Policy = those able to discern reality in this context, right? Why not simply state, "those able to discern reality"?

Spot on, Kevin. Nice work.

Unbridled fealty to business interests? That's probably the closest to the truth, but what about Sarbanes-Oxley or McCain-Feingold?

SOX and McCain-Feingold are really just scapegoats. They do almost nothing to conceal where C-whore-porate America makes it's money: by using the US military as muscle to manipulate markets.

That soldier-blood is pure gold.

'cmon America! Keep sacrificing your children to Mammon!

But why hate policy wonkery?

Eschewing policy serves some purpose, right?

It seems like it serves the purpose of letting Bush/Cheney to do whatever they want. What feels good?

But how do they determine what feels good? Is it as simple as pissing off the wonks? And why have journalists embraced it so enthusiastically? Do journalists hate academics and other wonks too?

The defining characteristic of Bush is the big agressive ideas - win or lose, he tries 'em. For example Iraq, Afghanistan, not signing Kyoto, tax cuts, more tax cuts, social security, Medicare Prescription & immigration.

He is almost the anti-Clinton in his hatred of 'kicking problems down the road' and willingness to address difficult issues in foreign policy or domestic policy at the expense of his own popularity.

Compassionate conservatism is what he said he was. The compassionate part, turned out to be a willingness to spend. But he's still definitely a modified conservative of some sort.

Mr. Drum,
Did you just give credit to Bush for McCain-Feingold and Sarbanes-Oxley and use it as evidence against his corporate fealty?

You've got to be kidding.

I would view his 3 guiding principles in order of importance.

1. Act rather than react, using Clinton-style triangulation often enough to win.

2. Christian values matter

3. Pro-business is pro-economy is pro-people

One influential Republican with close ties to the White House said Mr Zoellick was leaving “soon” because he was not getting the Treasury job. The Republican added that the White House wanted someone who would be a better salesman. Mr Zoellick is more widely admired for his policy knowledge.

One 'influantial' republican said it. His quote (which may or may not be in context) indicates that they wanted somebody who would effectively communicate the administration policies to the American people. That makes sense; anybody within the department can make policy, but only the top guy gets invited on to talk shows.

Off of that, however, Kevin creates an elaborate theory in which Bush "doesn't care about policy". What it reminds me of is the early days of Microsoft. Gates was visionary and ruthless. Most people said his decision to not grant an independent license for DOS showed he didn't understand/didn't care about business plans, when the opposite was true.

Bush is like that. He's playing three dimensional chess, when the democrats insist on playing checkers. His thinking is long-term; he's growing the economy of the future with deficits of today, knowing that the growth will be worth it. He's fixing social security now, so it's not a problem for later. He's kicking off the fourth wave (Huntington style) in the middle east, thus making it so future americans can sit back and watch democracy spread.

He is shifting a lot of the burden for improving the future onto the current generation. In a sense, that's unfortunate. In the long run, though, I think we as Americans should be willing to make those sacrifices.

I think Bush's problem is his pure, unadultrated cynicism. There are no morals, no conscience, no consideration beyond pure self-interests. Truth is what we say, facts are whatever back up our policy, our policy is whatever furthers the agenda, the agenda is to gain more power.

Laws are auctioned to be written by the highest bidder. Pork goes to the most lavish contributors, regulations to those who stand in our way. Jobs are given to the most loyal, the executive branch is there to intimidate the rest.

It's not how the world is, but how people should believe the world is to most benefit us. We make our own reality: tax cuts stimulate the economy, Iraq's going great. If people don't believe it, we aren't selling it right.

Maybe he's just an obstinate asshole with an anti-intellectual bent who doesn't like to hear self-assured policy wonks with PhDs and "experience" tell him what to do and how to do it.

we as Americans should be willing to make those sacrifices.

Posted by: American Hawk on May 24, 2006 at 2:31 AM | PERMALINK

Hmmn, you are trying to reason with Clinton's baby boomers and asking them to sacrifice. Are you kidding me?

You are talking to the people who think that a head of state should not be asked to refrain from interns under the desk. Hey, its his personal life and he had a tough childhood!

hear self-assured policy wonks with PhDs and "experience" tell him what to do and how to do it.

Posted by: toast on May 24, 2006 at 2:38 AM | PERMALINK

No, he listens to neo-conservative academics. He just happened notice that there are a lot of academics who are basically full of it.

My grand unifying theory of Bush is "Faith in Faith". What good is policy or analysis or reality when you have faith in what you're doing? And I don't mean to denigrate religious faith by saying this. I mean simply to say that decisions must be guided by more than simple belief that the outcome is assured.

Another example: As I think you pointed out years ago, a good CEO doesn't just delegate; he follows up to ensure that the delegated task was successfully completed. Bush "delegates" and takes it on faith that the expected result will be achieved. Again, what need is there fore follow-up when you have faith?

Every time I click on the comments here I am astounded by the Republicans that post here. I can't figure out if they honestly believe what they write or are so desperate to stop the downward spiral of the GOP that they will say something that they know anybody who has paid attention for the last 5 1/2 years will know is idiotic.

case in point

Hmmn, you are trying to reason with Clinton's baby boomers and asking them to sacrifice. Are you kidding me?

You are talking to the people who think that a head of state should not be asked to refrain from interns under the desk. Hey, its his personal life and he had a tough childhood!

Are you kidding me? What exactly has the leader of your cult asked us to sacrifice? Tax Cuts? Energy consumption? Supporters of this war, like you, to sign up and go do a tour or two?

It is remarkable to me that you fools are still so obsessed with a friggin blow job. How absolutely pathetic.

New Orleans drowned and the gulf coast was ravaged. Billons of dollars have been wasted on a recovery effort that could have been done better by my 9 year old nephew. Regardless of the happy talk Iraq is swirling the toilet bowl, at the cost of over 2.5 billion dollars a week. K-street owns our government.

But, OH MY GOD, Bill Clinton got a blow job.

No, he listens to neo-conservative academics

No shit McSherlock, he listens to facists and fiction writers with no (successful) real world experience.

listens to facists and fiction writers with no (successful) real world experience.

Posted by: toast on May 24, 2006 at 3:13 AM | PERMALINK

So who has real-world experience in responding to an attack on your homeland? Any Pearl Harbor generals you want to recommend. At last check, they responded to that by going to war with two countries (one of which didn't participate in Pearl Harbour) too.

Thank you Kevin. You have articulated my own view of Bush and the reason for his failed administration. If you want another example just remember that Karl Rove was, until recently, the administration's chief domestic policy advisor. Mr. Rove is many things, but a deep thinking policy wonk isn't one of them.

...Bush is like that. He's playing three dimensional chess, when the democrats insist on playing checkers...

He is shifting a lot of the burden for improving the future onto the current generation. In a sense, that's unfortunate. In the long run, though, I think we as Americans should be willing to make those sacrifices.

Posted by: American Hawk on May 24, 2006 at 2:31 AM | PERMALINK

Absolutely delusional!

W playing 3-dimensional chess? He couldn't find his way around the block.

"Burden onto the current generation"? Deficits out the wazoo. IT'S ALL ON THE NATIONAL CREDIT CARD!!!

Corporate fat cats getting waaayyyy fatter but 70% of the country hardly better off. Programs for the poorest cut. The only people really paying for this are the poor sods out in Iraq, with sweat, tears and blood. The rest is getting shuffled down the road. The new wave of dribble on economics.

And to show how inane you are McA turns up to pat your back.

And the natives re-elected the Mayor in charge. They must like getting ravaged. :)

"The Natives?" Your white hood is showing.

The bottom line with Bush's "administration" is
that he and his gang are there to prove that
government CAN'T and WON'T work. Then they can
point fingers at how bad government is and that
we really need less of it.
It is no accident that FEMA is such a disaster.
It's supposed to be that way. One screw up after another just drives home the point that
government is something we don't need.
Hence Grover Norquist's infamous "make the federal government small enough to drown in the
bathtub" remark.
I hope the American people wake up from their
stupor in time to see this bunch of cads for what
they really are: incompetent criminals who
want to spread as much misery and destruction as
possible.
Think that's cynical? Come to New Orleans and
look around at their handiwork. Or Iraq.
If they aren't stopped soon there won't be much left to salvage.

a belief that ideas are all that matter.

Grand rhetorical flourishes? Desires? Politics?

I don't really see how ideas matter much either. Impulses, wants, victories, whatever. Respect for say 'democracy' in Iran might have driven them around to being sensible a lot faster.

It's like that bit at the end of The Hidden when the Senator has been taken over by the alien and the alien stands up and makes the Senator say 'I want to be President'.

Say it with me: 'I want cheap oil. I want to get rid of Saddam. I want lower taxes. I want to be re-elected no matter what. I want to be bigger than Daddy.'

ash
['Hell: 'I want more Mexicans.'']

No, he listens to neo-conservative academics. He just happened notice that there are a lot of academics who are basically full of it.

Posted by: McA on May 24, 2006 at 2:41 AM | PERMALINK

Come on. Admit it. You guys are a comedy duo. I couldn't make this up. How long does he listen for?

There are lots of everybody who are full of it. It's the US way of advertizing that's spilled into daily life. The difference is the neocons have been proven to be full of it. All their best layed plans...whoops, "inspirations" have been proven to be misguided, inapt failures.

It's OK to put a horse trader in a position of life and death responsibilty, it's only other peoples lives! Send in the troops; they're not us! Give a tax break to the rich while the deficit spins and there's not a single conservative economist who judges it to give any measurable boost to the economy; we'll just spin out the same old tired line. It's not our own arse we're blowing smoke up.

The unbelievable thing is you don't see anything wrong with this crap. Maybe it's just a game to you and nobody really matters.

Kevin's observation that the Buish administration's failure to take policy seriously would probably be seen as a compliment by Bush.

I think 43 views himself as a conservative movement figure engaged in a long-term struggle to shrink government to pre-FDR times.

Bush's view of government is basically that it's a process of trying to find out how little is needed to sustain the operation of a free market. Taking policy seriously would give too much credence to the legitimacy of government.

I think Bush is willing to accept mainstream America's judgment of his administration as a failure because he is judging his own performance on entirely different terms. Bush's goal has always been to see how far he can move America down the road to the conservative utopia of a Voluntary Society. In his view, the carnage left in his wake is just the detritus of 60 years of bloated, liberal-democratic government policy.

You have to destroy the country in order to save it.

You're no more going to be able to explain every action of the White House with a single value system than you could explain Bush's like of pretzels, bicycling, and his dog with a single principle. Bush does care about immigration, fundamentalist issues such as abortion and gay sex, stem cells, and (via Laura) education, and these interests are as various as those of any other person. But, like bicycling, these activities are fundamentally hobbies: allowable so long as they function politically (eg, as wedge issues), and necessarily jettisoned when they cause damage.

Any Grand Unified Theory to explain the "policy" choices these guys make has to explain not what they do with their extra political capital, but what they do when push comes to shove. And here there really is one fundamental principle that trumps all others: power.

These are powerful white guys, usually sons of powerful white guys before them, and the name of the game for all of them is increasing their power. Not to any end--the power is the end. Just as money trumps religion when push comes to shove, power trumps money--after all, what does money buy you but stuff and power? And these guys value power way more than yachts.

The thing about them all playing the power game is that it's often worth their while to cooperate--a rising tide lifts all yachts. But though they often actively work to gather more power to themselves (tax rates, executive power), it's often easier just to let break down of its own accord the machinery that previous governments have put in place to prevent the nature accrual of power to the powerful. Thus most of their "policy" goals can more easily be achieved by inaction and targeted incompetence than by actual active policy.

The most interesting thing is watching what happens when the power-game players get almost more power than they know what to do with. Like many who win lotteries, they start gambling with bigger stakes. Like most power-lovers who make it to the top, they have to turn to bigger stakes--in this case, the world stage, and, like so many before, to military conquest abroad. Of course, that didn't work out like they planned, and now it's mostly just covert ops abroad and, at home, beating down the other major teams--congress, judiciary, the media, democrats.

