I was wrong -
I admit it, I was wrong. For the past three years I have been laboring under the illusion that this White House is much more efficient and savvy that the Clinton White House was. I am now convinced otherwise. Two things happened today that have forced me to formally change my opinion, even though that had been occurring gradually anyway. One of these event is all over5 the news, the other buried away in a news story.
First the small reason, which comes from a
David Maraniss story in today's Washington Post, and which having been in politics I fully acknowledge may small and seemingly a bit petty, but not unimportant:
From the state of Iowa, the Deutsch family received a perfectly folded American flag that flew for one day in Michael's honor above the Capitol in Des Moines. And from the White House came a letter of condolence signed by President Bush. Two letters, actually.
"The exact same one, twice," Wayne Deutsch noted dryly, sitting at the kitchen table of their wood-frame house in Dubuque's working-class North End neighborhood. "What does that tell you? It was a form letter."
To put this simply and succinctly: THIS CANNOT EVER HAPPEN!
This family has lost a member over in Iraq, in a war that has questionable origins and the best that the White House can do is to send a form letter? And then to add the insult to this injury, they send it twice, simply underscoring the fact that this is a form letter. I have no doubt that someone in the correspondence office got mixed up and it was a mistake, but again: THIS CANNOT EVER HAPPEN!
On the larger scale, the White House totally mismanaged the Condi Rice appearance before the 9/11 Commission. It has been obvious to everyone, at least since Thursday, that she would have to testify. To even offer the "compromises? that the WH did yesterday was insulting to the Commission and to the country, but then to fold completely makes them look weak and unprincipled.
This should not have even been a tough decision. Principles are great, but they are useless if you aren't in office to use them. And the WH was getting killed in the media over their stubborn stand.
I am certain that Condi will have only perfectly glowing things to say about President Bush the Younger (indeed to hear her talk on the news shows about him, he was the only person in the administration, or the country, who really understood the menace of Osama bin Laden), but whatever she says will be drowned out by the mere fact that she is testifying.
These two events (one big and newsworthy, the other small, but something that CANNOT EVER HAPPEN!) have flipped my opinion about the professionalism, savvy and insight of this White House. It also heartens me that, at least when it comes to these two factors, the Democrats are competing on an even playing field.
I'm on Bandstand . . . Bandstand -
Oh wait, that's the other Dick Clark.
This Dick Clarke is single-handed responsible for the run on Maalox at the White House dispensary this past week. But what's surprising is not Clarke's allegations that the Bush administration was essentially indifferent to Al Queda prior to 9/11, everyone really knew that anyway, despite the Administrations attempts to say otherwise.
What is surprising is the clumsy effort at damage control. A couple of the arguments have merit, some are silly, and a few are contradictory, but in the cacophony of messages, the good ones are getting drowned out, and the only message that comes across is that the White House really don't like this guy Clarke. (Some examples of the attacks made by the White House (and their minions): 60 Minutes is making money off the book, but didn't tell you during their interview with Clarke; Clarke was disgruntled because he was demoted; Clarke really thought that the President had done a bang up job and said so in his resignation letter; Clarke is just a Democratic hack, even though he worked for Reagan and Bush the Elder; he was involved in counterterrorism for over 8 years, and he didn't stop Bin Laden, so who is he to talk; and Bush with his ever wise foresight into the mind of the terrorists wanted a comprehensive response to terrorism, not the little steps that Clarke and the prior Administrations had proposed.)
However, the winner for the worst spin is Dick Cheney who said on Rush Limbaugh that Clarke "wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff." It seems as either this is just a blatant lie or that the Vice President didn't even know the guy who was the NSC counterterrorism coordinator at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Frankly I am not sure which is worse.
I can't tell if this is a Beltway story or not. But clearly the White House wants to keep the story from creeping into Main Street for the simple and understandable reason that if Bush takes a hit on the War on Terror, it's not like he can fall back on his stewardship of the economy.
A brief respite -
I have neglected this site for a couple of weeks to attend to more pressing matters, like painting my stairs and organizing an NCAA pool, but having successfully done these things, I will turn my attention back to servicing the needs of my loyal two readers. So expect my usual insightful post to resume soon.
