GWB's Strangely Passive Presidency

Great Debates
1

I know: how can I say this guy’s ‘passive’, given Iraq and Afghanistan?

Let’s take three examples from what he said last night. Block quotes from the press conference are in italics.

Example 1: Who’s Going to Run Iraq on July 1?

*QUESTION: Mr. President, why are you and the vice president insisting on appearing together before the 9-11 commission? And, Mr. President, who will we be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30th?
BUSH: We’ll find that out soon. That’s what Mr. Brahimi is doing. He’s figuring out the nature of the entity we’ll be handing sovereignty over.
And, secondly, because the 9-11 commission wants to ask us questions, that’s why we’re meeting. And I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) I was asking why you’re appearing together, rather than separately, which was their request.
BUSH: Because it’s a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9-11 commission is looking forward to asking us. And I’m looking forward to answering them. *

I think we found out last night exactly why Bush is afraid to go before the 9/11 Commission without Cheney. (Sure, he dodged the question. Big surprise.)
But the Brahimi business points up something basic about the Bush presidency - its passivity in some rather significant situations. Bush is saying, it’s not up to him to figure out how this is all going to work - whether it’s even possible to construct an entity that is capable of governing Iraq for a year and a half. It’s up to Brahimi. Yet the ‘course’ he wants to stay - whatever it might be; damned if we have a clue what it is - is absolutely dependent on that entity. And with eleven weeks to go, nobody in the world has a clue about that entity, other than that the Bushies will undoubtedly insist that Chalabi be a major player in it.

Example 2: Bush’s Reaction to the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” PDB

In his opening remarks, Bush referred to a pattern of terror attacks against the U.S., mostly stemming from al-Qaeda:

We’ve seen the same ideology of murder in the killing of 241 Marines in Beirut, the first attack on the World Trade Center, in the destruction of two embassies in Africa, in the attack on the USS Cole,

And he also said:

I asked for the briefing. And the reason I did is because there had been a lot of threat intelligence from overseas. And so, I – part of it had to do with the Genoa G-8 conference that I was going to attend. And I asked at that point in time, let’s make sure we are paying attention here at home, as well.

This tells you that, not only should he have had at least an alert layman’s awareness of the gathering threat of al-Qaeda due to the first WTC attack, the embassy bombings, and the Cole attack, but he should have been aware (or his National Security Advisor should have been aware, and briefed him) that al-Qaeda might try to fly a plane into the G-8 summit.
Yet his response when the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” memo crossed his desk - after his having seen a lot of equally dire warnings - was, well, the FBI’s looking into it, so I don’t have to do jack; I can go on vacation for a month. Here’s what he actually said:

What was interesting in there was that there was a report that the FBI was conducting field investigations. And I – that was good news that they were doing their job.

Example 3: Following up on the FBI’s failures

*QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. You mentioned the PDB and the assurance you got that the FBI was working on terrorism investigations here. The number they had used was 70.

But we learned today in the September 11th hearings that the acting director of the FBI at the time now says the FBI tells him that number was wrong, that he doesn’t even know how it got into your PDB. And two of the commissioners strongly suggested the number was exaggerated.

Have you learned anything else about that report since that time? And do you now believe you were falsely comforted by the FBI?

BUSH: No, I heard about that today, obviously, and my response to that was, I expect to get valid information. As the ultimate decision maker for this country, I expect information that comes to my desk to be real and valid.

And I presume the 9-11 commission will find out – will follow up on his suggestions and his recollection, and garner the truth. That is an important part of the 9-11 commission’s job, is to analyze what went on and what could have perhaps been done differently so that we can better secure America for the future.

But of course I expect to get valid information. I can’t make good decisions unless I get valid information.

QUESTION: Has the FBI come back to you, sir?

BUSH: No, I haven’t talked to anybody today yet. I will, though. We’ll find out.*

All I can say is, WTF is this?? Bush is delegating to the 9/11 Commission the job of finding out how the FBI screwed up. Not only that, but he essentially says he’s only just learned about the FBI screwup, due to the 9-11 commission, the same commission he tried to block for a year, and then did his best to frustrate at every turn. But when they tell him what should have been done differently, and why the FBI didn’t get him ‘valid information’, he’ll respond to it then.