Power explains just about everything with these guys. The only other element you need is that, luckily, they're a bit dumb--either burnt out from playing the game for decades, or, like Bush, the dumb children of smarter power-players before them. Let's just hope we can get rid of them before they get new blood in.

Tilli,

Yes, and he's dismantling the country in an incremental, very politically calculated manner.

He knows where he wants the country to go (Harding, Hoover times) and as he tests his conservative vision from one situation to the next (Social Security, hurricane response, etc.) He budgets as much as he thinks he needs to in order to keep the Republicans in power to continue pursuing the conservative movement's vision.

As spending goes through the roof, appointees at the middle tiers of government are changing laws and regulations one by one each day, steadily removing the justification for taxes, oversight, environmental protection, legal protections. Government reports are being edited to remove any controversial information that doesn't support the minimal government message, including important information about climate change, water quality.

The huge deficit itself will eventually become a tool to reduce the size of government, once people realize our tax and financial systems cannot sustain the deficits.

You know, you're absolutely right.

First I thought you were being flippant. Then I remembered the candidate Bush from 1999 - the one thing he wore on his sleeve as a badge of honor that really annoyed me was his discounting of conventional wisdom.

Ignoring people who have a deep interest in policy allows him to choose people who he believes will think "out of the box" for new solutions. I bet he thinks this his best bet at shaking the status quo - he's throwing darts, hoping that one radical change will do well and assure him a place in history.

Fool - he'll take the country down in the process of playing his ill conceived game. This is the danger of putting a semi-educated person in power.

Bush is like that. He's playing three dimensional chess, when the democrats insist on playing checkers

Um, back in 2000, we were told that Bush's main appeal was that he was simple-minded and wouldn't get obsessed with, as you would call it "three dimensional chess" sorts of issues. Why is Bush all of a sudden some kind of policy-mastermind, when it 2000 he was the simple-minded boy who was going to lead us back to a simpler time?

Bush plays complicated games when it comes to social manipulation and aggrandizement of power. You're confusing this with actual policy.

"And the natives re-elected the Mayor in charge. They must like getting ravaged. :)

Posted by: McAristotle on May 24, 2006 at 3:23 AM | PERMALINK"

Maybe the "natives" know the failure was federal and not local.

I was there and thought the local authorities did fine. The Feds did not even show until the fifth day after the levees broke.

Fine waste of Federal tax dollars.....one great failure after another.

Maybe the "natives" know the failure was federal and not local.

Posted by: Sky-Ho on May 24, 2006 at 5:21 AM | PERMALINK

Well, other cities did better in hurricanes - largely by not depending on the Feds.

But if they want to depend on the Feds next hurricane - its their choice.

Glug!glug! glug!

----------------

The thing about how irrelevant the radical Left is - is that no one operates on the same assumptions you don't even realise you are making.

1. No one thinks that the Democrats can replicate the Fiscal Results of Clinton's deep defence cuts with Islamic Terror outthere or thinks that you guys can bring back the dot com bubble

2. No one really thinks the problem is all a plot of Bush including faked 9-11 attacks.

You've all gone so deep in conspiracy zone, you guys are foaming at the mouth.

Glug!glug! glug!

Wow. You are a really disgusting, reprehensible excuse for a human being, aren't you? How do you live with yourself?

I do policy analysis for a living in DC and this is the single-best post on the current situation I have read.

Policy is the art of asking "Do something, what happens next?".

Politics is the art of asking "Do something, what happens now?"

The Bush administration doesn't do policy.

Kevin, good analysis and synthesis of unrelated threads of evidence. I think your Unified Theory may be spot on. Not to be pedantic, but your last sentence doesn't work - isn't it, "the one thing Bush disdains so utterly is what might guarantee his success"?

Mike S.:

I agree - some of the conservatives who post here, American Hawk as Exhibit A, border on delusional. He attributes all of these grandiose goals and sweeping visions to a man who still wears cowboy boots, takes his "pilly" with him on trips and goes mountain biking when he should be reading research studies on global climate change. In short, Bush's few remaining followers see a Napoleon where most people see Sad Sack. Bizarre!

Stephen Kriz

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I would say that Snow has been quite a success; he has managed to keep the tax cuts and even extend them in the face of record deficits when economic orthodoxy would call for their elimination. How has he not been success in the eyes of BushCo?

My Grand Unified Theory (GUT):

1. money for me and my friends
2. power for me

Policy? As those quotes from folks like O'Neill, DiIulio make clear: They. Dont. Care. It's not what they are there for. They are there to maintain power and enrich their friends. Any apparent legislative achievments (such as NCLB) are merely exceptions that prove the rule.

A nice tasty bait is out there ... c'mon someone take it, take it

Excellent insight Kevin.

All theory and no execution. Kind of reminds me of Detroit's mayor, Kwame. He wins elections because he has some good ideas and understands some basic socio-economics, but in office he just takes care of himself and doesn't get anything done.

McA -- do you mean that the long list of Chinese characters is tasty bait? It makes more sense to me than your raving.

Yeah, critical thinking is for wussies.

It seems to me that Bush is in permanent re-election mode. That seems to constitue his entire policy making pattern in the WH. Whatever will get yhim re-elected, which is weird because he can't get re-elected. What ekese explains whiy his main policy director (Karl Rove) is essentally an electioneering wonk. And it's not like Bush is trying to generate a permanent Republican majority in Congress either sinc he has never advanced any policy that help Republican Congressmen over and above his own needs.

Good post, Kevin. Not sure about the McCain-Feingold example, but otherwise great work.

A guy gets passed over for promotion. Big frigging deal, it happens all the time.

But Kevin "Drama Queen" Drum uses that as a launching pad to bash Bush. Amazing, the never-ending emotional rants of the Bush haters.

Unbridled fealty to business interests? That's probably the closest to the truth, but what about Sarbanes-Oxley or McCain-Feingold?

Um, how about because Bush's claim that he does what he thinks is right without regard to polling is hogwash, and he feared opposing popular reforms?

Chocolate City Nagin

Faubus Redux

McA,

how much are they paying you to haunt this site with your pseudo-debate? I mean, why would anybody want to hang around here among the brain-dead, trying to beat some sense into them?
You are obviously selling viewpoints that nobody here is buying, so by any normal market-rationale, your time is more wisely spent elsewhere....but I guess you won't just come out and say why it is worth your while in your usual confrontational style, would you?

McA,

"Well, other cities did better in hurricanes - largely by not depending on the Feds.

But if they want to depend on the Feds next hurricane - its their choice."

No, you are quite wrong.

People pay into a fund through taxes and expect certain things in return.

FEMA is the visible part of a federal insurance program supported by such a tax program.

If you wish to downgrade such a program then the Feds should refuse taxes for such and local programs can be funded from such, reducing the umbrella effect and driving up costs.

Also, were you at all familiar with geography, the "other" disasters due to hurricanes struck areas of the country above sea level, reducing the effects of flooding to a great degree. Comparing one to the other is simply ridiculous, yet, why would I think a wingnut would ungrade himself from a fatuous argument to a logical one.

By the way - Gore and Kerry ARE smart. It sure would be nice to have a smart President again.

Bush shows his true colors again by making a point out of the fact that he won't watch the Gore global warming movie. Imagine Clinton in a similar situation. He'd grin and say something like "I'm looking forward to seeing it." And he would watch it and probably make some presceint comments on it, whether or not it affected his policy actions.

Bush thinks ignorance is a virtue and something to brag about. God help us!

The philosophy of this bunch is that government is useless, except for the military. If you believe that none of the programs are worthwhile, then why not take the money for the programs and use it to reward your political patrons? Current Republican philosophy is bankrupt and useless when it comes to actually governing the country.

Bush doesn't do policy because he does not believe in policy. The Bush attitude comes from knowing nothing but priveledge.

Spot On! As with political discourse (ignore valid criticisms of your actions and immediately attack the critic), in this administration, policy is for losers and spin is everything.

In their mind, ANYTHING can be manipulated through a combination of carefully crafted language and image. Presidential "dialogues" with the public have nothing to do with real dialogue and everything to do with creating a carefully staged atmosphere totally devoid of a hint of criticism.

Backdrops are carefully chosen for the image they convey and to buttress the message, little slogans are pasted so that TV cameras and photographers cannot shoot from any direction without including an instance of that slogan in the resulting shot.

Perhaps the best indicator of where this Administration places its focus....the quarter of a million dollars it spent creating a backdrop set for Iraq war press briefings (plus the $75,000 FedEx bill for shipping the sucker to the Mid East.)

Image is EVERYTHING. Substance is nothing. Black is white, up is down.

Off of that, however, Kevin creates an elaborate theory in which Bush "doesn't care about policy".

That's right, Chickenhawk, that's the only evidence we have that this administration cares nothing about policy. We never heard Bush appointee John Diullo (sp?) claim that meetings always evolved around politics, not policy, never heard him claim that in his 2+ years in the administration that he never heard any substantive policy discussion.

No, we never heard Paul O'Neal say that with this administration, "politics trumps policy every time. And I mean every time." We never heard Richard Clarke complain that the administration never held any discussions about terrorism prior to 9/11. But all of these people, I'm sure, were just disgruntled former employees who are lashing out unfairly at their former boss. We should really listen to those who are employed now.

As always, Chickenhawk, you need to get your head out of your ass.

Bush is like that. He's playing three dimensional chess, when the democrats insist on playing checkers.

That is the second funniest thing I have ever heard about Bush (the funniest was when Hinderaker said Bush was bordering on brilliance, or words to that effect).

The post-war in Iraq? The non-starter Social Security plan? Having his first post-Katrina photo be of him staring forlorn out the window of Air Force One? All of these are things that I think even conservatives would accept were badly strategized ... and I haven't even mentioned The Pet Goat yet.

I like it when the trolls keep bringing up Katrina. Let them carry our water for us. Because Katrina is the zenith of Bush's failures. In one fell swoop, it told the public (1) Bush's national security prowess was a myth, (2) there was nothing compassionate about his brand of conservatism, (3) the black, the poor, the ill and the elderly don't have a friend in Bush, (4) the FEMA that failed Louisiana and Mississippi was not the same caliber as the FEMA that handled Andrew under Clinton, and (4) this is the leading issue that will dump the GOP majority in November.

So let the trolls remind folks often.

And Kevin, I think your analysis rocks because it's the first explanation that makes perfect sense.

So no one's going to touch the 'God wants me to...be President even unto rigging elections, invade Iraq, run huge deficits while cutting taxes to the wealthiest...He told me so himself' aspect of the delusions?

"It can't be said often enough: what American conservatism has become, as a practical ideology, is the perpetuation and augmentation of privilege for those who are already privileged. And Bush is an extreme practitioner of that ideology. This new round of tax cutting is just the latest of countless examples that makes the point."
- Jonathan Weiler

September 25, 2005, Sunday
By NINA MUNK (NYT)

"In 1985, the combined wealth of the Forbes 400 was $238 billion, adjusted for inflation. Today, the 400 richest people in America are together worth $1.13 trillion. To put that number in perspective, $1.13 trillion is more than the gross domestic product of Canada. And it is more than the G.D.P. of Switzerland, Poland, Norway and Greece - combined."

