Slate 03/23/04 - Bush's Catastrophic Allergy to Clinton

[swag]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4580606/

Fatal in Difference
Bush's catastrophic allergy to Clinton.
By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, March 23, 2004, at 2:42 PM PT


Every once in a while, in the course of spinning the issue of the day, an administration accidentally betrays its broader mentality. Six weeks ago on Meet the Press, President Bush revealed his abstract notion of reality. Three weeks ago in his re-election ads, Bush displayed a confidence unhinged from facts and circumstances. This week, in response to criticism of its terrorism policy by a former Bush aide, the administration is betraying a third fundamental flaw: a categorical aversion to the ideas of the Clinton years.

The criticism comes from Dick Clarke, the man who coordinated Bush's terrorism and cyberterrorism policies for two years after serving Presidents Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton in similar capacities. In a new book and an interview on 60 Minutes, Clarke accuses the current Bush White House of brushing aside his warnings about al-Qaida before 9/11. How has the administration responded? Let's look at four examples. . .



Notice what these four statements dismiss: Law enforcement. Pinpricks. Rolling it back. Swatting flies. That was why Clarke couldn't get a hearing. His ideas were too partial, too ad hoc, too Clintonesque. Bush wanted a bigger approach: Comprehensive. Strategy. Eliminate. Different. His "comprehensive strategy" was delivered on Sept. 4, 2001. Is the White House embarrassed that it spent those six months studying the "many complex issues involved in the development of the comprehensive strategy" instead of swatting the "flies" that would kill 3,000 Americans a week later? No. It's proud.

In his book, Clarke recalls, "In general, the Bush appointees distrusted anything invented by the Clinton administration." Thomas Maertens, a Clarke ally who ran the National Security Council's nuclear nonproliferation shop under Clinton and Bush, tells the New York Times that while Clarke was "saying again and again that something big was going to happen, including possibly here in the U.S.," the Bush team discounted his pleas because he had served under Clinton. "They really believed their campaign rhetoric about the Clinton administration," Maertens tells the Times. "So anything did was bad, and the Bushies were not going to repeat it."

. . .

[indepat]

1. Perhaps the most dangerous mentality/mindset is a mind already made up:

like don't bother us with facts for absolutely nothing will interfere with our ideology, our pre-conceived notions.

[blindpig]

2. a nice piece

also see Fred Kaplan's article today, he's about the only person over there who's not RW or weak kneed

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. URL seems to have changed

it's now http://slate.msn.com/id/2097681/

[Martin Eden]

4. They're allergic to Clinton, yet they use him as a crutch

Part of their "we were all wrong about WMD" spin was to point out that the Clinton administration also stated Saddam had WMD.

It's like my RW friend who counters almost any criricism of Bush by bashing Clinton, saying he pulled similar stunts. I throw it back in his face by pointing out how this is equivalent of saying if Clinton did it, it's OK for Bush to hold the same ethical standards.