IOW, 9/11 didn’t prompt any informal investigation within the White House about pre-9/11 intelligence that would have asked such things as what the FBI and CIA knew and were actually doing ahead of time, what else they should have been doing, and why they weren’t doing it. You’d think a President in office on 9/11/2001 would have wanted to know those things pretty soon after the attacks; that if there was to be no formal inquiry, he was going to by God do his own inquiry.

But if we thought that, we were apparently way, way wrong.

There are more examples from the press conference, such at the exchange about troop levels: Abiziad will let him know if he needs more troops; not his place to look at the mess that’s going on, and raise the question himself. There are also good examples in The Price of Loyalty, which I’m about halfway through right now, but the book’s at home.

It seems that Bush’s approach, in a whole bunch of important areas, is to wait until they force their way onto his desk, and act then - if absolutely necessary. I realize that the President’s time is valuable, and so this approach makes sense with a lot of matters where the consequences of inaction are small. But when it comes to the big stuff - a major war, terrorists trying to attack America, the intelligence snafus that allowed the attack to happen - this is where you’d think the guy in charge has to step forward and actually take the initiative to make sure things get done, and get done right. But we’d be wrong, apparently.

And this is our Commander-in-Chief. God save the United States of America.

2

This seems like a strangely passive debate OP. What exactly is it you are proposing for debate here?

Look, you disagree with most of Bush’s ideology, so why would you like him to be more active? You want **more ** tax cuts for “the rich”? You want war against Syria? You want a **more ** stringent Patriot Act? You want **more ** Congressional recess judicial appointments?

3

Ah, the John Mace Principle - when you have no arguments to make, hurl invective. <sigh>

I’m with the original post on this one. It does seem odd for the President to say re: Iraq, Well, we’ll see whut happens. Hello? How about some goals? Wait - the goal was to oust Hussein. Mission accomplished. Never mind.

Now I’m in a quandry. Which is worse, his lack of genuine leadership ability or his inability to admit even the possibility of making a mistake?

4

Even if I completely disagree with him on Iraq, I think he should have some sort of plan that he can at least outline to get from where we are now to the democracy he believes is possible. I’d like to see him taking steps to make that plan happen, rather than waiting on others to tell him what to do.

He seems to have an “I’m the boss, I don’t do anything unless my subordinates tell me to” approach to the Presidency, aside from a few key issues (e.g. tax cuts) that he’s passionate about. Iraq used to be one of those issues. I’m wondering if, in the capture of Saddam, his Iraq objective has been accomplished, resulting in its removal to the large pile of unimportant (to him) issues.

The problem is, the issues where he exhibits this passivity include stuff like Iraq where leadership is absolutely necessary for success. Whatever else may be true, we know we’re not going to drift into a favorable outcome in Iraq.

Now, what’s the debate? The debate is this: I’ve set forth evidence of a pattern of dangerous passivity on the part of our President. You can, I suppose, rebut my claim that such passivity is a pattern, or that it’s dangerous.

Or you can concur that the pattern exists, and is dangerous. Maybe my case is a slam-dunk in the eyes of potential opponents. I certainly didn’t expect that, but if so, there’s no debate.

5

I think there’s an easy way to cut out the irrelevant sniping here and that’s to forget for the time being that Bush is a Republican and that his critics are often Democrats since there seems to be this meme floating around that partisan points are never ever valid and, therefore, can be dismissed on their own face without pretense of objectivity.

Simply stated I think this is what ol’ Rufus is trying to put on the table: Is it accurate to draw from last night’s press conference the impression that President Bush seems weirdly disengaged from his own presidency and, if so, should not this style of behavior be conisdered strange and quite possibly alarming as a general principle?

I mean, after all, if Bush isn’t in charge, who the hell is?

One small side issue: Is it not ironic that Vice President Cheney’s first name is Dick seeing as his head more accurately resemble half a buttocks, or is that just me?

6

Bush is in charge, but he isn’t micro-managing every detail. The reason he seemed so tenuous last night, and I noticed it myself at the time, is that he knew virtually everyone in the room was gunning for him to make some misstep that they could exploit, up to and including admission of some mistake – and as I’ve said before, not a particular mistake, just *any * ol’ mistake would do. He was guarded and unsure of himself because he had to not only answer the question in an at least passible way but simultaneously try to analyze every possible misinterpretation or outright falsity that could be applied to whatever he said or its meaning.

He also looked tired, wan and had a bad haircut.