Kevin,

You've hit the nail on the head. The anti-intellectual animus of the President and his governing coalition has finally come home to roost in the spectacular reality-based disasters of gas prices, Katrina, Iraq among others. It will no longer be sufficient to call the press biased in favor of liberals and Democrats just because the evidence they collect is inconvenient for conservative causes. And going into the 2006 election American voters may have arrived at what Richard Hofstader once called a "Sputnik moment." It was OK to pummel the public schools for undermining public morality by teaching evolution or subversive foreign notions like socialism or communism, but once the Soviets threatened our actual security by putting a piece of metal into space "suddenly the national distaste for intellect appeared to be not just a disgrace but a hazard to survival. After assuming for some years that its main concern with teachers was to examine them for disloyalty, the nation now began to worry about their low salaries." Despite our heated ideological disputes, at the end of the day Americans are a practical can-do people whose most important concern is that something works. It's all about competence, not ideology, as someone famously once said.

George is lazy and he doesn't like doing homework.

I'll echo some questioning of Kevin's examples:

1) "Pure, ruthless political calculation? There's plenty of that, but it really doesn't explain things like No Child Left Behind, the Iraq war, or his immigration policy."

Actually these illustrate ruthless political calculation at the best.

No Child Left Behind was crucial in building his image as a "compassionate" conservative - despite the fact it was unfunded, built on shoddy statistics and forced kids into endless testing - it was a great political tool for a long time.

Iraq War - wow, this was a brilliant political tool for awhile. It allowed Bush to paint himself as a "War President". In 2002 it knocked Enron and coporate scandals off the front page, distracted from the fact that terrorism was getting worse world wide, and was a great tool to pound the democrats.

And in 2004 Bush still managed to use it as a tool to paint Democrats as unpatriotic. Granted the Democratic strategists were idiots not to use the complete evident failure of Iraq in 2004 as an effective issue - but they never chose an angle.

2) Unbridled fealty to business interests? That's probably the closest to the truth, but what about Sarbanes-Oxley or McCain-Feingold?

In both these cases, Bush had no choice. Sarbanes had to be done to show some concern on the corporate scandal front, and McCain-Feingold they tried to sabotage at each step of the way and or gut.

So here are two other possibilities:

1) Bush hates having people who are smarter than he is around. He puts up with Rove because he has to (and he had to have Powell and others to look good in 2000.) But in general he has mediocrities around him - because he just can't stand being out-shone. All those put down nicknames like "turd blossom" support that theory.

2) He's not a thinker and thus addicted to simple answers. Each one of his major initiatives is based on a simple idea - a magic answer. Unfortunately, the devil's always in the details, and life isn't that simple. But Bush hates that, and thus each initiative goes wildly off track.

Again, that seems quite clear, because Bush has never explained a nuanced idea in his life. He sounds like a simpleton probably because he is a simpleton.

Kevin, I wish I could say this nicely but the American people are going to have to recognize that the excuse making time is over. Bush sounds like an ignorant, spoiled dolt because he is one: and they more or less elected him twice. Nobody else did - we did.

the American people are going to have to recognize that the excuse making time is over

they already have, and Bush's poll numbers reflect it. even (honest) conservatives have given up on him.

Apologies if someone already mentioned this but,

A) I agree, Kevin hit the nail on the head and

B) Did anyone notice the striking parallel with Jeff Skilling & Enron? In the movie, 'The Smartest Guys In The Room,' Skilling's philosophy is revealed essentially as this: What really matters is the idea, not the execution. So, I should be able to bank the profits from my idea regardless of whether the idea has been executed, tested, proven or produced actual profits!

All of which, I think, is well described as pure, infantile narcissism.

McA is such a dependable punching bag!

The liberal tendency to assume everyone who disagrees with you is stupid is so persuasive!

Read this slowly, McA: We don't have to assume that you are stupid. You have provided us with a cornucopia of evidence.

It's a--commonplace--observation, not an assumption.

A bit of inanity from American Chickenhawk:

His thinking is long-term; he's growing the economy of the future with deficits of today, knowing that the growth will be worth it...He is shifting a lot of the burden for improving the future onto the current generation. In a sense, that's unfortunate. In the long run, though, I think we as Americans should be willing to make those sacrifices.

I'm sorry, but do you really mean this? The "defecits of today"? Have you ever had a class in basic finance? Ever balanced a checkbook? Ever paid a credit card bill? Apparently not, if you can write a bit of whimsy like that quoted above with a straight face.

By their very nature, "defecits of today" push the burden of current spending onto future individuals. In fact, by accruing massive defecits we are not, in fact, sacrificing anything for future tax payers, but demanding that future tax payers sacrifice for us. Thus, we saw both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton having to raise taxes to pay off defecits created by Ronald Reagan. And, in turn, my daughter will no doubt be paying higher taxes at some point to pay off defecits created by George W. Bush.

That's not a sacrifice on your or my part pinky, it's quite the opposite. That you think it's some sort of sacrifice on your part suggests either vast ignorance or incredible delusion. Which, of course, probably explains why you continue to argue that GW is a great president.

Chee-rist.

There have been many times where I've been very critical of you, primarily because you're a bit too moderate for my tastes, and because I think you sometimes criticize the left without offering any valid alternative reasoning. However, I also have to say I believe this is your finest post ever, and I intend to refer many of my friends to this permalink. Excellent analysis.

What sets Bush apart from other Presidents is he's extremely lazy. Intellectually lazy, lazy when it comes to developing a policy, lazy when it comes to making the government work, lazy w/ execution (Katrina), lazy when it comes to asking "what happens if plan A doesn't work". Lazy.

I concur that this is a good attempt at sythesis.

One ingredient that could be emphasised more is the emphasis on personal loyalty in the Bush administration. Bush owes everything he has to wealthy backers who bailed him out repeatedly in the oil business, provided him with sweet heart loans and deals, and then set him up with a baseball franchise before bankrolling his political career. In turn, political loyalty is emphasized over competence in his selections of those to run government whereas those who rightfully put service to the nation first are quickly let go.

In addition, while politics are important in many administrations, how many have had political hacks like Karl Rove given such prominent roles in a Presidential administration. According to hacks like Karl Rove good politics IS good policy and he makes no apparent distinction between the two. This emphasis on political and emotional impact is reflected in the reckless use of deficit spending and Cheney's famous "Deficits dont matter" since in the short run typically the gains outway the heavy long term costs.

It is true, its not all political calculation, Bush has shown a fondness from acting from his gut, as demonstrated in his statements about looking foreign leaders in the eye and seeing into their souls.

Finally we have a highly competetive President who wants to beat his fathers record by avoiding all of his fathers mistakes, but perceives the problems as being almost all political.

Oops. "Deficits". Replace throughout.

"the American people are going to have to recognize that the excuse making time is over

they already have, and Bush's poll numbers reflect it. even (honest) conservatives have given up on him."

Yes, his poll numbers are down, but he still hasn't lost an election. And there seems painful little willingness to take any hard look at why we, as a country, failed so miserably.

So who has real-world experience in responding to an attack on your homeland? Any Pearl Harbor generals you want to recommend. At last check, they responded to that by going to war with two countries (one of which didn't participate in Pearl Harbour) too

Well that's symptomatic of the bubble world the far right lives in - they think that no country ever experienced terrorism before 9/11.

Might have done us some good to talk with our European allies, who after all have been dealing with terrorism for quite some time. Instead, we dismissed them as "old Europe" and expected them to either slavishly be our lap dogs (cough couch Blair cough) or told them to get out of our way. While some of the solutions we may have come up with from consulting with the Europeans may have made civil libertarians unhappy, I'm quite confident none would have involved invading Iraq.

Speaking of which, funny you should mention Pearl Harbor, as it was someone with a lot of actual experience in war (WWII, Korea), Eisenhower, who warned about the danger of the military-industrial complex.

Read an analysis that explains the Bush presidency in terms of a political strategy employed by Karl Rove that is singularly focused on maintaining a 51% majority constituency and gauges the "tolerance threshold" for disappointing each of the various groups....here:

www.thoughttheater.com

My personal belief is that all of the boy-king's actions make sense if you look at them from one perspective. Basically everything he's done has been to transfer as much wealth from the lower 80 or 90% to the top 1% (give or take on the exact numbers).

Hence you get tax cuts, gutted regulations, corporate giveaways, crony capitalism, etc.

The screw-ups, like Katrina, are simply things that don't hit his radar screen because there's no immediate wealth transfer involved. After the fact, when the no-bid contracts are handed out, well, that's a different story.

And I'm going to venture into tin-foil hat territory on this one. The point of Iraq was to take the Iraqi oil OFF the market. Look what's happened: production drops, prices skyrocket, and who makes money? The oil companies.

Then, when prices started to moderate earlier this year, they started rattling sabres at Iran to spook the market some more. The result? Oil prices go back up, the oil companies benefit.

Now, this requires the assumption that the boy-king & his cronies actually know what they're doing, and have the competence to carry it out. But look at the results: massive transfers of wealth upward, and who gives a rip about anything else?

To clarify a point above, I'm not necessarily opposed to deficit spending and I don't think liberals should be either. Deficits have their place in the panoply of fiscal tools. Thus, in cases where the national economy is in a downturn, it might be necessary to boost spending through deficits to spur further growth. Defecit dollars shouldn't be used in lieue of available tax receipts or, even worse as in this case, to actually fund tax cuts.

It's like home equity loans. Using a home equity loan to make repairs or improvements on the house to add value to it is smart. Using a home equity loan to buy instant depreciables like cars or consumer goods is just stupid. Most Americans wouldn't do that (I hope), so why should we give credit to a President and Congress that do that?

I will remind each one of you that for as incompetent and stupid as you all claim GW is, he has beaten you at almost every turn.

Across the board tax cuts
Retained control of Congress in '02
Trumped Kerry in '04
Staying the course in Iraq
Two fine conservative SC appointees

The pathetic elites that continue to post their diatribe on this site re: this administration may want to look in the mirror one day to really understand who the incompetent ones are.

Hmmn, you are trying to reason with Clinton's baby boomers and asking them to sacrifice. Are you kidding me?

You are talking to the people who think that a head of state should not be asked to refrain from interns under the desk. Hey, its his personal life and he had a tough childhood!

Let me guess, McA, you're a big fan of George's tax cuts, right?

klaus, this administration is spending over $380 billion on entitlements which is more than double the previous administration, which spent only $160 billion. Secondly, the tax cuts were across the board, meaning even the tax payers with very modest incomes realized a break. And finally, those tax cuts helped fuel the current historic low unemployment figure. So everyone (those who pay income taxes)received money back and more people are working today bringing home an income than the during the previous administrations tenure. Hmmmmm.......doesn't sound like transfer of wealth, but why let facts get in the way of drama queen liberal hysteria.

Yes, his poll numbers are down, but he still hasn't lost an election

there hasn't been an election for him to lose, while his numbers have been low. and there won't be.

And finally, those tax cuts helped fuel the current historic low unemployment figure.

prove it. show your work.

cleek, you prove to me all of the criminal activity you have laid at the feet of this administration first, and then I might entertain demonstrating economics 101 to you. If you actually had any integrity you would bring charges against this administration considering all of their high crimes and misdemeanors you have leveled against them. If not, you nothing but an empty elitist vessel.

It is very obvious that starting with 911 this country has been undersiege. It is obvious that George Bush represents a group of powerful people that want the American Democracy Experiment to be OVER. They are well on their way to weakening us so much that we will never recover. All of us need to pull together, regardless of our differences and save the experiment. I hate to imagine the world without the real USA.

cleek, in May of 2004 Bush's poll numbers were 41% and 6 in ten considered the Iraq war to be a mistake. And you still lost.......

Care to lie (try, I'm sorry) again.

You don't have clue what the "real USA" is jeanette. But thanks for playing.

i was reading this for amusement - why get involved with morons like american hawk and mca - but then jay conveniently posted some current piffle.

let's start with "entitlements." with people like Jay, it's not worth the time to look up the facts, so we'll limit ourselves to saying that yes, "spending" on social security and medicare goes up every year. There are more people eligible and we correct for inflation. That said, social security and medicare are currently funded through specific taxes and are in surplus (although medicare won't remain there) and bush is the one who expanded medicare in a spectacularly stupid way.

second, no, bush didn't cut taxes across the board. he cut income taxes across the board. that said, the way you judge the equity of an across the board tax cut is to look at after-tax income as a percentage of total income. the bush tax cuts have increased the after-tax income as a percentage of total income for the upper .1% of households, which means, by definition, that all other households had their after-tax income as a percentage of total income lowered.

