22
Feb
Slate’s John Dickerson on “Bush critics you can trust”
Former Time Magazine White House correspondent John Dickerson, now a Slate columnist, offers up an early warning of an emerging narrative we’ll see more of as the mid-term elections near: Republican critics of Bush, who are increasing in number, are courageous rebels, while Democratic and liberal critics are “Bush haters. ”
Dickerson’s case studies include former Bush treasury secretary Paul O’Neill and former Reagan official Bruce Bartlett. Of them, he says “These folks have to have a certain amount of courage—heresy is always harder than joining—and they usually try to be intellectually honest, since the Bush presidency has forced them to grapple with their own belief systems … [and here’s] what can they teach the public—and perhaps the administration—about the president that the lefty hacks can’t.” He goes on to list a few items: “Bush is no conservative … He’s a bad CEO … He was hellbent on war.”
Now, one or two or three of those items may sound familiar to readers of this and other liberal blogs, or any daily newspaper, weekly magazine, monthly or quarterly journal, or pretty much anything other than the children’s menu at a fast food restaurant. That’s because Bush is and has been manifestly radical, incompetent and messianically intent on invading Iraq, and despite the best efforts of reporters and commentators to conform to the Bush as hyper-competent, judicious manly man, it shows. He spends like a drunken sailor, he places cronies in critical management slots, and a mountain of circumstantial and documentary evidence, from O’Neill’s comments to a slew of British memos to Andy Card’s comment about the administration’s marketing effort on the invasion to the embrace of absurdities such as the Niger uranium and the aluminum tubes to, most recently, former CIA official Paul Pillar’s broadside against the administration in Foreign Affairs magazine, that Bush was determined to invade Iraq no matter what.
In Dickerson’s world, though, the attention liberals have paid to those issues has been the product of Bush hating and not observation or analysis. We’re right, you see, but it’s accidental. This is shades of Slate editor Jacob Weisberg’s classic construction in which “liberal” hawks who arrived at their support of the Iraq invasion through clear-eyed delusional thinking were much shrewder than liberal opponents of the war who, according to Weisberg, irrationally arrived at the correct conclusion that Bush was about to pilot the ship of state onto some very rocky shoals.
O’Neill and Bartlett deserve some credit, O’Neill in particular, since he got canned for for departing from the choreography. Bartlett represents the old Republican establishment and has been speaking out against the Bush economic and fiscal policies, such as they are, for several years. But Pillar, who may or may not be a Republican, and former Colin Powell aide Larry Wilkerson, whom Dickerson also cites, spoke out not when they could have had an impact on Bush’s policies but later, when they left government.
This isn’t really a new paradigm: among Washington journalists, Republican critics of Democratic policies have, for the past decade or more, been principled opponents, while Democratic and liberal critics of Republican policies have been knee-jerk hysterics. It’s particularly galling, though, to see Dickerson use an only slightly exaggerated construction he attributes to “Mad Libs” — “George Bush [adverb] lied every time he opened his mouth about [noun] and asserted a link between [noun] and 9/11.” — and then validate it using Republican critics.
As more Republicans join the chorus, most of them insiders who have participated in the madness for five years and are now acting purely from an instinct for self preservation, look for writers such as Dickerson to heap praise upon them while at the same time denigrating Democrats and liberals who have raised the same issues while these “principled” Republicans either remained silent or actively supported Bush’s anti-conservative, anti-competent government.
Dickerson’s most recent claim to fame, of course, is the disclosure of his willingness to aid the White House in pushing the lie that no administration officials were involved in the outing of Valerie Plame. We should, therefore, trust him.
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But Pillar, who may or may not be a Republican, and former Colin Powell aide Larry Wilkerson, whom Dickerson also cites, spoke out not when they could have had an impact on Bush’s policies but later, when they left government.
Thank you for highlighting the CYA-nature of their criticisms. You can add Alberto Moro to the list as well.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060227fa_fact
It’s a little late for these guys to be growing a backbone.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:41 amWhat kills guys like Dickinson is that all os us angry evil librulz who read blogs were 100% RIGHT on Iraq and pampered journalists like him were finally exposed for the lying fraud shills we always knew them to be. So now, naked in front of the world, they lash out at those of us, who first cried foul on the entire corporate whore media machine….I’m shocked, just shocked….
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:55 amCredit where due to Pillar, please: he was working within the administration. That he didn’t speak publicly doesn’t mean he didn’t speak. (See, e.g., Susskind’s book on O’Neill, who spoke and was ignored–not to mention played by Greenspan.)
