Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Rodney
But while Kerry may just be a run-of-the-mill politician, I have serious doubts about Bush's judgment. Not being able to summarize mistakes is a horrible sign. It means you're not open to reality, and are making judgments based primarily on your own preconceptions.
|
Okay, I take it back. Bush is probably NOT so crazy that he can't admit a mistake. He's just been convinced that he shouldn't. See this link (NY Times, registration required):
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/we...tml?oref=login
To summarize:
Quote:
Until sometime early in the summer, President Bush and his advisers sporadically wrestled with a fundamental choice: Was it smarter to go into the final months of the election campaign confessing to considerable error in decisions leading up to the invasion of Iraq, and in early calculations about how best to occupy the country? Or would the president - "not a man given to backward-looking introspection," as one close aide put it - be better off conceding only the smallest errors of judgment, and focusing the electorate on the hope of a bright future for Iraq and the whole Middle East?
Mr. Bush chose the second option. To choose otherwise, one of Mr. Bush's advisers said the other day, would be "to give John Kerry the opening he was waiting for."
But now, in the final 23 days of the campaign, that decision has come to look far riskier than it did in the flush of handing Iraq back to Iraqis. Win or lose, when the history of the 2004 Bush campaign is written, it may turn out that the bet about how to talk about the war will prove pivotal. Mr. Bush held his bet through the presidential debate Friday, declining a questioner's invitation to describe any mistake he had made.
The bet was a mix of political and military calculation, of Mr. Bush's own temperament, and of what proved to be an overly optimistic projection of what Iraq would look like in early October.
By Friday, aides at the White House were talking about the decision in the way Silicon Valley engineers talk about a piece of technology that didn't roll out as planned.
"It's been a really, really bad week," a senior White House official conceded after three successive days in which the news seemed to be eroding the sand under some of the president's justifications for the war, and his explanations of its aftermath.
|
I feel a little better. At least our president isn't mentally unbalanced. He's just lying furiously and shamelessly to get through the election.
In my mind, the decision not to admit a weakness is a mistake. And it looks like telling the truth and toughing it out might have been the better option, after all. Tt would have also demonstrated honesty and bravery.
Instead, Bush has been striking poses of bravery and strength in the recent debates, without actually being brave or strong. He's just trying to stave off political attacks.