And no, we aren't at a current historic low unemployment figure by the meaningful indicator there: percentage of working age adults with a job. The fact is, Bush's tax cuts have fueled a tremendous gain of about 2.5M jobs total (i'm rounding up), which was pretty much the average annual job growth after clinton's tax increase.

in short, jay, your entire recitation is typical of rightwing drama queen hysteria: ill-informed, ignorant, and ungrounded in the "facts" that you think you are the master of.

sorry Jay, no answer, no work shown. you get an F. go sit in the corner.

he's growing the economy of the future with deficits of today, knowing that the growth will be worth it...

Yeah, I remember the stock analysts and venture capitalists in the late 1990's saying these same kinds of things; it's a "new economy" - the price/earnings ratios show that the stock market can grow forever, etc.

Then the chickens came home to roost, and pooped all over the market.

The DJIA has been FLAT for the past 6 years, with only a very slight improvement in the past year, mostly based on the fact that corporate profits are up, mostly due to corporate welfare, and not due to competetive competency or actual productivity. The reason for the lack of competency is because the money that ought to be going to pay for expansion and worker's salaries is going to the executives. And while the workers are minimally employed, they're losing ground on the wealth front. And as workers, they're also consumers, but because they're making less money, sales are off in almost every industry.

It's simple math that proves that "trickle down" economics don't work. Our economy is 2/3 consumer spending. When you gut consumer income, guess what? Spending goes down.

The only way american corps can make money in this climate is by bribing congressmen for handouts. Which is precisely why the Republicans like this kind of economy, and constantly strive for it.

So you're claiming that the aging retirement community has doubled in the last six years hence the doubling of medicare and SS as it relates to entitlement spending. That's ill-informed and ignorant.

I did mention income taxes, which you conveniently ignored, and by your own admission were cut across the board. Fair is fair. Those who paid in more, received more back. Your understanding of that embarrassingly juvenile.

And finally, unemployment is currently under 5% despite the job losses that followed 9/11 and Katrina. Try as you might, that's a tough one to put a damper on. Good luck in '06 and '08.

btw, your current chair of the DNC didn't fair too well in his first high profile election. He backed the rich white candidate in NO and lost.........ouch.

A B.A. in psych is a dangerous thing. But since I have one, here's my two cents: Shrub is quite possibly the most insecure "man" I've ever seen or known. Nothing else has the success rate as a unifying theory of the Shrub Preznitcy as utter insecurity. The cockiness, the disdain for the media, the disdain for the academy, the scorn directed at "book larnin' ", the bullying, the cronyism, the insularity . . . all these things are consistent with insecurity. And the result of actions taken by an administration animated primarily by insecurity? Well, we may not be able to rectify all the mistakes and problems he's created in 8 years for a hundred years, if ever. God help us.

well, jay's ill-informed about lots of matters, not just economics!

for instance, the only "right or wrong" polling on iraq i can find in may, 2004, shows 48% thinking it was the right thing. And that was an interesting moment, which i'm sure Jay deliberately cherrypicked: that was the abu ghraib revelation period.

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq6.htm

as for bush's approval, there was a very brief moment in early may, 2004, where his ratings were 41-42% (again thanks to abu ghraib), but both in april and later may, his approval ratings were in the upper 40s to low 50s.

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob1.htm

keep trying, jay: even monkeys produce shakespeare eventually, although it's not clear that college republicans do. we'd like to see the experiment.

"In the end, ironically, the one thing that Bush disdains so utterly is the very thing that guarantees his utter failure."

And our only hope against further catastrophes emanating from this White House. Three-dimensional chess? The guy hardly plays checkers, and if he lost two out of three, he'd challenge you to another six games.

Any half-educated observer of Bush could see this coming years ago. The guy is perhaps personally charming--although I find such men to be shallow and slippery--but ultimately, there is a reason why everything he's been involved in over the years has gone south. The man doesn't really have a head for business or politics. He only plays the game of them, slapping backs, making wisecrack remarks, and utterly depending on others to carry his water. A true third-generation wastrel (the first generation makes the money, the second spends it, and the third runs the rest of it into the ground), Bush really has no redeeming features other than his last name. (At least Jeb has some smarts, but he's prone to foot-in-mouth disease.) What I find troubling is the personality cult this goofball president seems to have inadvertently created, but an article in this month's Harper's makes it quite clear how the right wing in America has used the concept of "stabbed in the back" to vilify liberals and Democrats over decades for the right wing's excesses, bad decisions, and disasterous strategies. The article goes on to state that this strategy seems to be finally running out steam mainly because Bush and his crowd have run government wholly for six years, the culmination of several decades of right-wing funding, and that they don't really have any real excuses any more for their screw-ups.

I haven't read nor posted on this board for a while. Looks like the trolls have learned nothing, preferring to call those who they disagree with offensive names and offering mindless platitudes instead of offering respect and reasoned discourse. How typical...

Bush sounds like an ignorant, spoiled dolt because he is one: and they more or less elected him twice. Nobody else did - we did.

Posted by: Samuel Knight

With all due respect, sir: No, I damned well didn't.

in May of 2004 Bush's poll numbers were 41% and 6 in ten considered the Iraq war to be a mistake. And you still lost

i wasn't even running, Jay. check your history books. Kerry lost, but that's not really shocking - he's a goofball.

and, the election was in 11/04, not 5/04. check your history books. and, Bush's approval was right around 50% the last week of 10/04, first week of 11/04. unsurprisingly close to the voting percentages.

of course, he's at 30% or below right now, pulling his party down with him. so sad.

Jay, you know what? you're welcome to show us the entitlement spending data. i'm not sure what your point is: i am sure what my point is, because i've looked into this matter extensively in the past. entitlement spending goes up every year thanks to a combination of a larger base and inflation. there's nothing "ill informed and ignorant" about that.

there is something "ill informed and ignorant" about writing "Secondly, the tax cuts were across the board, meaning even the tax payers with very modest incomes realized a break" and then claiming that you mentioned income taxes. In fact, thanks to the eitc, most people with very modest incomes don't pay income taxes, so they didn't get a break. And there is something completely "ill informed and ignorant" about ignoring after-tax distribution of income, or claiming anything other than that the bush tax cuts were heavily skewed to the very top of the income distribution ladder.

there is also something "ill informed and ignorant" about referring to the unemployment rate as dispositive rather than the ratio of employed to working-age population, there is something "ill informed and ignorant" about attributing job losess to 9/11, and there is something "ill informed and ignorant" about exaggerating the potential national impact of temporary post-katrina job losesses.

and, of course, there's something "ill informed and ignorant" about repeating a claim about howard dean when even drudge, the claim's source, has retracted it do to its being untrue.

in fact, i'd say there's simply something "ill informed and ignorant" about Jay....

He's not given the fundies anything?

You can tell Kevin isn't a woman, entirely apart from the clue of his name.

I submit that Bush's lack of policy is part & parcel of his deeply conservative mindset.

It is a cherished belief of conservatives that any time government tries to "do something", it backfires. That you only do more harm if you try to institute a government program. The only responsible thing for government to do is to do less than it currently does.

Which is not to say that Bushies are trying to be responsible--see his Medicare D, which vastly expands government to pander to the senior block while paying off pharma. But I'd say this is a cornerstone of the conservative ethos: the only thing government should do is die.

He's not very wise.

Jay: So everyone (those who pay income taxes)received money back and more people are working today bringing home an income than the during the previous administrations tenure.

Yes, that's why real wages have declined and personal savings have been negative. Maybe you can get John Snow's job. I'm sure you won't commit the unforgivable faux pas, as he did when he admitted in public that increasing income inequality is a problem.

"So who has real-world experience in responding to an attack on your homeland? Any Pearl Harbor generals you want to recommend. At last check, they responded to that by going to war with two countries (one of which didn't participate in Pearl Harbour) too."

McA--

Not sure where you were going with this, but since noone has mentioned it: military generals cannot declare war, they carry out the policy of the commander-in-chief. Congress declared war on Japan and then Germany declared war on us (I guess we could've ignored that since they hadn't hit us yet/sarcasm...are you comparing Iraq with this tripe?), so we reciprocated and declared war on Germany. The generals merely carried out that declaration of war...with brutal efficiency I might add, something of which is missing by their current civilian descendants. But the big difference between these two eras is our leaders in WW II never underestimated our enemies.

Aren't MBAs supposed to manage by the numbers and by good judgement? I think Kevin is saying that our first MBA President ignores both. (And a Harvard MBA at that! I wonder if Harvard will take credit for what he's done for the country.)

GUT for GWB ia very simple: gain as much power as you can, and use it whenever you can.

If you hire someone who is more knowledgeable and experienced than you and is prone to display the knowledge and experience, your power, or at least the perception of it, is diluted.

Iraq was a pure power play.

"It is a cherished belief of conservatives that any time government tries to "do something", it backfires. That you only do more harm if you try to institute a government program. The only responsible thing for government to do is to do less than it currently does."

I submit that conservatives are not currently running "the government" now. The President has signed every bill that has crossed his desk, including all spending bills passed by the Legislative branch, and the facts are that defense, Medicare, and other pork-laden areas of the budget are way up (and that the estimated two trillion Iraq will cost all of us isn't even on the books), tripling the national debt in a mere six years, while our national park system lies broken, our ports undefended, and our roads and bridges near collapse.

The only thing government should do is die? How do you run an empire on such a meaningless ethos? How do your buddies in Halliburton make a living if they can't spend unaccounted-for billions providing government services? How can Wal-Mart warehouse its goods on the nation's highways if the government gets out of the business of buiding and maintaining the Interstate Highway System? Do you drive on a federal highway to work or to go see your mother? Do you drive a car with working taillights? Do the traffic control devices that regulate traffic look the same in the other 49 states you don't live in?

Indeed, Mr. Stoffel, how can you say this w/o choking?

Bad policy is nothing a good sales pitch wont fix. Did Bush learn this at Yale?

AH:His thinking is long-term; he's growing the economy of the future with deficits of today, knowing that the growth will be worth it. He's fixing social security now, so it's not a problem for later. He's kicking off the fourth wave (Huntington style) in the middle east, thus making it so future americans can sit back and watch democracy spread.

He is shifting a lot of the burden for improving the future onto the current generation. In a sense, that's unfortunate. In the long run, though, I think we as Americans should be willing to make those sacrifices.

Yep, I voted for Bush in 2000 because he reminded me of Spock, with his precise diction, intense curiosity, devotion to the scientific method and purely rational approach to problems. And his three-dimensional chess strategies, of course.

His Social Security plan was so well designed to solve the problem of Americans living longer after retirement coupled with the lower birth rate that it's no wonder it was passed so quickly by Congress and is set to be implemented in fiscal year 2007.

Sure, I'd like to be paying less than $5 a gallon for gasoline and still be getting twenty offers of credit cards in mail every week. But the added gas tax is producing great results in research into alternative fuels, and those crackdowns on lending institutions have lowered Americans' personal debts. The tax on petroleum-based packaging made the corporations mad, but it's already made a small dent in oil demand. My taxes are higher than before, but I know our troops were outfitted properly from the beginning of this war, and we're taking good care of our veterans. There was no skimping on troops in Iraq, because Bush foresaw the disorder that would result when the Saddam regime fell. I mean, anybody who could play three-dimensional chess could foresee that, right?

Kevin! A fabulous dissection, a mini-fisking of an entire misadministration! The only flaw is neglecting the key extra angle of currupt serving of business/MIcomplex Repiglican establishment power at all costs, way beyond any previos pattern or mere appeal to idiocy.

