Bush’s Cheney’s Legacy
I couldn’t help but think of Dick when I read this story on Bush’s legacy. First, because there’s this story of Bush’s show of hands vote on whether Rummy should be ousted.
Mr. Draper said Mr. Bush took issue with him for unearthing details ofa meeting in April 2006 at which he took a show-of-hands vote on thefuture of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld,who was among his closest advisers. Mr. Bush told Mr. Draper he had norecollection of it, but he said he disagreed with the implication thathe regularly governed by staff vote. (According to Mr. Draper’s book,the vote was 7 to 4 for Mr. Rumsfeld’s ouster, with Mr. Bush being oneof the no votes. Mr. Rumsfeld stayed on months longer.)
Cheney was almost certainly another of the votes against canning Rummy. And voila, Bush kept Rummy, though he claims he doesn’t remember ignoring the public support for Rummy’s ouster seven months before the Republicans got creamed in midterm elections. (In fact, I suspect the story got liberated by one of those seven who is still pissed that Bush asked their opinion, then ignored it, when it could have saved control of the Senate.)
And then there’s the story of how Bush forgot that Paul Bremer, who reported directly to Bush, ordered the Iraqi military be disbanded.
Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.â€
But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III,had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr.Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember,I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ †But, he added,“Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,†referring to StephenJ. Hadley, his national security adviser.
This is particularly telling, given the many stories of Cheney’s agents overriding a Bush policy, not to mention the suggestions that Stephen Hadley was sharing information with Cheney.
In other words, it’s possible that Bush doesn’t remember these issues. Because it’s possible he didn’t make the decisions in question.
When does a puppet remember what the puppeteer wants? Answer never, it can’t its made of wood.
You think?
Most of us have known for long that Bush does not make decisions. If he did, why does he have to keep insisting he’s the â€decider†and the â€commander guyâ€.
I didn’t make the decisions in question either. And yet I DO remember these issues. Really, if he weren’t a complete idiot and/or completely disengaged, it would be possible for Bush to not have made the decision to disband the army but to know the decision had been made.
Similar story..
AGAG: I corrected that statement with a reporter
Schumer: Who was the reporter and what did the correction say?
AGAG: I can’t remember who the reporter was or what the correction was but I can ASSURE you I corrected it..
same MO, same IQ
I doubt Bush could remember anything about the insta-declassification order he signed in the Libby case either. That is probably half the reason he had Cheney hold his hand when he was interviewed by Fitz. The other half of the reason Cheney had to go along is so that one of the two would know what was said to Fitz.
I wonder if there was a vote on bombing Iran. Some folks have recently left the administration- maybe they are about to revote. I doubt Bush will remember.
With Cheney in the room raising his hand, I am amazed that there were 7 who had the guts to vote against Rummy, as these 7 would certainly have known by spring 2006 that Cheney was the real Decider Guy. I’m interested in who would have been the members of this cabal – Rove? Bolten? For sure, both of whom may have seen the political advantage of ejecting Rummy. Who else? Right now, it seems that there is no one left in the Administration to at least try and restrain Cheney in the Five Hundred Days. With the Democrats having signalled that they will not interfere with the Iraq occupation for the balance of the Administration in any meaningful way, I truly believe that we will wake up one morning and discover that Cheney has ordered a massive air and missile assault on Iran. Cheney’s legacy is still in the process of being formed.
Oh, and the idea of Bush’s â€priorities†after leaving office being makin’ money and workin’ at a wingnut welfare think tank – it seems that Bush’s ambitions include being the worst former president ever after being the worst ever serving president.
I don’t think it’s a matter of Bush’s IQ, stupid as he appears. His other statement — that if you make decisions, you’re unpopular — underlines that whole meme about making policy that other people in the reality-based world can study and try and make sense of. If you’re born on third base and believe you hit a triple, you don’t question your motives and you get pissy if anyone else does. He’s a man of action, God help us, and he doesn’t have to remember the history of anything he does because his CEO status means he delegates the reasoning and just makes the decision. Like Enron. (Of course there’s the wink-wink-nudge-nudge about making sure the â€base†— oil companies, rich people, loyal supporters — have their interests taken care of. And a knee-jerk disgust at poor people just like Mama Bar showed at the Houston Astrodome.)
â€it’s possible that Bush doesn’t remember these issuesâ€
And maybe all the drinking and drugging really has caught up with him, and he is as brain-dead as we think.
I’m also pretty sure he’s on the sauce again. There was a report from one of the many summits in recent months that he was drinking â€non-alcoholic†beer, which one of his flacks hastened to assure the press steographers was OK.
Non-alcoholic beer, so called, has at least 5% alcohol in it.
Mnemosyne – I think you mean .5% alcohol content, not 5% – 5% alchohol is the base level for regular beer here in Canada. On this Labo(u)r Day weekend here in Canada, I can assure you as a result of experiments I am personally conducting, 5% beer is DEFINITELY not non-alcoholic.
Actual Political Historians are going to have a field day with the Bush Administration.
