May 19, 2004
Bush's Ineloquence
Andrew Sullivan nails it:
Events transpire and are interpreted by critics and the anti-war media and by everyone on the planet but the president. All the president says is a broad and crude reiteration of valid but superfluous boilerplate. This is not war-leadership; it's the abdication of war-leadership.
As I've consistently said, whether you supported the war on Iraq before it started is irrelevant. All of us must now support any humane, moral, and realistic effort to succeed unless and until it becomes absolutely clear that success is not possible. However, due to his insulation, intellectual laziness, and ineloquence Bush has not and will not make this case. He cannot even lead well enough to prevent the constant fighting between departments in his administration, so it's no surprise he cannot lead the nation. Eloquence and intellect do matter after all.
True enough. I find myself frustrated by people like Sullivan, who occasionally recognize Bush's flaws, but the next day praise the very same characteristics. Bush's bluntness, insenstivity and ineloquence is one day detrimental to America's public relations and on other days it is strong and principled leadership, undeterred by the temptations of relativistic thought. Sullivan's lack of awareness about how he contradicts himself on a daily business is part of his charm, I suppose.
I would argue that the short attention span and lack of clearly articulated values evidenced by critics like Sullivan is a potentially serious problem for American journalism. I suspect the blogosphere is to some extent complicit in this, for all its benefits.
Also on short attention spans: While looking backwards shouldn't be our first priority, I think it's an overstatement to say that whether you supported the war before it started is "irrelevant." I think it's an important thing for people to keep in mind, not as part of decision-making in the current situation, just as an evaluative tool. Kerry, obviously, being the gold standard of the unprincipled, fair-weather hawk.
I know this is going to sound self-righteous, and it's definitely off subject, but I think anyone who didn't have grave misgivings about both the idea of pre-emptive war in general, and the administration's particular case for this one (visibly flimsy and agenda-driven even then) must be ready to prove their credibility all over again at this point.
As for Bush, I think that his 80-IQ fist-pumping plays great with his core constituency, which at this point consists primarily of morons and rednecks. Eloquence and intellect do matter, and more generally what I'm realizing for the first time is how much leadership itself matters. The president, for all of our lefty rhetoric, is not a figurehead - or at least not strictly a figurehead. He organizes and motivates the people that make up the government, and when there's a vacuum there, bad things happen. I'm sure this lesson will be forgotten swiftly, but hopefully not until after the election.
I meant that one's position on the war was irrelevent to the current situation, not in general.
As for short attention spans, I disagree that blogs are part of the problem. Yes, many blogs just toss things off without any followup (we're a great example), but there are also many who will stick to a story and dig much deeper than we're likely to see in any other medium. Josh Marshall is a prime example.
I agree with Sullivan on this one. (sigh) One should always worry when the right hand man of the president is proud of the fact he doesn't have a college degree (Rove).
Rove doesn't have a degree? That's surprising. Still, for someone to be as successful as he is and not have a degree almost is something to be proud about. It's sort of a silly thing to be proud of, though. Maybe some cute university once broke his heart and that's his way of getting revenge.
Yeah, of all the reasons in the world to want to strangle Karl "Fatty" Rove with your bare hands, his not having a degree is so far down the list it borders on hagiography to mention it, instead of, say, the widening cycle of global chaos he helped instigate by getting the borderline retarded grandson of a war profiteer enthroned as the leader of the world's most powerful country.
Just my two cents, tho.