Also, don't forget that the government drowners are *counting* on things being screwed up so they can say, "See how incompetent government is" and hope we forget who in particular is in charge now. There must be something beyond mere incomptetence here...

Sorry - Kevin did mention serving the business interests. I meant, the party establishment beyond all previous arrogation of power.

Zoellick is smart and capable. Why would he want the Tres. Sec. job in the first place? The role has been eviscerated in this administration.

Note to those who think that by withdrawing government influence (as commonly framed) we can liberate the free market: the economy isn't free or natural or private anyway. The Federal Reserve's control of the money supply etc. steers employment around, creates new fiat money by monetization of debt which must be allocated in non-market ways (buying and selling per se can't "create money") and certainly provides more for those already rich due to the role of money creation in finance. Also, corporations are given rights of legal personhood and limited liability that have usefulness, but aren't owed anybody - hence we can demand concessions for granting them. And so on. We would have to have welfare/unemployment programs and graduated taxes just to compensate (damages from employment changes due to monetary policy, and unequal effects of the growth of the money supply) for what the government *does* do already.

PS - "Conservatives", go see what Milton Friedman had to say about monetary policy and the Fed.

American Hawk has to be either John Hinderaker or Hugh Hewitt posting under a pseudonym. I'm not aware of anyone else, liberal or conservative, in the current punditocracy who's confident that Bush could outwit anyone a game of Go Fish, much less "three-dimensional chess." Keep talking, Hawk, the more you bloviate the better we liberals look.

lol@cowalker...

You certainly can turn a troll's ear into a silk purse.

I'm sorry, but do you really mean this? The "defecits of today"? Have you ever had a class in basic finance? Ever balanced a checkbook? Ever paid a credit card bill? Apparently not, if you can write a bit of whimsy like that quoted above with a straight face.

Mama Chickenhawk pays all of American Chickenhawk's bills. Fortunately for him, the porn sites appear on her credit card bill as something else. AC spends little time outside if his mother's basemant. My only hope is that he doesn't have bodies down there with him.

I have no other way to explain Chocolate City Nagin being the Mayor.

And I have no other way of explaining George Dumbya Bush as our president. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

What is it with McAristotle and McA? Can't you just post under one name? After all, you're both equally delusional.

Kevin:

Well said, but what you said would not make it on TV or radio without being cut off to go to commercial.

It needs to be boiled down.

This administration is all sales presentation (or snow job if you will) and no implementation.

All sales, no work (unless you count bribery and graft).

or

No plan, no clue, no worries, leave the mess to the next guy to clean up.

Jay, calling you a stupid fuck gives stupid fucks a bad name. You were better off when you were supplying bullshit snarky one-line witlesscisms. At least then, we just assumed you were a moron. When you try to explain a point, you prove it.

Current unemployment figures are bullshit. You don't like them? Tweak the formula to show long-term unenployed "aren't looking for work". If the UR is too high, change the level from 1 year to 6 months. Presto - unemployment looks great!

FYI, Howard Dean is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Why would he give a fuck about a local election? Use what little brain you have, you dumb fuck. here's a clue: Drudge is full of shit.

> Every time I click on the comments here I am
> astounded by the Republicans that post here. I
> can't figure out if they honestly believe what
> they write or are so desperate to stop the
> downward spiral of the GOP that they will say
> something that they know anybody who has paid
> attention for the last 5 1/2 years will know is
> idiotic.

At least half of the Radical trolls who post here are paid, and they are now testing new swiftboat/pretzel logic arguements for the 2006 election cycle. Maybe for 2008 also.

The Radicals spend a LOT of money on psyops, and the amount that their counter-blogging staff is costing them (say $2 million/year tops) is peanuts compared to their total budget.

Cranky

You're very close to the mark with your focus on policy. But a more fundamental explanation is that Bush has no respect for government as a positive force for good. If you hate government, why would you value good policy analysis?

Spike

what truly makes him unique is what's missing: a respect for policy analysis.

Bush appears to agree with you whether he knows it or not:

"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." George W. Bush

Does he even know what analytical means?

McA,

3. Pro-business is pro-economy is pro-people

Tell that to 35 dead coal miners this year.

(snip)

Unbridled fealty to business interests? That's probably the closest to the truth, but what about Sarbanes-Oxley or McCain-Feingold?

(end snip)

Kevin, I think what you leave out of this is those little Executive Findings that Bush signs at the same time he signs any legislation (including those above). Doesn't matter how many laws he signs, in his head it doesn't matter, because he's going to do what he wants to do. Which is serve wealth and power. He's a rich brat who disdains people not in "the elite". He may be likeable or friendly to individual people, but at the core of his being, he vibrates with condescension toward the "powerless" and the "poor". He sees it all as status, wealth and power, which is, of course, a wildly deficient worldview.

"With all due respect, sir: No, I damned well didn't. "

You're right - it was supposed to be the collective "we". I'm just staggered that 50 millions Americans voted for him twice. And even more staggered that millions are still vocally defending a complete non-entity even now.

My only theory is that the GOP had a great PR machine and sold the BS.

>>I'm just staggered that 50 millions Americans voted for him twice. And even more staggered that millions are still vocally defending a complete non-entity even now. Samuel Knight

Indeed, sir. You may include me in that statement without objection.

I've been staggered since millions of Americans voted for Ronnie not once but twice. An utter inability to learn from dreadful mistakes.

Welcome to the kakistocracy.

(kak·is·toc·ra·cy) n. Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.

"Well, other cities did better in hurricanes - largely by not depending on the Feds.

But if they want to depend on the Feds next hurricane - its their choice.

Glug!glug! glug!"
McA not that you are someone who generally concerns themselves with little things like facts but it is worth noting that other cities aren't below sea level and protected by a series of levees & canals engineered & constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The events which put 80% of New Orleans under water wasn't the failure of the city's mayor, it was a failure of the levees and the constant erosion of this area's natural barrier via coastal erosion. While there is blame to be spread to all corners on this, the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known, in many ways we in the area were doomed from the start because of faulty engineering done by the federal agency in charge of protecting this area & this city. If we in the area can't look towards the federal government to rebuild the area simply because that is what America should do for one of its cities and for its citizens, we should expect it because the reason the city was flooded in the first place was because of incompetence on the part of the Corps. So please if you're going to bash an area of the country, please try to do it with something close to a grasp of what actually happened.

A senior White House official told Ron Suskind that the Bush White House is "just kids on Big Wheels who talk politics and know nothing. It’s depressing."

And you believe this because you generally respect the "senior white house officials" of this administration?

The most important reason for the failure of Bush's initiatives is that he got a sub-plurality vote in 2000 and a very small majority in 2004.

Withall, he has gotten some serious initiatives passed (the energy bill took about 4 years of more-or-less continuous politicking; Hillary Clinton who voted against because she opposed subsidized ethanol now supports subsidized ethanol), two supreme court nominees (and many lower court nominees) confirmed, and his tax legislation passed. His administration is leaving us with big debts, and I rank him below Clinton, but to write as though everything he has tried has failed is absurd.

... utter failure.

That's the claim that is absurd.

He knows what he knows and he is never going to know differently, and he is never going to know more. Ultimately he has no intellectual curiosity.

It shows in the lack of policy analysis experience in his subbordinates who might actually force him to think/decide. He shows his disdain for facts that don't conform with his preconceived views because they might challange him to know more.

I don't think you used "ironically" correctly in that last sentence.

republicrat, i think you misunderstand: passing legislation with the assistance of the first parliamentary-minded congressional majority in american history is no big deal.

the problem is, even the actions he's gotten through congress are fiascos.

the reason that bush's presidency is an utter failure is that he has gotten nothing right. passing bills doesn't mitigate that: it emphasizes it.

jeannette russell: "It is very obvious that starting with 911 this country has been undersiege. It is obvious that George Bush represents a group of powerful people that want the American Democracy Experiment to be OVER. They are well on their way to weakening us so much that we will never recover. All of us need to pull together, regardless of our differences and save the experiment. I hate to imagine the world without the real USA."

Of the 120 comments I just skimmed this is the one I particularly agree with.

Everyone in this thread continues to assume that George Bush WANTS what is good for America. So you try to explain the inexplicable choices he keeps making as incompetence, laziness, crony-ism, greed, but you all seem to assume that he basically wants the US to succeed.

There is a much simpler, more sinister explanation. George Bush does not want a functional US. George Bush is the front man for a small cabal of globalists whose goal is a world domination. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US and its vast military machine stood alone in the world. Control the US military machine, and you can control the world. And since the CIC controls the military machine, the goal is to become President, consolidate political power and weaken potential challenges. The US and its citizens are pawns--to them, the US is no different than any other country.

How do you do this? You need to accomplish these things:
1) you destroy or control the media essential for a well-informed electorate;
2) You divide the electorate and divert their attention from what you are doing;
3) You need to corrupt the process of fair elections;
4) You need to position your people in key positions. You demand absolute loyalty from them, and threaten (or kill) those who might challenge you. You gut formerly functional agencies and systems such as FEMA, the CIA, the US education system, etc.
5) You destroy, classify or change the historical documents.
5) You scare people because frightened, angry people people are conservative people.

It's effing brilliant, really. Bush is not brilliant, but he is willing to be the front man for those who are. The bottom line is that a dysfunctional US is exactly what they want. They win when US government and citizens are weak.

The big thing against this theory is that it sounds so Len Deighton-tinfoil crazy. But once you start ruling out the alternate hypotheses, it fits the evidence better than any other explanation.

Here is another system for understanding Bush. I think both are right. This is complicated.

Bush’s stubbornness and inability to change, even when change would seem to be a political necessity, can be understood by seeing the situation through the belief system he lives by. I’ll call it Bushism, although he certainly didn’t invent it. It is, in fact, a way of seeing life that is as old as humanity itself.

At the top of Bushism is its skewed version of the Christian religion. The virgin birth and the resurrection are absolutes to Bushies, so already we have established that faith trumps rational enquiry. Don’t forget, independent reasoned enquiry is a relatively recent development. These guys are clinging to an ancient way of seeing the world that accepts whatever their parents and their community tells them is true.

Next after absolute faith in religion is an absolute faith in a whole stew of unproven but strongly believed ideas. A market economy, social Darwinism, military force and a pro-business anti-environmentalism. It may seem strange that these disparate beliefs came to be structural elements of Bushism, but the hidden reason is they all benefit Bush’s social class. I’m not sure they understand this themselves. Their belief system just happens to make them rich, what a lovely coincidence!

Like all closed belief systems, Bushism is a house of cards. Bushists have not framed it that way in their own minds, but subconsciously they are aware of its fragility, and so they defend every part of it to the last, fearing that if any of the supporting elements collapses, the whole house will go with it.

The good news for us is, their fears are well founded. Even as more and more people come to see how rotten the structure is: how incompetent Rumsfeld is; how dangerous their chicken hawk toughness is; how threatening global warming is, their belief system will not allow them to adapt. As Lao Tsu said, a tree that cannot bend, must inevitably break. My hope is the whole edifice will collapse and leave a void into which progressive ideas will step.

The defining characteristic of Bush is the big agressive ideas - win or lose, he tries 'em. For example Iraq, Afghanistan, not signing Kyoto, tax cuts, more tax cuts, social security, Medicare Prescription & immigration.

...
Posted by: McA

This demonstrates several different reasons why people here don't take you seriously. First, because you apparently believe that stuff is a bunch of big ideas. Invading Afghanistan? Seemed like a no-brainer to me and the rest of the 90 percent of the country who supported it. Not signing Kyoto? Not being a part of the Kyoto treaty was the status quo, how can it possibly be a big idea? Tax cuts? Tax cuts and other variations on the "gubmint is eeevil" mantra Reagan helped popularize have been the favorite subject of The Right (TM) since Goldwater. Privatizing Social Security? See above. And the Medicare drug company giveaway? Well, yeah, it was a nearly unprecedented example of corporate welfare that makes things harder on most people, but some of us don't consider that good.