I suspect, once it is over, there will be many memoirs published that will be anything but flattering. What Suskind has done with very limited insider material, will become available as appointees and perhaps even elected officials comprehend that Bush can do them no further damage, and through their own efforts, they might rescue a smidgen of self-respect and reputation. People in good positions to observe in secondary and third layer slots in departments and agencies that have no real fear of prosecution will have an incentive to spill beans. Historians will give them something of a chance.
The odd thing about Bush — his Yale Degree is actually in History, and Yale has long had an excellent reputation for its history department. I doubt if he was taught that Presidents patch up their record after the fact, or even that any political history of any merit is written immediately after the fact. What kinds of judgments historians will eventually make, for instance about his foreign policy approach, will be as much determined by what comes afterwards. For instance if he does â€break†the US Army as an effective force — he’ll be judged on that fact, and how deep the damage is, and how hard it will be to repair is in fact something we will only know in a few years. Even if he leaves no written records of his administration (a possibility) there will be evidence in every agency and department as to policy — and Historians can riff off that for years.
Ishmael – I have been conducting similar research down here in Arizona. Turns out that blue agave tequila in margaritas is â€DEFINITELY not non-alcoholic†also. I will be performing additional confirmation studies shortly….
Bmaz – good to be part of the reality-based community that always relies on proof and evidence, isn’t it? BTW, upstairs I am discussing the propriety of police men’s room stings, would appreciate you dropping in with your toosense….
Heh heh. My evidence is 80 proof!
Is â€I really don’t know/remember†grounds for impeachment?
After being married to an alcoholic I’ve learned a lot of signs of a faux reformed drunk. Chimpy does NOT have the attitude of a reformed addict; I don’t know a single one who drinks â€near-beerâ€; those are people longing for the good-ol’-days.
I’d also definitely LOVE to get the feather duster from his office checked.
To be fair I must disclose my bias; Chimpy definitely reminds me of my first wife.
Tearing away the facade and discovering what Bush actually did order versus that which was subverted by Cheney or others will be fascinating for historians. But, for now it’s important to discover how classified information has been handled (or mishandled) and who in the White House Iraq Group or others such as Rice, Hadley or Cheney may have mishandled it.
This looks like a very valuable avenue of investigation and could improve immeasurably our laws and procedures with regard to classified information. It would prove much more valuable than any prosecution of civilians and how they revealed classified information they were not under oath to protect.
No shite. Rove got the domestic policy portfolio. Cheney got the foreign policy portfolio. Bush got briefed and made speaches.
A show of hands please, all those in favor of throwing Larry Craig under the bus say â€ayeâ€, as those in favor of throwing David Vitter say â€neaâ€.
Posted by: the third man | September 02, 2007 at 11:24
Who is the third man?
â€â€¦because he didn’t make the decisions at the time.â€
that’s the key.
i’m willing to bet that this has happened over and over again in the bush presidency.
i was not as confident of this judgment a year ago,
but given what i’ve read since, here and elsewhere,
i consider it a given that george bush has been a shadow president.
when cheney asked for and was given â€a special arrangement with the president†he became, effectively, the president because bush would not FACE CHENEY DOWN nor DISCIPLINE HIM.
bush had neither the experience in governing nor the interest to govern, and he is a lazy man.
Bush has been (ironically, given his rhetoric) a straw president on a stick –
the american terrorist scarecrow.
From today’s Wapo:
When Rice was national security adviser, she and Bush developed a near vaudeville routine for the White House staff as they planned meetings with foreign leaders. The president would petulantly ask why the meeting was needed. Rice would patiently explain its importance. Then Bush would propose saying something undiplomatic, and Rice would say it could pose a problem. Ultimately, Bush, half in jest, would say, â€Miss Rice won’t let me do that.â€
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..id=topnews
I want everyone to note the caption for the inside picture of Bush accompanying the article: â€A biographer found President Bush to be at times introspective, at other confident.†Completely apart from the fact that it’s doubtful that Bush is every truly introspective, I like the implication that Bush is confident only on those (oh, so rare) occasions when he’s not introspective.
â€Yuh, see, ah haf t’ stop thinkin’ ’bout what a harmful idiot ah am, got to keep up my con-FEE-dence.â€
Bush â€introspectiveâ€??–quote from the 2000 election: â€I never look in the mirror except when I comb my hair.â€
Bush boiled down his role in the Administration to the description of a simple bi-pole light switch–on/off. This is Bush’s self-description! Let me emphasize. !!
The moment Bush presented power to Cheney was even before the Republican Convention that nominated him in 1999. This was the moment Cheney, who Bush had asked to find him a VP, found himself. That was not the task Bush set him to. It was insubordinate. Bush acceded. And this information was public in the campaign.
Among other things, Democrats should be arguing that the whole GOP has proved itself to be untrustworthy in it’s nomination and renomination of an obvious incompetent for President, GWB.
Elizabeth Holtzman today called for a special prosecutor.
â€when cheney asked for and was given ’a special arrangement with the president’he became, effectively, the president because bush would not FACE CHENEY DOWN nor DISCIPLINE HIM.†(orionATL above)
Exactly!! And correction–the GOP convened in 2000, not 1999.