Bush #1 was right?

As everybody knows, at the conclusion of the first Gulf War the first Bush Administration chose not to depose Saddam Hussein. In his book, A World Transformed, George H.W. Bush explained,

We should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater instability.

In his 1993 autobiography, General "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf took a more practical view:

From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory after the war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit - we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of the occupation. This is a burden I am sure the beleaguered American taxpayer would not have been happy to take on.

Responding to a typically self-serving editorial by David Brooks, Matthew Yglesias provides an interesting commentary on the pro-war factions:

Neither the policies being advocated by Bush nor the policies being advocated by the anti-war movement (even at its most mainstream) were the correct ones. What I wanted to see happen wasn't going to happen. I had to throw in with one side or another. I threw in with the wrong side. The bad consequences of the bad policy I got behind are significantly worse than the consequences of the bad policy advocated by the other side would have been. I blame, frankly, vanity. "Bush is right to say we should invade Iraq, but he's going about it the wrong way, here is my nuanced wonderfullness" sounds much more intelligent than some kind of chant at an anti-war rally. In fact, however, it was less intelligent. I got off the bandwagon right before the shooting started, but by then it was far too late -- this was more a case of CYA than a case of efficacious political dissent.

I don't know if Yglesias is correct, or that "useful idiots" like Brooks could ever have come to realize that Bush I had a point. I still think that the war was going to happen - Bush II wanted it that badly - and if anything his reaction to an 11th hour shift in popular opinion would have been to start the war sooner, before public resistance became too powerful for Congress to ignore.

I have argued since the war started that, while historical lessons should be learned from the manner in which we were drawn into the war, we need to recognize the reality: We're in Iraq, and we have to figure out how to best resolve our occupation. It seems that, despite our having been the occupying power for more than a year, the Bush Administration has given this almost no serious thought. They still seem to think that everything is going to get better, perhaps by magic. If a magical solution does not somehow materialize, and commentators like Brooks continue to cheerlead instead of pressing for material improvements in the Bush Administration's strategies, in twenty years it seems far more likely that history will support the position now taken by Yglesias, not Brooks. And that would be tragic.

Comments

Selective Amnesia

Poor President Bush. His memory seems to be failing:

President George W. Bush has denied that his administration began drafting plans for the invasion of Iraq shortly after the September 11 attacks, insisting he did not begin to focus on Iraq until nearly a year later.
Advertisement

The comments came in response to the publication of excerpts from Plan of Attack, a new book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, which says Mr Bush ordered Donald Rumsfeld, his defence secretary, to draw up a fresh war plan for Iraq in November 2001.

* * *

But Mr Bush told reporters he could not recall what plans were being developed in November 2001, and said he had focused on defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

(So we're not saying that the story, which is consistent with accounts dating back to 9/12, is false - we're just denying that the President remembers something so minor as whether he ordered a key cabinet member to draft war plans.)

Comments

Going Off the Roadmap

Incredible.
Unbelievable.
Irresponsible.

But perhaps not surprising for a President, who has no grasp of or interest in history or diplomacy, and whose largest exposure to the region at issue was a propaganda helicopter tour personally led by Ariel Sharon.

Funny, how those rational voices who point out that you cannot make significant progress to peace without providing the Palestinians with some sense of the borders of the state they will obtain were ignored by Bush, yet he is more than happy to assure Sharon that he can annex huge amounts of illegally settled Palestinian land well in advance of any peace deal.

Comments

Another Term for "Cut and Run"?

Today, Thomas Friedman suggests that if we let the Iraqis know that we will be handing sovereignty over to some form of interim government at the end of June, that we expect democratic elections to be held a year later, and that we will then leave, that by some miracle all of the disparate factions will suddenly cooperate to form a viable national government. As the basis for this assertion, he points to a tentative agreement between Hamas and what's left of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, in relation to how Gaza might be governed in the event that Israel actually does withdraw its soldiers and illegal settlements from that tiny territory.

