NYT's Kakutani reviews Suskind: Politics, Ideology and Bush's Terror Wars

[DeepModem Mom]

Books of The Times | 'The One Percent Doctrine'
Personality, Ideology and Bush's Terror Wars
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: June 20, 2006

...."The One Percent Doctrine" amplifies an emerging portrait of the administration (depicted in a flurry of recent books by authors as disparate as the Reagan administration economist Bruce Bartlett and the former Coalition Provisional Authority adviser Larry Diamond) as one eager to circumvent traditional processes of policy development and policy review, and determined to use experts (whether in the C.I.A., the Treasury Department or the military) not to help formulate policy, but simply to sell predetermined initiatives to the American public.

Mr. Suskind writes that the war on terror gave the president and vice president "vast, creative prerogatives": "to do what they want, when they want to, for whatever reason they decide" and to "create whatever reality was convenient." The potent wartime authority granted the White House in the wake of 9/11, he says, dovetailed with the administration's pre-9/11 desire to amp up executive power (diminished, Mr. Cheney and others believed, by Watergate) and to impose "message discipline" on government staffers.

"The public, and Congress, acquiesced," Mr. Suskind notes, "with little real resistance, to a 'need to know' status — told only what they needed to know, with that determination made exclusively, and narrowly, by the White House."

Within the government, he goes on, there was frequent frustration with the White House's hermetic decision-making style. "Voicing desire for a more traditional, transparent policy process," he writes, "prompted accusations of disloyalty," and "issues argued, often vociferously, at the level of deputies and principals rarely seemed to go upstream in their fullest form to the president's desk, and if they did, it was often after Bush seemed to have already made up his mind based on what was so often cited as his 'instinct' or 'gut.' "
This book augments the portrait of Mr. Bush as an incurious and curiously uninformed executive that Mr. Suskind earlier set out in "The Price of Loyalty" and in a series of magazine articles on the president and key aides. In "The One Percent Doctrine," he writes that Mr. Cheney's nickname inside the C.I.A. was Edgar (as in Edgar Bergen), casting Mr. Bush in the puppet role of Charlie McCarthy, and cites one instance after another in which the president was not fully briefed (or had failed to read the basic paperwork) about a crucial situation....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/books/20kaku.html

[chat_noir]

1. more revelations from 'The One Percent Doctrine'

Suskind: Bin Laden wanted Bush Re-elected

Ron Suskind (former Wall Street Journal Pulitzer winner) on CNN-His new book details the CIA intel conclusion: Bin Laden wanted Bush re-elected, and timed the release of his pre election video to help the Bush campaign.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

DU discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1476523


Ron Suskind: US deliberately bombed Al-Jazeera

Ron Suskind appeared on "The Situation Room" today to talk about his new book "One Percent Solution," and said that the US took out Al-Jazeera office in Kabul purposefully.

Ron talked about Cheney's almost "Presidential-Vice Presidency" and claimed that the CIA determined the Bin Laden tape released the weekend before the '04 election helped Bush and that Osama wanted Bush reelected.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/20.html#a8796

DU discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1471932


Bush to CIA Briefer: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

So author Ron Suskind has a new book out called The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11.

And he talks about Bush's reaction upon receiving the now-famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US."

Remind you, this was during the "summer of threat" when former CIA director George Tenet says that he was running around with his hair "on fire."

So you would expect that, given the nature of the August 6 PDB, George W. Bush would have galvanized into action. Ask the tough questions of his national security team. Perhaps you'd expect him to reach out to then-White House Counter-terrorism Chief Richard Clarke, who in January 2001 had asked for an "urgent and important" principles-level meeting to discuss the threat form Al Qaeda.

Just what was George Bush's reaction, then, to the August 6 PDB entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US."

He looked at the CIA briefer going over the PDB with him, and simply told him "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901211.html?sub=AR
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/06/20/911pdb/index.html?source=newsletter

DU discussions: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1480581
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1469185

[Richardo]

2. This book is at the top of my 'to read' list

'Price of Loyalty' was amazingly good.