7

Now I’m wondering if Bush showed any sort of take-charge leadership before he became President – I know his Texas governorship was fairly passive (given that the Texas legislature does most of the work), but how much did he do when he was a non-government private-sector CEO?

I mean, did he only start slacking on 1/20/2001, or has this been a lifelong pattern that we hadn’t known about until it’s too late?

8

Maybe this (Bush’s apparent passivity) helps to explain something that rather mystifies me - why can’t BushCo “admit” to even the slightest failing in regard to fighting terrorism, or anything else? The simple observation “In retrospect, we probably should have spent a little more time on bin Laden and less on Hussein” would, I think, kill the issue. These guys seem incapable of admitting to any failing, no matter how trivial. Is it narcissism or what?

9

By all accounts, very little. He was basically used as a prop by others: look we have a President’s son as collateral, you can trust us. His major job was handshaking and calling in favors, not actually running anything.

10

Excellent. He’ll make a fine greeter in some Vegas casino in 2005.

I’m not entirely sure this is a failing - probably it is in the vital arenas, such as national security, that we’re talking about here, but on a whole range of other issues, as a conservative, I’d prefer that my politicians are not activist.

And frankly, Bush seems to be all too activist in some of those areas - like the gay marriage ban amendment initiative, opening up bidding for federal funding to religious charities, timber and steel protectionism and tariffs, and I’m sure a lot of others that I can’t think of right now.

Pretty good OP, Rufus and an interesting perspective.

11

[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
Bush is in charge, but he isn’t micro-managing every detail. /QUOTE]

There is a big difference between micromanaging and followup. Jimmy Carter was a micromanager, and that is not good. A manager needs some way of checking if an assignment has been done. You can’t issue a critical task, then just assume it is complete. Especially with the FBI, which, as Ashcroft testified, was a known problem. Maybe Ashcroft never told Bush this? It was in all the papers, but we know Bush doesn’t read them.

Oh, and to summarize the first two posts in this thread:

RT: Bush is incompetent
John: Where’s the debate?

Works for me.

12

Um, Starving Artist, we have just learned that President Bush ignored a SERIES of PDBs telling him that Osama Bin Laden was fixing to attack us despite his claims to the contrary (please see RTFirefly’s original cite). We are now in an occupation which is the result of a war for which every single justification has been disproven — including a number of statements by GWB that were known lies from the git-go. Despite the fact that Hans Blix and his associates were pulled out by BushCo, GWB nevertheless continues to justify the war on the blatantly untruthful grounds that Saddam wouldn’t let inspectors in. Am I to assume that this is your idea of nitpicking?

OK, we’re suppose to avoid insult and personal attack. But, here again, the thing that impresses me about Republicans is that they live in a fantasy world where facts don’t matter. Only their desire to believe in their own intellectual invincibility seems to matter just as if they were some kind of religious cult.

And isn’t a president supposed to show that he’s the one in charge because he’s the guy who knows what he’s talking about? If he’s right and knows what he’s doing, like you evidently think he does, why not use that to his advantage? I must say, you seem have what strikes me as absurdly and dangerously low expecations for the leadership qualities of a commander in chief. And let’s not forget that this is an administration famous for not being the least bit shy about correcting its critics when it thinks them wrong. Isn’t the simplest explanation here really that President Bush is strangely detached?

And, by the way, Starving Artist, I’d like to point out that your explanation is based on nothing but your rather doubtful skills as a mind reader. In other words, your explanation, near as I can tell, rests entirely on making shit up.

13

I couldn’t disagree more. The press corp (and many of the posters on these anti-Bush threads) were/are slavering for *some * kind of admission of wrongdoing or error. What wrongdoing or error? Not any one in particular, just any kind will do. And contrary to killing the issue, it would ramp up the critisism and attacks on Bush and his policies many times over. It’s all you would read and hear about from the media, and John Kerry would have the major talking point for the rest of his campaign. Assuming there’s something for “BushCo” to “admit” – as opposed to policies of his that certain people disagree with and therefore find fault in – to do so would be foolish in the extreme and would hand to his enemies exactly what it is they want. So, “assuming” there were actually something for him to “admit” to, to do so would be a big (and actual) mistake.

The fact that it isn’t some specific mistake but rather any mistake that is being demanded by the media these days belies the true nature its motives.

14

Shorter STarving artist: Because I have no real defense to abundantly legitimate criticism my only resort is to attack the character of those making the criticism soley on the basis of my own subjective imagination.