Whatever the merit of the observation that the remnants of the P.A. are willing to negotiate with Hamas to prevent a civil war, and to ensure the flow of international aid, in the event of an Israeli withdrawal, the situation in Iraq is a bit more complicated. Ignoring the fact that the Bush Administration apparently doesn't want to leave, and is building massive infrastructure to support tens of thousands of American troops for the indefinite future, the calculus is very different for the various factions in Iraq. The Kurds have expressed a willingness to join a national government as long as they get self-rule - something close to a state of their own, but not so close as to make Turkey uncomfortable. And they have suggested that they will try to form an independent state if that's not possible. But there's little to inspire those who benefited from a Sunni-led dictatorship, or those who desire a Shiite theocracy, to stick with a plan which will lead to a relatively secular and pluralistic democracy.

I am sure that Friedman believes that this approach - throwing the baby into the deep end and letting it learn how to swim on its own - would work. It's not the nuttiest idea he has espoused in his column over the last few years. But it is reminiscent of the suggestion that we "cut and run" - or follow the Vietnam model of declaring "victory with honor" and leaving a puppet government to fend for itself. While some puppet governments have managed to last for quite a few years after the departure of their sponsors, most don't seem so lucky. It takes somebody like Friedman to point to the possibiliity that a peace agreement might theoretically hold between two factions in a tiny territory where a long-standing occupation might theoretically be ended, and to argue that it proves, well, anything.

Comments

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

I doubt that Senator Roberts expects anything in return for his setting the record straight on Clarke's testimony, which apparently was in fact consistent with his prior testimony, but it does take a certain amount of gumption to stand up to the Senate Majority Leader of one's own party, and the desire of certain partisans to undercut Clarke's testimony.

Comments

Staying The Course in Iraq

Newsweek reminds us of the course we have taken to date. Is this the course we intend to pursue, or is there some other course we plan to "stay"? Apparently, not even the President can explain what it means to "stay the course". Just that we're going to "stay" it.

Meanwhile, if as rumored the Bush Administration green lights Sharon's annexation of huge swaths of occupied Palestinian territory, I don't think that the "course" we are staying will become any easier....

Comments

Bad News from Europe?

According to the New York Times, bad things are happening in Eastern and Central Europe:

Politicians espousing nationalism, ethnic bigotry, overly simplistic economic programs and a rejection of all things European are gaining ground around the region....

Um... isn't that a description of the Bush Campaign's platform?

Comments

Corporate Taxes

Reading this ("Almost two-thirds of America's corporations paid no federal income taxes during the late 1990's, when corporate profits were soaring."), it is difficult to imagine America before the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment. Rebuilding our nation's tax code such that it is more simple and more fair would obviously be a difficult and politically thorny project, but it is one that is way overdue.

Comments

"Threat" or "No Threat"

The Bush Administration helpfully explained yesterday that the Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Osama bin Laden Determined to Attack the U.S." was not a threat because "There was not a time and place of an attack".

Let's see how the Bush Administration tackles real threats....

* December, 2002: A Bellbrook, Ohio High School student is interrogated by the Secret Service because he wore a t-shirt which had a picture of Bush with a target on his forehead which read, "Not My President".

* March, 2003: A student at Eastern Washington University whose family had immigrated from Iran is interrogated by the Secret Service after advocating against the invasion of Iraq during class, apparently after somebody called the Secret Service with the allegation that he had a picture of Bush on a dartboard in his dorm room.

* May, 2003: Two sixteen-year-old students at Oakland High School are interrogated and threatened with deportation after one commented in class that "Bush is whacked" and the other joked about getting a sniper to "take care" of Bush.

You see, the Bin Laden information suggested a manner of attack, but did not have specifics as to time and place, and thus was not a threat. While the comments and actions by the various students were... um... well... er... Well, they were threats. Let's leave it at that.

Comments

Hey Look, Everybody - It's a Crisis

As I read through this week's newspapers, it seems that most editorials and articles regard what is presently happening in Iraq as a "crisis" - and seemingly as one that arose as if by magic. Which can only make me wonder... do the reporters and news columnists bother to read their own newspaper's articles? Because this "crisis" has been building for a long time.