And then there's "win or lose, he tries 'em." Are the effects of his choices not important to you? Or do you start from the assumption that everything he did had the effect he told the public it would have, and go from there?

George Bush does not want a functional US. George Bush is the front man for a small cabal of globalists whose goal is a world domination.

more absurdity.

even the actions he's gotten through congress are fiascos. The energy bill could be improved upon, and it will be improved upon. The bankruptcy reform could have been better. These are not fiascos, however.

The Terri Schiavo bill, and the tax cuts -- those might be fiascos.

Kevin: If you believe that policy is something for effete liberal wonks — as George Bush evidently does — your ideas are doomed to failure.

Career corporate criminals and war profiteers Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld et al only have one actual policy, which is enriching themselves, their families, and their cronies, co-conspirators and financial backers at the taxpayers' expense, and more broadly, increasing and entrenching the wealth and power of the already ultra-wealthy and ultra-powerful hereditary neo-fascist corporate-feudalist ruling class of America, a.k.a. "the haves and the have-mores", a.k,a. "the top one percent", a.k.a. "Bush's base", a.k.a. the "military-industrial-petroleum complex".

And far from being "doomed to failure", when it comes to implementing their one real policy they have been a spectacular success.

All of their other so-called "policies" are just smoke and mirrors and blather to keep everyone distracted and confused while they loot and plunder the country, and as much of the world as their criminal misuse of the US military for corrupt purposes of private financial gain will let them get their hands on.

SecularAnimist: "And far from being "doomed to failure", when it comes to implementing their one real policy they have been a spectacular success.

All of their other so-called "policies" are just smoke and mirrors and blather to keep everyone distracted and confused while they loot and plunder the country, and as much of the world as their criminal misuse of the US military for corrupt purposes of private financial gain will let them get their hands on."

We use different words, but we agree 100%.

GWB is making deliberate decisions to produce disaster. He & his cabal win when the US is weak.

You know, the bitter irony is that Bush's administration would have, could have succeeded had he said and done some very simple things, like "oops," or "we need to do a better job," or "I'm sorry." A truly wise man would have left Terry Schiavo in peace, or spoken to Gail Sheehan in Crawford, or told PNAC to butt out of foreign affairs. Bend a little, avoid the winds, remain standing. Easy. Instead, Bush's stubbornness and arrogance has screwed the pooch big-time. We'll be lucky to remain a constitutional democracy in the next 20 years, much less 200.

In the end, it's the arrogance that will bring him and his "big ideas" crashing to the ground. The only good news in any of this is that, in the long run, Bush is his own worst enemy. The only question is: Will we survive long enough to flush him and his decisions out of the system?

"It's effing brilliant, really. Bush is not brilliant, but he is willing to be the front man for those who are. The bottom line is that a dysfunctional US is exactly what they want. They win when US government and citizens are weak.

The big thing against this theory is that it sounds so Len Deighton-tinfoil crazy. But once you start ruling out the alternate hypotheses, it fits the evidence better than any other explanation."

Posted by: PTate in MN on May 24, 2006 at 1:58 PM

For the past few years I have occasionally made the observation here and elsewhere that going by his actions (as opposed to his "mighty words" thanks Jon Stewart) it would appear more like the actions of someone out to systemically weaken American power at every level, economic, military, moral. I know exactly how tinfoil hatish this comes off as, as you do too. Yet it becomes increasingly harder to find any other explanation to fit all the facts of the last six years. I can't point to one action this President Bush has taken where one can say with confidence (and factual reality supporting it) that increased American power in the world. Indeed, he has done more to make the American military power look feeble and easily defeated by a bunch of rag tag insurgents, he has placed the economic future of America in the banks of foreign governments including a direct rival and possible military foe down the road (China), and he has totally destroyed any moral authority/credibility America had in the rest of the "free world" that America used to be the leader of and is no longer.

The reason why I no longer find this theory so hard to buy into is because I really am hard pressed to come up with anything else to explain this wholesale destruction of American power by those most entrusted in preserving/protecting it. As Author Conan Doyle's famous detective loved to say... when one rules out everything else whatever is left, that still covers all the facts no matter how improbable must be the truth. I really cannot explain the actions of the Bush43 Presidency any other way any more, if there wasn't the wholesale weakening of American power involved I might buy into some of the other explanations offered, including by KD, Thomas, and Samuel Knight, but even those most in love with their own ideologies and such do not want to destroy the power base needed to enact their dreams of hegemony.

I do not know exactly who might be behind this weakening of America behind Bush43, I do not know if he is a witting or unwitting (although my feeling is for unwitting) tool of these interests. Given the close ties between him and Saudi Arabia (which has a definite interest in weakening American power globally) financiers throughout his failed business life and the debts (financial and other) he owes them I can certainly see how that could have come about without his realizing it, especially given his narrow mindscope and vision.

America has paid a very high price already for the actions of this man, and the 2004 vote that returned him to office was the moment that the disaffection people internationally felt for the American government but not its citizens started to transfer to the citizens. After all, the evidence of this man's incompetence and utter disaster in foreign policy was clear to the rest of the world, so the rest of the world had a hard time believing Americans are so ignorant, so uninformed, and so disinterested in how the power of their government is being abused that they "reelected" GWB (I am one of those not convinced he ever won a fair/honest election in either 2000 or 2004) without being aware of these horrors, not to mention Abu Ghraib given its timing in early 2004.

Like PTate in MN I know how this sounds. Like her I am hard pressed to find any other explanation to explain how any Presidency, even this one, could so systemically destroy American power at every turn solely by accident. Granted though improbabilities do happen and this might be one of them, but if it is it makes winning lotto jackpots look like easy odds.

Here's a good column about Katrina:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/katrina_what_the_media_missed.html

FEMA melted down, but the Coast Guard and National Guard performed well. That includes National Guard who had experience in Iraq, and National Guard from outside of Louisiana. Successes and failures alike were bipartisan. As seems to be some kind of national disease, the press reported (indeed exaggerated) what was done wrong, and omitted reports of what was done well.

First of all, you're making a mistake a lot of people make. You're thinking of this as the "Bush" administration when it is clear that it is actually the Cheney administration.

And Cheney was pretty clear about his policy: "We won, and we'll take what we want."

Or, as he more succinctly put it, "F**k you."

Bush compassionate? Oh please. He was a spoiled, contemptuous child and he's never had to grow up. His bonhomie is a combination of put-on and put-down.

Scotian on May 24, 2006 at 2:54 PM

That's the worst thing you have ever written here.

there has been no "utter disaster in foreign policy". At worst,it is a little less successful than Clinton's, but the rise of resurgent Islamism and the growth of the Chinese mega-industrial state have made the foreign policy challenges harder, so there is no dirct comparison. NATO allies are bearing a combat burden for us in Afghanistan, and the UN is an ally (hardly strong, but an ally) in Iraq (where almost every nation of the EU, and each ally from the far East, has a contingent providing support).

Well, I think McA's jumped the shark with his disdain for the beleaguered people of New Orleans.

Another "compassionate" conservative, I suppose.

Everett Volk wrote: "I'm sorry, but do you really mean this? The 'deficits of today'? Have you ever had a class in basic finance?"

In his own clumsy way, our dear little friend Hawk actually had a point. Alas that he was unable to articulate it clearly, not to mention that he is dead wrong.

What he was undoubted referring to was the investing of money into enterprises that will bring long-term growth -- short-term pain for long-term gain. Think starting a new company or taking out a student load to go to college. In both cases, the initial cost is high, but the eventual return on the investment is (potentially) quite large.

Unfortunately for Hawkie, there isn't a reliable economist out there who agrees that we can grow our way out of these structural deficits. The investment analogy is simply incorrect, which leaves us with the credit card analogy. We aren't taking the pain so that our grandchildren will have jobs, growth and a healthy economy; we are running up massive credit card bills that they will one day have to pay.

Republicrat, let's pretend you're not a paid troll. Under Bush, North Korea now has the atomic bomb, and, depending on your perspective, Iran is anywhere from a few years to a decade away from doing so. Iraq is truly a disaster in the making, if you believe the realists instead of the spin doctors, and that and the continuing cold shoulder given the rest of the Middle East by Bush et al. is significantly deepening the "rise of resurgent Islamism." The industrialization of China has been a very long time coming, and Germany is making out like a bandit designing and building the machinery to do so. Russia and China are making nice for the first time in a long time because they see a U.S. intent on global military domination. South America is slowly electing populist or even socialist leaders to counterbalance the influence of the U.S., and under Bush, the balance of the world's opinion of the U.S. and its government and culture has probably never been poorer in my 47 years.

Every nation of the EU is providing support to the U.S. in Iraq? Hardly, other than Britain, and they're trying desperately to leave. You can dress this pig of a foreign policy up as pretty as you please, but it's still a pig, and it's got George Bush's name all over it.

Now go away and stop insulting our intelligence.

republicrat wrote: "there has been no 'utter disaster in foreign policy'."

Okay, we'll call it a near-complete-failure. Happy now?

"At worst,it is a little less successful than Clinton's,"

ROFL.... My goodness, but you're as delusional as the rest of the trolls, aren't you? China, North Korea, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Sudan, Russia -- the list of failures goes on and on, and all of them critical.

"NATO allies are bearing a combat burden for us in Afghanistan,"

Yup, and your point is? Of course, with the Taliban resurgent and the country under the control of drug dealers and warlords, not to mention violence increasing, looks like we will need their assistance for quite a while longer. So much for that "success" story. Got any others?

"and the UN is an ally (hardly strong, but an ally) in Iraq (where almost every nation of the EU, and each ally from the far East, has a contingent providing support)."

ROFL.... Um... Gee, that sounds really nice, until you realize just how large those "contingents" actually are and how much "support" they are providing. Got anything else?

And, of course, there is this other teensy little matter of George Bush's "foreign policy" -- just what the hell is it? It changes from day to day, from country to country, from situation to situation. It's reactive rather than proactive, with both means and goals, acceptable and unacceptable, unclear and unarticulated.

Scotian:I can't point to one action this President Bush has taken where one can say with confidence (and factual reality supporting it) that increased American power in the world.

Whoa there, Scotian. What republicrat says.

republicrat: The energy bill could be improved upon, and it will be improved upon. The bankruptcy reform could have been better. These are not fiascos, however.

Bush got two mediocre pieces of legislation through Congress, thoughtfully leaving our reserve troops at the mercy of lenders when repeated deployments or stop loss result in their losing their incomes. He's not an UTTER failure. Depending on how you define "utter" and "failure." Use the Rice Reverse Gambit and focus on the countries he didn't invade, the horrible Social Security plan he failed to pass, the people who haven't died from losing access to health insurance when their jobs with benefits went away . . . . You get the picture.

Scotian: "As Author Conan Doyle's famous detective loved to say... when one rules out everything else whatever is left, that still covers all the facts no matter how improbable must be the truth....I do not know exactly who might be behind this weakening of America behind Bush43, I do not know if he is a witting or unwitting (although my feeling is for unwitting) tool of these interests."

I was trying to remember that reference. Sherlock Holmes...of course! Once you rule out everything else, the explanation that covers all the facts must be considered, no matter how improbable.

The thing about most conspiracy theories is that they assume that thousands of people are in on the secret--and that just doesn't work. But this takeover doesn't require a huge number of people. Maybe 20 max. You need some Texas oil brazillionaires to fund operations, the Bush family & their shadowy connections, James Baker, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld & Karl Rove. Scalia might be in on it, possibly.