What’s notable now is the difference between the pillaging of John DiLullo (sp?) for his “Mayberry Machiavellis” comments and the totemisation of the Wilkersons and Pillars.
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:16 amCriticism of Bush on the left, ranging from just left of center to liberal/left (there is no far left of any consequence in the United States), encompasses a wide range of philosophical views and a motley assortment of positions on many issues. A journalist who reduces every instance of criticism coming from one side of the political spectrum to “Bush hating” is a lazy person and a fool. He couldn’t be bothered to actually meet and talk to any of the people he paints with this broad brush.
Dickerson is an inside-the-beltway coward who was complicit in hiding his magazine’s role in the Plame leak. No wonder he doesn’t like the left.
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:23 amKen, I do give credit to Pillar and Wilkerson. They’re taking some risks in speaking out even now. But had they spoken out publicly at the time the administration were selling Iraq, they may have had some impact on the selling of the war. It’s a lot to ask of someone that they sacrifice their career in a possibly vain attempt to save the country from a catastrophic foreign policy blunder — although in contrast to asking soldiers to give life, limb and mental health in service of the blunder, it seems like less to ask — but at the same time it’s more than a bit over the top to lionize them for confirming what we already knew.
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:25 am“In Dickerson’s world, though, the attention liberals have paid to those issues has been the product of Bush hating and not observation or analysis. We’re right, you see, but it’s accidental. This is shades of Slate editor Jacob Weisberg’s classic construction in which “liberal” hawks who arrived at their support of the Iraq invasion through clear-eyed delusional thinking were much shrewder than liberal opponents of the war who, according to Weisberg, irrationally arrived at the correct conclusion that Bush was about to pilot the ship of state onto some very rocky shoals.”
They already test-marketed this “logic” during the Terri Schiavo corpse-fvcking. Conservatives who wanted Schiavo kept on life support machines were “wrong, for the right reasons” while Liberals who supported Michael Schiavo and Terri’s wishes were “right, for the wrong reasons”.
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:43 amOne word: “Truthiness”.
What matters is not being in accord with the facts and reality; what matters is being “right”.
It’s a very attractive philosophy … for Republicans these days.
Cheers,
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:30 pmOf course, the underlying anti-Democrat narrative in all this is that Democrats simply don’t have principles, so they couldn’t possibly be presenting principled opposition to Bush. Of course all the readers of this blog know that is just another piece of campaign propaganda, by its very nature neither provable nor disprovable, regurgitated often enough to become “conventional wisdom”.
We need to always make it clear that our opposition to Bush policies stems from our principles of fairness, justice, greatest good for the greatest number, and smart effective governance in the pursuit of the common good. (I don’t mean to speak for everyone, so let me just say that these are the principles that inform my liberalism.)
And as we continue to rally opposition to shoddy thinking such as Mr. Dickerson’s, we need to tie our opposition to the war back to the way they violate that last principle: that the invasion of Iraq was quite obviously not smart effective governance in the pursuit of the common good.
And lets not forget to mention that on Iraq we were right all along.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:11 pmCitation by the Daily Kos, huh? You have arrived.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:36 pmThis “let’s hate liberals even when we find out they were right all along” reminds me of some neighbors I had growing up.
There was a family two doors down from my house, an Irish couple with two boys. The father was this arrogant d*ckhead, sportstnut, boozehound who loved his jock son–who was a real punk and all around a-hole and always getting into trouble–but treated the other son–a soft-spoken, nerdy kid who always tried to help others whenever possible–like crap.
Everyone told him the kid he favored was a punk and needed to be disciplined and held in check, but the father was oblivious, lashing out at anyone that criticized his pride and joy kid. So bad did the psychological abuse on the youngest son get, that he got himself a college scholarship and got as far out of the state as he could go, leaving the father and his knucklehead kid to their own devices.
Well, as the years went on, the prized son got into drugs, trouble with the law and even started slapping the parents around–he never moved out on his own, as you would expect. Eventually, the punk got stabbed to death in a bar room brawl and of course, rather than admitting he contributed to the son’s downfall, he lashed out at everyone else, saying that they’d always favored the ‘good’ son and that his boy ‘never had a chance’ because everyone hated him.
The other son turned out to be successful, took care of the mother in her old age, but didn’t even bother attending the father’s funeral when he croaked a few years later and few could blame him.
I wonder, if when our country is in ruins after 8 years of Bush and his apologists, will it even be worth the while of liberals to come back and try to clean up their mess!??