Oh, I know.... those on the right were arguing that every bad word about Iraq reflected "media bias" and insufficient coverage of "all the good things that are happening". The apologists for the war on the left were unwilling to admit that maybe they underestimated the difficulty of the occupation and transformation of Iraq. So we've spent a year with most voices trying to justify their political stance going into the war, as opposed to analyzing what is actually happening in Iraq.

Comments

Bad Policy

The Washington Post has two articles on bad Bush Administration policy, although it uses softer language. And it correctly points out that the Democrats share responsibility.

The first is the Alternative Minimum Tax - a tax the White House knows will soon consume most of the small "middle class tax cut" which were meant to make its enormous tax cuts for the rich somehow more palatable. The Bush Administration was confronted on the AMT in 2001, and responded that its present focus was on cutting taxes and that it might address the AMT in the future. As they say, tomorrow never comes.

The AMT was designed to ensure that the ultra-rich, who are very good at sheltering their money from taxes, paid at least some tax. The rich, as you might expect, have created new tax shelters which take the AMT into consideration. Meanwhile, as the AMT isn't indexed to inflation, it reaches more and more taxpayers. To fix the AMT would seriously upset the financial projections made based upon its reaching huge numbers of middle class taxpayers - people the AMT was never intended to reach, but people who simply don't matter to Bush. (Sorry if I shattered your illusions - if I just described you, it's true - you don't matter to Bush.)

Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress (with barely a peep from the opposition) are permitting corporations to underfund their pension funds. Never mind that they are already underfunded. What the heck - you're rich enough that you don't really need your pension, right? (Assuming you are one of the lucky few who still qualifies to receive a pension....)

Comments

Scalia v. Sound Bite News Coverage

Justice Scalia has a long and well-known policy of not permitting his public speeches to be recorded. The reasons for this go beyond the controversy over his statements about the Pledge of Allegiance case, and his recusal from that case - the fact is, it is difficult for a Supreme Court Justice to speak on any subject of public interest without somehow suggesting how he might ultimately rule on a matter or controversy that may ultimately come before the Court.

The latest controversy surrounding Scalia involves the seizure of tape recordings made by members of the news media, of a speech Scalia made at a high school. Apparently the reporters who made the recordings were informed before a morning presentation that no tape recording was permitted, but no similar announcement was made prior to an afternoon presentation. (Now, due to the legalities involved, there is disagreement over whether the tapes were seized and erased, or whether the Marshal who approached the reporters simply made a polite request for the tapes.)

While I do think the manner of seizure was heavy-handed, and I am a strong advocate of a free press and of the distribution of this type of information, I have to wonder what the reporters were thinking. Were they naive of Scalia's long-standing policy on recording, such that even after the morning's announcement they honestly believed that he would not object to their recording his afternoon presentation? Or were they hoping that the failure to give a second announcement in advance of the afternoon presentation would allow them to avoid what they knew to be the case - that Scalia would not approve of their recording his presentation? I would have a lot more sympathy for the reporters if I thought this was an innocent mistake, but my suspicion is that they were trying to avoid Scalia's well-known policy on what some might call a "technicality".

It seems that all parties involved in this latest controversy could have acted more responsibly.

Comments

On the Edge of a Sword

Watching Condoleezza Rice testify, I don't expect any real surprises or revelations. After a surprisingly unpracticed reading of her long introductory statement, Ms. Rice demonstrated a range of reactions to questions, including what appeared to be anger and fear. Audience applause resulted when a commission member reminded her of the time limits, and that it would be nice if she would simply answer the questions as posed to her rather than eating up his time with self-serving, peripheral commentary. But it seems clear that Ms. Rice has a typical strategy for a witness whose testimony is artificially constrained to a limited amount of time - eat up as much time as possible with long, rambling, indirect, and sometimes non-responsive answers.

When Ms. Rice suggested that she wanted to read certain passages of a classified report, the commissioner asked that she declassify the entire report. She asserted, repeatedly, that the commission had been given access to the full report - as if that is the same thing as declassifying the report. The commissioner noted that until today, even the headline of the report had been classified.