Everyone else is a willing tool. Flattery, access to power, ambition and cash can explain Katherine Harris, Grover Norquist, Clarence Thomas, Fox news reporters, Alberto Gonzales, Pat Roberts. Implementation of their particular ideology explains the involvement of neo-cons like Wolfowitz, Feith or Condi Rice & Colin Powell. Some--the Texas conservative party, Tom deLay, Newt Gingrich--buy in because they see the possibility of implementing their conservative dream non-government. Bill Frist, James Dodson, etc. buy in because they see a chance to implement their Christianist agenda. The top 1% buys in because they get those huge taxbreaks. The media buy in because they are in the entertainment business--they don't really care what they broadcast as long as people watch or listen. Corporate America buys in because they are being given all the profits.

The Texas brazillionaires pay for talent: Rathergate, Swiftboat attacks, Gennifer Flowers' nosejob, Linda Tripp's tapes, smear attacks on John McCain, attacks on Michael Moore. They may have murdered Paul Wellstone and Mel Carnahan.

If you start looking, if you remove the blinders of the improbable, it is stunningly obvious. It is is only the improbability that makes one hesitate: People could be THAT wicked? Why would they do this?

cowalker:

My argument is that at every step of the way since he was sworn into office President GWB has systemically weakened American power in every significant aspect. I am not arguing that all he has ever created were fiascos, although given the ratio of fiascos to successes in this Administration it is easy to see how some could arrive at such a conclusion. I really do not see any action taken by Bushco that strengthens American power abroad be it economic power, military power (despite the biggest and most well spent on military in the world), and especially moral authority/influence/power. In every one of these spheres America has become weaker than it was when 2001 started, and weakened primarily because of actions and inactions of this Presidency. An agent working for a foreign power with this as the long term goal could hardly have done more to accomplish this end than what six years of unchecked Bushco have wrought.

Republicrat:

Have you bothered to travel outside of America much the last few years? You might want to do so before you try to dismiss what I wrote in this regard. You do not understand that even in the countries in the western world where the government stands with the Bush Administration the view of the majority within that country generally does not. You need to look at how the last six years have done something also new, it used to be there was a clear difference between the unpopularity of the American government and its policies and how the American people were regarded, which was generally favourable. Since the 2004 "reelection" of Bush though that has been changing.

As for the rest, I think PaulB administered the appropriate spankings along with retrogrouch so I see no reason to continue.

PaulB:

Thanks for the backstopping. It never ceases to amaze me how so many conservatives in America still believe the rest of the free world sees America as its leader when the reality is that the rest of the free world is appalled by what America has become. For conservatives it appears foreign policy is as faith based as opposed to reality based as domestic policy such as deficit spending being the way to grow the economy. The reality is that America's international position is weaker than I have ever seen in my lifetime. The reality is that every foreign policy initiated by Bushco has ended up in failure, has further alienated traditional allies, and in general has discredited America as that shining city on the hill of Reagan’s day when that rhetoric actually had some connection to reality.

retrogrouch:

Thanks also to you for taking that idiocy apart. How anyone can not see the foreign policy disasters this Administration has strewn in its wake is disturbing. Then again so is the cult of personality so many conservatives belong to where Bush is concerned. They are so busy believing in the personality and what it tells them to think that they are incapable of objective independent thought on any of this. Trolletariat behaviour all the way.

brazillionaires

are they rich men in bras? are they rich Brazillians? are they rich Brazillians who made their money selling bras? are they rich Brazillions in bras?

so many questions

cleek: brazillionaires.

It's from a joke.

Donald Rumsfeld is briefing president Bush: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.”

“Oh no!” exclaims the president, “that’s terrible!”

I dunno. It makes me laugh.

His staff is stunned at this unprecedented display of emotion, watching as Bush sits, head in hands.

Finally, he looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”

Curses! How stupid! Will I never learn? Preview, preview, preview...!

Donald Rumsfeld is briefing president Bush: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.”

“Oh no!” exclaims the president, “that’s terrible!”

His staff is stunned at this unprecedented display of emotion, watching as Bush sits, head in hands.

Finally, he looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”

And my editorial comment, inserted in the wrong place at the last minute before clicking on Post. "I dunno. It makes me laugh."

Have you bothered to travel outside of America much the last few years?

yes.

Rich men in bras. Of course. Black lace, no doubt. That, plus stock options, willowy blondes, and private jets are probably the only things that provide a sufficient personal infusion of shock and awe to them.

Eat the rich.

Scotian and PTate,

I can't argue with either of you. What you are seeing is as old as people themselves.

But people are resiliant and persistant and you cannot have a hero without a villian so don't give up hope.

"If you start looking, if you remove the blinders of the improbable, it is stunningly obvious. It is is only the improbability that makes one hesitate: People could be THAT wicked? Why would they do this?"

Posted by: PTate in MN on May 24, 2006 at 3:59 PM

One of the hardest things for many people to do is look reality straight in the face and accept the ugliness that comes with it. After all, villains that do great evil do not generally see themselves that way, no they see themselves in some sort of noble light. People also appear to have forgotten one of the truths that came out of Nuremberg, that evil is banal in nature and can be found anywhere and everywhere, even in the meekest and mildest of appearing people. Even in those that you would have fun hanging out with and sharing a beer with, the standard too many Americans use to determine their Presidents as of late.

It is hard to accept the notion that someone can honestly believe they are doing God's work yet in reality is doing the exact opposite, people want to believe in this bright line between good and evil/bad behaviour, a line so easy to see for all. The reality is of course there is no such easy demarcation, that only exists in the black/white binary approach to perception. That approach may be easier on the individual for trying to make some sense out of the world, but unfortunately it almost invariably does not actually accurately reflect/perceive reality as it actually is. It also almost invariably leads those using this mode of perception to wrong conclusions and generally ends up making matters worse, not better.

I learned a long time ago that improbable things happen, and they happen more often than many would easily believe. I also learned never to dismiss something merely because it is highly improbable, although I am wary of taking such at face value. Too often though I have seen those improbabilities end up being the reality for me to ever dismiss such out of hand, which is why some here likely think I am a bit into conspiracy theories. Actually though I am not, I tend to believe far more in convergent interests acting together than in great hidden conspiracies, as any proper student of human history can see has played out time and again. The greater the wealth/power is focused into a few the more those few act to reinforce that concentration of power.

It is a human pattern, it is not inherently evil or good, it is how it is applied and how it is used that will determine that. If that power is being concentrated so as to provide better quality of life for all over the long term by having the power to make it so, then it is a good thing. If that power is used to further impoverish the rest of the populace than it is an evil thing, it is the use that defines morality and not the tool itself IMHO. Unfortunately since the old saw about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely tends to be accurately reflecting reality far more often than the opposite we rarely see positive/good things coming from such concentration of power let alone the convergence of the interests of the powerful.

Conspiracies do exist, just look at the robber barons of the 19th century and their monopolies and how they coordinated their actions to maintain them. Why is it so hard for some people to see these things for what they are, an endlessly repeating pattern of human behaviour that goes back throughout our recorded history? I think it is because people are being shielded from it, both from their own preferences to ignore as well as having information access to such insights being limited as much as possible, which is where anti-intellectualism works to such conspiracies' advantages.

In any event I can only try to point these things out, just as you are trying to do. After all for evil to triumph requires good people to remain silent. Well I refuse to remain silent, you refuse to remain silent, indeed there are many that refuse to remain silent and are slowly yet steadily being shown by actual events to have been on the right path all along. I know, would that we had never seen this horror, but reality is alas what it is.

Scotian,

You write very well! I could deliver your latest post as a speech with no changes. Do you have a voice in mind when penning these things?

republicrat wrote: "yes."

But he kept his eyes, ears, and mind firmly shut tight, so he came through unscathed.

Personally, I really loved it when he used Iraq as an example of Bush's "successful" foreign policy, what with all those EU and Far East "contingents" providing "support," because Bush is just so good at foreign policy and all.

[judging by Bush's] actions it would appear more like the actions of someone out to systemically weaken American power at every level, economic, military, moral.

Scotian, I do take exception to the above. And I think it is undermined by something you wrote later:

villains that do great evil do not generally see themselves that way, no they see themselves in some sort of noble light.

And where I think your analysis has its biggest weaknesses is in its moral terminology- good, evil, wicked, villain, etc.

Bush has a narcissistic personality. He does not think his shit stinks. He cannot admit to mistakes. I'm convinced that he certainly sees himself in a noble light, as you suggest. That does not include deliberately "systematically weakening" the nation.

Bush is a fuck-up with severe emotional limitations. But his philosophy is probably no more complicated than "what's good for General Motors is good for the country." Except, you can substitute "military-industrial comples" for GM.

Good & evil are highly misleading terms, imo.

***But y'all certainly did a fine job of settling that blowhard republicrat's hash.

> But his philosophy is probably no more
> complicated than "what's good for General
> Motors is good for the country." Except, you
> can substitute "military-industrial comples"
> for GM.
>
> Good & evil are highly misleading terms, imo.

As long as you give W a real big "gimmie": that he didn't understand that along with Cheney would come the neocons. And along with the neocons would come (1) PNAC and their "stir the beehive in the Middle East and see what happens" theory (2) Norqist and his "drown it in the bathtub" theory. Cause that's what he, and we, got: emotional perpetual college students given the levers of real power to test out their dorm-room theories. You will note that Nixon kept a tight leash on those idiots for exactly that reason.

But if you give W that gimmie (and why not - he has taken them all his life) then you are back to the banality of evil theory. Which boils down to evil.

Cranky

just to get the sherlock holmes line correct: "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

It's from a joke.

a funny one, too. thanks for the tip

The reality is that America's international position is weaker than I have ever seen in my lifetime.

That might be true. As far as I can tell, it is true. American military power has basically declined almost monotonically since WWII. As the rest of the world became developed following WWII, American commercial and technical predominance declined. The changes since China and India liberalized their economies (that's liberal compared to what they were) have been especially prominent. The moral decay didn't originate with Bushco: it was Clinton who (a) invited Arafat to the White House more than any other foreign visitor; (b) bombed an innocent medicine factory in Sudan; (c) bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and used a strategy designed to harm civilians while sparing American military and (d) it was his secretary of state who asserted that 500,000 innocent Iraqi deaths was a fair price to pay for "containing" Saddam Hussein.

As for staring evils in the face and recognizing them, there are many evils, and there are no purely good people. The hard task is not to recognize evils, but to rank them properly. On this site, the Christianity related Manicheism is replaced by a sort of anti-Bush Manicheism, where everything bad is attributed to the Bush administration: it is absurd.

> On this site, the Christianity related
> Manicheism is replaced by a sort of anti-Bush
> Manicheism, where everything bad is attributed
> to the Bush administration: it is absurd.

As opposed to the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the Long War, "the war", and "the Constitution is not a suicide pact", which are the heights of non-absurdity (surdity?) I suppose.

Cranky

"We pledge our LIVES, our fortunes, and our sacred honors" - funny, that sounds like a suicide pact to me.

As opposed to the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the Long War, "the war", and "the Constitution is not a suicide pact", which are the heights of non-absurdity (surdity?) I suppose.

That's your supposition. do you have a point?

There doesn't seem to be a good substitute for GWOT as a name: global war against Islamist terrorists is ok, and Bush has been careful to distinguish between Moslems in general and Islamist terrorists in particular. Bush sometimes uses a Manichean language (but he seldom attributes all evil to one source), but the people who criticise him here purport to be above all that, and purport to engage in nuance and complexity.

"We pledge our LIVES, our fortunes, and our sacred honors" - funny, that sounds like a suicide pact to me. That's the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.

Scotian, If I might elaborate. At the end of WWII the US supposedly manufactured 50% of the world's total material wealth. Today that figure is about 20%. About a quarter century ago, the US published 30% of all articles in the most prestigious peer-reviewed technical journals; today that figure is about 20%. Those things are not a consequence of American decay, but of development in the rest of the world, especially that part of the world that trades with the US and has financial institutions in communication with the US.