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:15 pmThis article would seem to be preparing the ground for a courageous stand by Republicans who are backing away from an administration they enabled for 5 years to run roughshod over the entire world while they held the power of Congress in check. I would not be surprised in the next several weeks to see Republican Congressmen & Senators fighting for camera time to say they are “Shocked, I tell you just shocked at what they just discovered has been going on behind their backs.”
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:23 pmThis reasoning doesn’t upset me as it is a clear sign that they are in deep trouble. This time I doubt there are going to be many willing to see the enabler’s conduct as a profile in courage, there are simply to many bad things coming to the surface for the tide to be turned w/ a PR campaign.
For what it’s worth I’ll bet you that w/i the next few weeks a lot of the administration’s staff members are going to decide it is time to return to the private sector &/or spend more time w/ their family. More courageous revelations will follow w/ every resignation.
The MCM types–how much did he praise, push, explain O’Neill’s criticisms when they came out? Blogs and commentators on the left noted what he wrote, noted how he was attacked and diminished by BushCo, and put all this together with many other knowable facts. Then, conclusions were reached–which have held up quite well with the addition of other observable facts.
Sheesh.
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:24 pmBTW, BTC, came over from Eschaton and must remember to check back more often. There are so many excellect blogs on the left, it’s hard to keep up. You’re definitely up there.
I know, I know, they all say that–but I will remember this time!
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:27 pmSorry, this is just not going to happen. You can’t simultaneously believe that the Republican machine is cracking at its foundations and also that those fractures are part of some grand plan. Not gonna happen.
February 22nd, 2006 at 4:26 pmFace the truth.
The democratic party gives about as much thought to reacting negatively to Bush, as a fluke worm does to electric current.
IF there is a bipartisan issue that the the dems have agreed on with Bush, aside from invading Iraq, I missed it.
Watch as election 06 rolls around, and a popular litmus issue is championed by Bush, and the dems will walk right into it and oppose it.
At least the fluke worm doesn’t give some lame excuse for being so stupid.
February 22nd, 2006 at 5:32 pmNot agreeing with Bush is a pretty safe default.
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:07 pmworked in 02 and 04, didn’t it?
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:18 pmProjection…
My party is fucked up so they must be just as fucked up…EVEN IF THEY WERE FRIGGIN RIGHT!
How hard was this test? A ‘reformed’ drunk who is the son of a multi-millionaire former President and can not speak with ‘freshman’ english proficiency…
Q: He is going to be successful for the first time in his life as POTUS?
A: ha!
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:43 pmGotta agree with Paul…as soon as I heard the “Gay Marrage” issue starting to float in 2003 I knew there was just no winning for the Dems in 2004.
Howard Dean needs to give other Dems some lessons on grabbing these litmus test issues, calling them out for what they are then figurativly smashing them on the ground and addressing real issues.
I believe we are at the point where enough people have concerns about health care costs, the war, corruption, and energy costs that Dems should be able to re-direct to these topics fairly easily without seeming like they are “ducking” the false litmus issue.
They just need to be aggressive about seizing the discussion.
~Foo Fighter~
February 23rd, 2006 at 4:44 amI honestly think the American people have seen through the Repub tactics and are sick and tired of the whole Bush administration.
Cathy
February 23rd, 2006 at 4:52 amMichigan (The state that is going down economically.)
I hate Bush, Democrats, Republicans, Liars, Newswhores, Child Molesters, Spies, Traitors, etc
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/lies.mp3
February 23rd, 2006 at 7:35 amCathy-
Intriguing state, Michigan.
Stabenow and Granholm are up for reelection, and you have 500,000 Arab-Americans who might become antsy if they were to watch the UAE discriminated against…Arabs need not apply?
February 23rd, 2006 at 8:17 amlooks like NJ took a bite of the sh*t sandwich.
They’re suing to stop the port deal.
only 250,000 arab-americans live there. Way to take the point Menendez.
February 23rd, 2006 at 3:15 pmPaul baby,
February 25th, 2006 at 6:10 pmRead or bleed dude. It’s a private entity to state-owned transaction. This condition requires the paperwork your daddy-president just fucked off like it was an English homework assignment. Stop laying out the discrimination distraction unless that’s the only argument you got….in which case, that’s pretty damn sad.
worked in 02 and 04, didn’t it?
Yes, if (and only if) you remove Diebold and Ken Blackwell from the equation.
February 26th, 2006 at 5:14 am