Although the headline suggested otherwise, Ms. Rice argued that its description of Al Qaeda activity, delivered shortly before the 9/11 attacks, were historic in nature - detailing Al Qaeda's domestic activities and terrorist plans in the past, but not warning about the future. That's the sort of hair-splitting which might impress the author of a TownHal.com idiotorial, but c'mon. A warning that Al Qaeda operatives were traveling to the U.S., residing in the U.S., and operating cells within the U.S., had no relevance to Al Qaeda's future activities? Assuming she is being honest, I don't know what she was smoking when she made that assessment, but it wasn't something that improved her judgment.

Comments

Saving Face....

The Bush Administration has reportedly refused to release the speech that Condoleezza Rice was going to present in public on September 11, 2001, on the basis that it is "confidential".

The Washington Post, citing former U.S. officials who have seen the Rice speech, reported last week that the speech was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy. It said the speech included no mention of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups.

Granted, disclosure would help rip the curtain away from the truths the Bush Administration fears, but even with the continued stonewalling one would have to be rather dense not to be able to read between lines this wide.

Comments

Here Come the Black Helicopters....

Okay, perhaps not the best headline, given the color of some of the helicopters they're using in Iraq, but....

In the London Guardian today, a columnist hypothesizes that Bremer may be intentionally provoking a confict with the Shiite factions aligned with Moqtada al-Sadr, whose desired future government for Iraq appears to be much more of a theocracy than a democracy. The columnist asks why Bremer would order the crackdown in Shiite newspapers, protests, and order al-Sadr's arrest at this time, and postulates,

Here's one possible answer: Washington has given up on its plans to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, and is creating the chaos it needs to declare the handover impossible. A continued occupation will be bad news for George Bush on the campaign trail, but not as bad as if the hand-over happens and the country erupts, an increasingly likely scenario given the widespread rejection of the legitimacy of the interim constitution and the US- appointed governing council.

Well, gee... it is a possible answer - it's just rather unlikely. This alone suggests otherwise: If the Bush Administration did intend to delay its ceremonial "handover" of sovereignty, it would stop talking about how the handover will occur as scheduled and start focusing its public statements on the security issues facing Iraq. The Bush Administration, by all appearances, intends to have the "handover" go on as planned - out of concern for the 2004 election, not Iraqi security.

The Washington Post sees this very differently, as a "necessary fight"to put down a radical Shiite militia.

Mr. Sadr, who has a base in the slums of Baghdad, is a young cleric with a considerably smaller following and reputation than other Shiite leaders, like Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf. Precisely for that reason, Mr. Sadr has sought to gain support by adopting a hard line against the occupation and the United States. That the coalition had a prepared but unimplemented strategy for dealing with him was indicated by yesterday's announcement in Baghdad that an Iraqi judge had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Sadr on murder charges some time ago. An associate was arrested recently, providing a pretext for the assaults on coalition forces.

Perhaps the real problem here is that the plan was bad, its implementation too slow and clumsy (or too cautious out of fear of a Shiite uprising), and it was too easy for as-Sadr to see it coming.

Perhaps Richard Cohen has a point today when he argues that a major flaw of the Bush Administration is the failure of any person in a leadership position to take responsibility for - or even to admit to - a mistake. In fairness to the Bush Administration, that approach has largely worked - since 9/11, the refusal to admit mistakes has helped create a public perception of "leadership" and "confidence". Now there is the possibility of a cascade failure, and the Bush Administration is desperate - not to fix things or take responsibility, but to try to keep things from falling completely apart in advance of the elections.

Comments

Looking for Something In All The Wrong Places

Today, Bill Safire (like several columnists before him) complains that the 9/11 Commission is focused on the wrong questions:

Today we are engaged in the wrong debate. The brouhaha about whether the new Bush administration treated the threat of Al Qaeda as "important" versus "urgent" is history almost as ancient as whether F.D.R. did enough to avert Pearl Harbor.