Today, the fastest growth in the use of nuclear power is in India and China; 30 years ago both nations were economic basket cases, due to their own policy decisions.

20 years ago the US had a blue water fleet of about 650 vessels, now that figure is about 250 vessels. The reduction has been pretty bipartisan, as was pointed out in the debates concerning Kerry's defense policies. The US has military missions in more nations than before, but everywhere except Iraq troop deployments are smaller.

The US is less significant than ever before. But Bushco didn't do it; every administration has done its part. but the most imortant part is the healthy growth of so much of the rest of the world.

Love the trolls and our resident Chinese Malaysian "McA." The hilarious thing about this administration is I don't even have to raise my own policy views to prove Bush is a miserable failure. He is a failure based on his OWN policy goals:

Smaller government: Nope
Fiscal responsibilty: Nope
Greeted as liberators: Uh, nope.
Uniter, not divider: Hmmm. NO!
Find Osama: Nope
Rebuild New Orleans: Nope
Reform Social Security: Negative.
Improve education with NCLB: Negatory, good buddy.
Provide affordable prescription drugs: Not really.
Energy independence: Please. You're killing me!
Little League Baseball Games at the White House: No. Not after the photo op.
Secure the border: As they say in Spanish, "no."

The list goes on and on. You're fight isn't with liberals, little trolls. Bush is the one who disagrees with Bush the most!

republicrat wrote: "American military power has basically declined almost monotonically since WWII."

a) that is not the same thing as "international position." Nice try at shifting the goalposts.

b) that depends on how you define "military power."

As to the rest, since you haven't bothered to address your earlier silliness, much less support anything you assert, forgive me if I don't take you seriously.

PaulB, you are forgiven.

Personally, I really loved it when he used Iraq as an example of Bush's "successful" foreign policy, what with all those EU and Far East "contingents" providing "support," because Bush is just so good at foreign policy and all. All I did was deny the claim that Bush's policy is an "utter failure". That "Bush is just so good at foreign policy and all" is not an assertion that I have made. Bush's foreign policy is approximately as good/bad as Clinton's; as widely quoted, it was Allbright who said that 500,000 dead innocent Iraqis was a fair price to pay to keep Saddam Hussein contained. I have disputed that figure, but she did not, and some people here dispute my disputation.

Tripp: "But people are resiliant and persistant and you cannot have a hero without a villian so don't give up hope."

scotian: "for evil to triumph requires good people to remain silent. Well I refuse to remain silent, you refuse to remain silent, indeed there are many that refuse to remain silent and are slowly yet steadily being shown by actual events to have been on the right path all along. I know, would that we had never seen this horror, but reality is alas what it is."

I take these as words of hope and encouragement, thank you!

Maybe it's time for another viewing of LOTR...

then you are back to the banality of evil theory. Which boils down to evil.

Well, it's a question of emphasis. I prefer to explain Bush's colossal failures as a result of ignorance and lack of emotional maturity. I think it provides more information.

I don't think the word 'evil' explains anything.

disasters due to hurricanes struck areas of the country above sea level, reducing the effects of flooding to a great degree.

Posted by: Sky-Ho on May 24, 2006 at 8:38 AM | PERMALINK

Hey, if you are going to live below sea level. I recommend concrete houses and houses on stilts (works in Asia)...or taxing the community to pay for some levee reinforcement.

Apparently, the local government didn't even put enough money into levees to get Federal matching funds.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200509\NAT20050907a.html

If you decide to vote in the same local leadership after that, who cares about you?

There are non-stupid hard-luck cases to care about.

republicrat wrote: "All I did was deny the claim that Bush's policy is an 'utter failure'."

And then proceeded to "support" that claim with the supremely stupid nonsense that I quoted. Oh well, at least it was good for a laugh.

"That 'Bush is just so good at foreign policy and all' is not an assertion that I have made."

Have you ever heard of this new invention called "sarcasm?" I could explain it to you, if you like. I'll be sure to use small words.

"Bush's foreign policy is approximately as good/bad as Clinton's;"

So you have claimed. Simply repeating it doesn't make it any more true than the last time you said it. Moreover, pointing out that "Clinton did, too" is hardly a defense of the Bush administration's incompetence, particularly since Clinton's foreign policy and his competence in that area, or the lack thereof, are not under discussion.

"as widely quoted, it was Allbright who said that 500,000 dead innocent Iraqis was a fair price to pay to keep Saddam Hussein contained."

Yup, you said that before, too. I note the quote, made when Albright was the UN Ambassador in response to a question from Lesley Stahl. I also note that Albright has publicly lamented that statement in her memoirs as "a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy and wrong." And I also note its complete irrelevance to the discussion of the incompetence of the Bush administration and its many foreign policy failures.

"I have disputed that figure, but she did not, and some people here dispute my disputation."

No, we just think you're a moron spouting irrelevant talking points and really stupid statements, like the drivel that I found so amusing. This post of yours was no exception to the rule, alas.

Oh, and for the record, republicrat, this statement: "American military power has basically declined almost monotonically since WWII" is really just as silly as the other one I found so amusing. Is your knowledge of history truly so limited?

this statement: "American military power has basically declined almost monotonically since WWII" is really just as silly as the other one I found so amusing. Is your knowledge of history truly so limited?

Posted by: PaulB on May 24, 2006 at 10:54 PM | PERMALINK

Actually, he's right in some ways. You've got to remember that at the end of WWII, only the US had nukes. Europe / Japan / Russia were devastated since the war was fought on their soil. China and India hadn't started developing. Europe was only rebuilt because of the Marshall Plan.

The US won the cold war and is now a hyperpower, but its not stronger than it was at the end of WWII.

I wouldn't say its a straight decline, more like down since the end of WWII and up a little since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

More wit from McA:

Hey, if you are going to live below sea level. I recommend concrete houses and houses on stilts (works in Asia)...or taxing the community to pay for some levee reinforcement.

Apparently, the local government didn't even put enough money into levees to get Federal matching funds.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200509\NAT20050907a.html

If you decide to vote in the same local leadership after that, who cares about you?

There are non-stupid hard-luck cases to care about.

So, no doubt, in the interest of equity and fiscal common sense, you would agree that we shouldn't be re-building Gulf Shores, MS, in the exact same place after the hurricane. And, in the same logical vein, all those "stupid hard-luck" cases in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon and Washington whose houses burned in past years because they were built in the wildlan/urban fire interface ought to be shit out of luck. And, of course, we can't pass along any of the public fisc to those towns built up along the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, etc. rivers that flood with regularity.

Right? I mean, we all knew/know those various natural "disasters" would/will happen. So should the people who live there, and the shouldn't be entitled to any sort of federal help in their recovery.

Sheesh.

McA, very amusing to cite a 9/05 report that: a.) is about a side issue (the feds pay the cost of levee design and construction) and b.) has nothing to do with new orleans (the state of louisiana and orleans parish are not new orleans). Anyhow, living in september, 2005, you may have missed this, from may, 2006:

A wide range of design and construction defects in levees around New Orleans raise serious doubts that the system can withstand the pounding of another hurricane the size of Katrina, even after $3.1 billion in repairs are completed, a team of independent investigators led by UC Berkeley's civil engineering school said Sunday.

The findings undermine assurances by the Bush administration and the Army Corps of Engineers that the federal levee repair program due to be completed in June will provide a higher level of protection to New Orleans, which sustained 1,293 deaths and more than $100 billion in property loss from Katrina.

The team's 600-page report disputed most of the corps' preliminary findings about what caused the levee breaches, saying the investigators had made critical errors in their analysis.

The mistakes raise concerns about whether the corps is competent to oversee public safety projects across the nation, said Raymond Seed, a UC Berkeley civil engineering professor who led the investigation, which the National Science Foundation sponsored shortly after Katrina struck.

"People think this is a New Orleans problem," Seed said. "It is a national issue."

The Berkeley team found that the defects that caused breaches during Katrina — including thin layers of soil with the consistency of jelly and sections of levees built with crushed seashells — had gone undetected and could be widespread.

"The rest of the system is unproven," Seed said. "The entire system needs a serious reevaluation and study."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-levee22may22,0,1511117.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Yes, that's obviously the fault of the voters of new orleans.

as for US military power, don't be a buffoon: US military power is massively greater than it was the day world war ii ended. the fact that there are now other nations with nuclear weapons says nothing about the absolute strength of US military force.

Have you ever heard of this new invention called "sarcasm?" I could explain it to you, if you like. I'll be sure to use small words.

"Sarcasm" is just another word for lie.

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recently i posed kevin's quest.:"characterize
gwb with a small no. of short axioms" to a friend
of mine who is a clinical psychiatrist.
he replied that's easy: one axiom five words:

extreme case narcisistic personality disorder

he then said to me:
1)for a complete clinical description of
narcisistic personality disorder:
type into google the two terms
"narcisistic personality disorder"
behavenet
2)to see that this bush observation is not original
with me type: "narcisistic personality
disorder" bush
into google and see how many hits you get

wschneid25: ""characterize
gwb with a small no. of short axioms"

late in the thread, but another diagnosis for Bush is psychopath. Bush meets eight of the ten criteria. Psychologist Robert Hare has done much of the interesting work on psychopathy, and is co-author of Snakes in Suits which looks at the shredded mess left behind when psychopaths rise to positions of power in organizations.

republicrat, getting really desperate now that he's been exposed as an idiot, writes: "'Sarcasm' is just another word for lie."

Well, no, actually it isn't. You seem to be having just as much trouble with definitions as you do with facts. I'd recommend consulting a dictionary if I were you, where you'd find the following:

sarcasm - a form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.

Sadly, I really didn't need to use sarcasm in this instance, as your posts pretty much did the job for me, without any extra effort on my part required. But hey, you keep right on making a fool of yourself if you like. That's absolutely fine with me.

republicrat, getting really desperate now that he's been exposed as an idiot, writes: "'Sarcasm' is just another word for lie."
...
PaulB:Well, no, actually it isn't. You seem to be having just as much trouble with definitions as you do with facts.

In the instance that I noted, you misrepresented what I wrote. That was done with the intention of deceiving. This is a blog, with no opportunity for the "wit" of "sarcasm" to be communicated as it normally would be in conversation.

cheney: What do you guys think about Karl Zinsmeister as the new head of our Domestic POLICY Council? I am glad you mentioned that. The timing was perfect, as it was a direct refutation of Kevin Drum's main claim. Whether he can be effective remains to be seen, but clearly he is a man concerned with policy, as are his new bosses Bolten and Bush.

republicrat, digging that hole deeper and deeper, and offering me more and more amusement, writes: "In the instance that I noted, you misrepresented what I wrote."

No, dear, I didn't. I simply ridiculed what you wrote, using sarcasm as one of the tools in so doing (the other being direct ridicule at the utter stupidity of your statement).

"That was done with the intention of deceiving."

LOL.... So now dear little republicrat is a mind-reader? My goodness; I can hardly wait to see what he comes up with next.

Gee, and here I thought I had quoted you directly in my replies. And aren't those your posts right here in this very thread? My goodness; how clumsy of me. Next time I'll do a better job of "deceiving."

"This is a blog, with no opportunity for the 'wit' of 'sarcasm' to be communicated as it normally would be in conversation."

ROFL.... But pomposity and stupidity just shine right through.... Deart heart, I'm afraid that once again, and as usual, you are dead wrong. The language was quite carefully chosen. That you had trouble with it is simply a reflection of your own inadequacies. Alas, such is life.

I do note that you've had so much fun with your righteous indignation that you seem to have forgotten to actually try to support the points you were making. Were you planning to do that anytime soon? Not that I care, mind you; I'm having a great time watching you make a fool of yourself.

Oh, and for the record, Karl Zinsmeister's appointment confirms Kevin's thesis, it doesn't refute it.

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