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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (30455)	5/23/2002 8:06:50 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

I don't usually read Cohen because I think he's way too biased to pick through, looking for the occasional nugget. Life is too short.

To: LindyBill who wrote (30455)	5/23/2002 11:38:36 AM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

I posted, after seeing "Path to War," that the inner circle of Presidental councilors tends to act as "Courtiers" to the President. Cohen's column says the same. He then goes on to say that Bush is another "Johnson". I don't think so. Nice column. My first impression, before reading the column, was that you would be right. Bush II is no Johnson. Johnson was both much worse and much better. However, after reading it, I tend to agree with Cohen. It's the arrogance that gets them. Though, once having agreed, my guess is that the poison of arrogance tends to go with the turf. The difference, to jump back a bit, is that the Bushies bring their arrogance to the office, then it gets exaggerated by the office. So it's double trouble. That's been my take on this administration from the beginning. They would be done in by their arrogance and, unfortunately, more than a few of us will suffer.

To: LindyBill who wrote (30455)	5/23/2002 12:05:13 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 281500

Who's right? For the sake of this column, I don't particularly care. What matters more to me is how policy is made -- step by step -- sometimes by yes men with no views of their own, sometimes by strong advisers who are on intimate terms with certainty. In either case the outcome is the same: a smug unanimity, an aversion to dissent, a tendency to conflate the good of the president with the good of the nation and, in all but the most comfortable ranges, an acute loss of hearing. Now, once again, we have a president from Texas who always cared more about his domestic program than anything to do with foreign policy. Now, once again, we have a president who neatly divides the world into good and evil -- and is amazed that others don't see it that way. Now, once again, we have a president who has set us on a course -- confrontation with Iraq -- that may or may not be the wise course of action but that seems to have nearly universal support within the administration and Congress. Well, I've certainly noticed the "smug unanimity" among the bloviating pundits dutifully parroting Wolfowitz's "Democracy in Iraq" party line. But I don't actually see unanimity even within the administration on that front, though there's certainly a lot of smugness from the people propagating the line. Between much-derided Colin Powell and the uniformed military leadership, I got some hope that when things get done, they'll be done right. Which leads us to today's headline: Bush Warns Germans on Terror; Has No Iraq 'War Plans on Desk' nytimes.com The actual content on the "war plans" thing is pretty scant, however: In an attempt to assuage European critics, Mr. Bush insisted at a news conference earlier that he had "no war plans on my desk" to deal with Saddam Hussein of Iraq, even though he called the Iraqi leader a threat to civilization. Er. I guess that might qualify as smug uncertainty, or something.

To: LindyBill who wrote (30455)	5/23/2002 12:19:20 PM
From: FaultLine	Respond to of 281500

RE> Cohen's, "The Yes Men Have It" All administrations zealously guard their secrets -- and, of course, all mistakes are secret. But where this administration reminds me of the one HBO put on the screen the other night is in its swaggering arrogance. Especially in foreign policy, it came into office with a cockiness produced by ideology, a Kennedy-esque quality of being born for the moment. Multilateralism was bad. Most treaties stink. Rogue states were the real enemy. Missile defense was the top priority. And, oh, yeah, Bill Clinton was a dummy for getting so involved in the Middle East. Now much of that has been junked. But the same group of supremely smug advisers still motors to the White House for Cabinet and other meetings. They still clutch their secrets away from prying eyes and invoke the war to reject inquiry. They pretend that they always knew what they were doing even though, manifestly, they did not. Maybe no one could. Probably that is the case. reinforces what tb has been saying about the level of uncertainty, even confusion, in Washington --fl