Funny.... When the 9/11 Commission was formed, numerous columnists from the political left and center complained that its focus was too narrow, and that it appeared to be designed (by the Bush Administration and the Republican majority in Congress) to avoid a full inquiry into the most crucial issues surrounding 9/11 and terrorism prevention for fear that the President might be embarrassed - with particular criticism focused on the selection of Henry Kissinger as its proposed Chair. Now that it looks like the President is going to be embarrassed anyway, the right has started to whinge (while the left remains silent), making it appear that this inquiry has become far less about finding out "what happened and why it happened" and much more a game of political "gotcha". Safire concludes,

Let the floo floo birds look back in anger, scheduling the 9/11 commission's report on the opening day of the Democratic convention, hoping to persuade voters that Bush's concern with Saddam's threat diminished our suppression of Osama.

Other birds who dare to look ahead will wonder: Are those fixated on fixing blame avoiding the needed debate about how best to get to the root of terror in the Middle East today?

Safire deliberately fails to mention the fact that the 9/11 Commission asked the Bush Administration for an extension that would have delayed the release of its report until after the election, and Bush refused. And Safire conveniently forgets to mention the drooling loonies on the right who are so backward-focused they want to blame everything that has happened during Bush's watch on the Clinton Administration.

But beyond that, why is it only now that he is asking us to look ahead? Those of us who have been looking ahead for years had concerns about domestic terrorism before 9/11, and had grave concerns about the Bush Administration's so-called "war on terror" even before it became strangely focused on Iraq. "Don't look back - only look ahead" isn't great advice when it only comes after somebody has taken you down a blind alley.

Comments

The Stakes Increase

While the Bush Administration continues to attack Richard Clarke for his testimony to the 9/11 commission, the media has been paying attention to the details of the alleged contradictions and errors, and has been drawing its own conclusions, as demonstrated by the Washington Post:

But the broad outline of Clarke's criticism has been corroborated by a number of other former officials, congressional and commission investigators, and by Bush's admission in the 2003 Bob Woodward book "Bush at War" that he "didn't feel that sense of urgency" about Osama bin Laden before the attacks occurred.

In addition, a review of dozens of declassified citations from Clarke's 2002 testimony provides no evidence of contradiction, and White House officials familiar with the testimony agree that any differences are matters of emphasis, not fact. Indeed, the declassified 838-page report of the 2002 congressional inquiry includes many passages that appear to bolster the arguments Clarke has made.

* * *

Eleanor Hill, staff director of the House-Senate intelligence committee inquiry, said last week that she heard some of Clarke's March 24 presentation before the 9/11 commission and remembered his six-hour, closed-door appearance.

"I was there," she said of Clarke's 2002 testimony, "and without a transcript I can't have a final conclusion, but nothing jumped out at me, no contradiction" between what he said last month and his testimony almost two years ago. She also noted that Rice refused to be interviewed by the joint intelligence panel, citing executive privilege.

* * *

While the commission staff has found that Clarke did agitate for the armed Predator, several Bush administration officials, reading from a memo prepared by Clarke's staff for a Sept. 4, 2001, meeting of national security principals, said the recommendation about the Predator was this: "We believe concerns about the warhead's effectiveness argue against flying armed missions this fall."

* * *

With the exception of the Predator issue, Clarke's alleged misrepresentations are largely peripheral to his central argument about Bush's lack of attention to terrorism before Sept. 11. The White House believes this nevertheless suggests flaws in Clarke's overall credibility.

Meanwhile, the New York Times is examining how the Bush Administration's narrative of its supposed emphasis on terrorism before 9/11 aligns with the facts, and points out that Condoleezza Rice's account is not always consistent with the stories of other Bush Administration insiders.

Meanwhile, it has been alleged that while President Bush was planning to invade Afghanistan nine days after the 9/11 bombings, he was placing an enormous emphasis on Iraq as the next target.

Comments

Kristof's Support of Child Labor

Today, Nicholas Kristof complains that international pressure to raise labor standards or to eliminate child labor can backfire, citing bans on the import of Bangladeshi garments manufactured by child labor and Pakistani hand-stitched soccer balls. He asserts that many of the children presently employed in sweatshops have no educational opportunities, and thus cannot attend school, and that their lot is often worsened when they are excluded from sweatshops.

