 2004 05:15 PM | PERMALINKOnly the hand that erases can write the true thing. Posted by: Bachrach Amy at March 17, 2004 02:46 PM | PERMALINKSeekers of truth invariably turn to lies. Posted by: Robinson Michael at May 2, 2004 08:39 AM | PERMALINKWe are never truly sure of our beliefs. Black Sweeties Movie Sample BoobieClub BoyforBoy Movies Brown Hair Girl Club Titties Videos EbonyCheeks Porn Images Giant Gay Cock Latina Time Posted by: cumfiesta at June 30, 2004 07:30 PM | PERMALINKBest XXX Sites - 7337 check out the hot blackjack at http://www.blackjack-p.com here you can play blackjack online all you want! So everyone ~SMURKLE~ Posted by: blackjack at August 24, 2004 05:20 AM | PERMALINK203 Herie http://blaja.web-cialis.com is online for all your black jack needs. We also have your blackjack needs met as well ;-) Posted by: blackjack at August 24, 2004 11:48 AM | PERMALINK5586 check out http://texhold.levitra-i.com for texas hold em online action boodrow Posted by: texas hold em at August 26, 2004 12:48 PM | PERMALINK |
|
|
Powered by Movable Type 2.63 
|
||||