15

I’m afraid I’m going to have to call for a cite on this. I certainly haven’t learned it, but I would acknowledge it if it were shown to be true and not just your spin on it based on what he should have done.

Sorry. Again, a cite?

Where did I allude to anything as being nitpicking?

I’ve been seeing this “cult” nonsense more and more recently, and oddly enough, only on this board. If it makes you feel superior, go for it, but the reality is that this is nonsense.

Is he supposed to be in charge of every tactical maneuver of each of his generals, colonels, majors, etc.? Is he supposed to go over every line of every bill that comes to his desk? Is he supposed to dictate each line of the budget? Is he supposed to supervise each bit of data collected by the OMB? Like any executive, he delegates! If he stumbles when an outrightly hostile press is looking for any and every excuse to pillory him in an election year, it’s quite understandable in my opinion.

Funny! You expect mind-reading and future-telling from Bush, but view it as a liability when you perceive it from me.

16

I think we agree here. There are really a limited number of things a President can be an activist on, and still be effective; those things should be significant things. Whether I’m for him or against him, I don’t want Bush to be an activist President when it comes to a hypothetical Sludge Wastewater Treatment Bill of 2004; that sort of stuff is for some deputy undersecretary to deal with, and for Bush to think about just long enough to sign off on it.

But if we’ve got 100,000 troops in some faraway spot on the globe, you can bet I want the President driving the train and calling the shots. I’m glad if he’s willing to listen to a wide range of points of view on how to go about things, because he might see some way of improving the plan. But it should be his plan.

Thanks, Unc.

17

Just in case anybody’s wondering, I’m quite aware that a President can go too far in the other direction. I was just out of college when Jimmy Carter became President; he was a serious micromanager. Carter wouldn’t have been a good President even without that trait, but it certainly helped sink him.

18

As I have already pointed out to you the cite was in RTFirefly’s original post. But, just for your convenience, here it is again: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9642-2004Apr13.html

Now about nit-picking, here’s quote from your original post: " The reason he seemed so tenuous last night, and I noticed it myself at the time, is that he knew virtually everyone in the room was gunning for him to make some misstep that they could exploit, up to and including admission of some mistake – and as I’ve said before, not a particular mistake, just any ol’ mistake would do. "

Right, according to you they were looking for anything to exploit. That, describes a form of behavior widely known as nit-picking.

It doesn’t make me feel superior so much as frustrated. It’s difficult to argue with people who, near as I can tell, have no regard for getting their facts straight.

No, Starving Aritst, I don’t expect him “to be in charge of every tactical maneuver of each of his generals, colonels, majors, etc.” — a position, by the way, you’re attempting to put into my mouth and which do not hold. But I will say that I also don’t expect him to tell us that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 when it wasn’t true, I don’t expect him to tell us that Saddam and al Qaeda are working together when it isn’t true. I don’t expect him to tell us that Saddam’s getting nuclear bombs or that he absolutely knows for positively certain that Saddam’s got tons and tons of all kinds of weapons when that isn’t true. And when he gets a SERIES of PDBs with headlines like “Osama Bin Laden intent on attacking US” I do expect him to pull his finger out of his ass and do something about it besides going on vacation and not to say he didn’t get them when asked by reporters so you can accuse them of trying to “exploit” his mistakes.

As I have mentioned before, your entire argument is based on nothing but innuendo and your own subjective impressions as well as willful ignorance. What would you have me call it?

19

Oh, and one other thing Starving Artist, do you really want to challenge me on the issue of whether the justifications for going to war with Iraq have been proven or not? Just give me the word or, better still, please give me a reasonably comprehensive catalog of the justifications we were given and treat us to your version as to how they panned out. Okay, Sweetie?

20

You have obviously never been in any type of managment position.

Isn’t it the job of the 9/11 Commission to find out where the failure was?

As far as the accusations that President Bush is passive, I disagree. The stated absence of an opposing view point does not mean that that opposite view point never existed. He is the one that makes the decisions. He gets information the people below him. He also gets opinions. Guaranteed, most of those opinions disagree with each other. It is his job to make the relative best decision with the information and opinions given to him by these lower people. He also delegates different jobs to the people who can most effectively accomplish those jobs.

Official people making decisions that they know nothing about is the main problem with the company that I work for. The company that I work for is a Dilbert cartoon.