He omits, though, another example of child labor affected by international pressure - the use of children to manufacture hand-knotted carpets in India, Nepal and Pakistan. Typical work weeks involved twelve to sixteen hour days, seven days per week, in "employment" that is better described as indentured servitude. Children are favored for this work because their small hands allow them to more easily tie smaller knots. Children employed in this type of setting often suffered eye injuries and hand injuries before being cast out of the factories when they had the audacity to reach adolescence. Thanks to international pressure, many of these sweatshops have closed.

Also, in relation to his soccer ball example, while Kristof mentiones that jobs were lost to India in part because of the end of child labor, he mentions that Pakistani women were also excluded from the work because "Conservative Pakistanis believe that women shouldn't work outside the home". Kristof seemingly has no problem with the loss of jobs due to the exclusion of adult women from the workforce - but laments that children can't be used in the jobs forbidden to the adult women.

Kristof closes with a classic false dichotomy - telling "university students" that they should stop avoiding products made with child labor, while making contributions that will help improve the lives of children in the nations that exploit child labor. Why, one wonders, can't a college student do both?

Comments

Peace Negotiations?

In today's Washington Post, a columnist criticizes the failed tactics of Hamas and of Ariel Sharon, condemns suicide bombings, calls upon the Palestinians to transform their Intifada into a mass nonviolent protest, and calls on the west to press for resumed peace negotiations. The difference from the usual, at least in a U.S. paper, is that this call is coming from an Arab writer. Arab voices don't seem to get many column inches on a typical U.S. editorial page, save perhaps if they are talking about the occupation of Iraq.

Comments

As if we didn't know....

As I have previously mentioned, I recall watching a political program shortly before 9/11 during which the Republicans were attempting to make their case for a "missile shield", and brushed off a response from Senator Joe Biden that the biggest threat was not of a rogue state firing a missle at us, and that a nuclear attack was far more likely to come in the form of a bomb welded into the bow of a freighter that was sailed directly into a U.S. port. Before 9/11, there was no public sign that the Bush Administration viewed terrorism as a significant issue. After 9/11, there were numerous accounts, including a quote from President Bush in Bob Woodward's book, suggesting that the Bush Administration had underestimated the significance of al Qaeda and terrorism:

Until September 11, however, Bush had not put that thinking [that Clinton's response to al Qaeda emboldened bin Laden] into practice, nor had he pressed the issue of bin Laden. Though Rice and others were developing a plan to eliminate al Qaeda, no formal recommendations had ever been presented to the president.

"I know there was a plan in the works. . . . I don't know how mature the plan was," Bush recalled. . . . He acknowledged that bin Laden was not his focus or that of his national security team. There was a significant difference in my attitude after September 11. I was not on point [before that date], but I knew he was a menace, and I knew he was a problem."

And today, courtesy of the Washington Post, we get insight into the Administration's thinking on 9/11.

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.

The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.

The speech was postponed in the chaos of the day, part of which Rice spent in a bunker. It mentioned terrorism, but did so in the context used in other Bush administration speeches in early 2001: as one of the dangers from rogue nations, such as Iraq, that might use weapons of terror, rather than from the cells of extremists now considered the main security threat to the United States.

David Broder got it right today, writing:

For nine days the White House and its allies did everything in their power to discredit Clarke, while trying to shield his old boss, Rice, from the commission's unanimous request that she give sworn public testimony in response to Clarke's stunning indictment.

When the effort to shoot the messenger failed to halt the political erosion, Bush did what he never should have done: He threw Rice to the commission. And, worse, he failed to do what he could have done long before: Offer the American people and the world a clear, coherent and detailed account of his own activities and state of mind in the months leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Instead of acting as the man in charge and saying to the commission, "No, you may not put my national security adviser on the mat, but I will answer to the public for what happened," he did just the opposite. He gave up Rice and then turned on his heel and walked out of the briefing room even as reporters were trying to ask him questions.

The most obvious reason for the years of Bush Administration stonewalling since 9/11 is that Bush fears being embarrassed, and perhaps having his reelection bid mortally wounded, by the truth. It's within his power to provide a different reason for his refusal to candidly speak to the facts, but I don't expect to hear one.

Comments