Washington Monthly on Smirky

[Squeech]

I think he's hit it exactly!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008883.php

This is actually my Grand Unified Theory of Bush. Pundits keep trying to figure out just what it is that makes Bush so different from other presidents, but most of them start by trying to figure out what he values. For example, maybe he's far more dedicated to hardline conservative ideology than any other president? That seems reasonable at first glance, but even a cursory look at the evidence turns up way too many exceptions for this to account for his record.

<snip>

The fact is, all presidents rely for their decisions on a complex stew of ideology, interest group pandering, and political calculation. So what is it that makes Bush so different? Just this: until Bush they also all cared about serious policy analysis. This was obviously more striking in some (Clinton) than in others (Reagan), but they all paid attention to it and it informed their actions.

But not Bush. He's subject to the same stew of competing interests and factions as any other president, but what truly makes him unique is what's missing: a respect for policy analysis. After eight months of working in the Bush White House, John DiIulio reported that "the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking." Paul O'Neill described Bush in cabinet meetings as "a blind man in a roomful of deaf people." A senior White House official told Ron Suskind that the Bush White House is "just kids on Big Wheels who talk politics and know nothing. It’s depressing." The meltdown at FEMA, the war with the CIA for being insufficiently hawkish, the lack of a serious plan for Social Security privatization, the staffing of postwar Iraq with inexperienced ideologues — all of these things have the same root cause: a belief that ideas are all that matter.

Of course, that also means that President Bush's initiatives fail at a truly spectacular rate. After all, policy is all about figuring out how to implement ideas so that they actually work. If you believe that policy is something for effete liberal wonks — as George Bush evidently does — your ideas are doomed to failure. In the end, ironically, the one thing that Bush disdains so utterly is the very thing that guarantees his utter failure.

[rock]

1. Very nice analysis

To sum up: bush is stupid

[Jane Austin]

2. Not Stupid.

Reckless, profligate, unfeeling, megomaniacal, crude, sadistic, ignorant, mean and more.

But not stupid.

[Squeech]

4. I say

he learned from experience. Every fuckup in his past, his dad has pulled whatever strings necessary to get him out of trouble. He's never had to face the consequences of his own wretched misjudgment. This will be the first time. Too bad it's our country he's trifling with.

[etherealtruth]

3. Intellectually lazy

Far worse than stupid

[Gabi Hayes]

5. this is nothing new. the rethugs have ALWAYS been about nothing

but marketing their antisocial, pro-laissez faire economic schemes, topped off with with xenophobic, fear inducing foreign/defense policies

they're just getting more sophisticated at the PR aspect, while the average American becomes more and more steeped in his own world of paranoid, mindless, narcissistic consumerism

the confluence of the two has produced what we have today

the idea that Bush has any ideas of his own regarding policy or governance is laughable. he's even more a puppet than Reagan.