by hilzoy
“Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned. (…)
A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.
Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam–to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!””
Remember: there must have been people in the Republican Party who knew how clueless Bush was, and with what a breathtaking lack of responsibility he would approach being President, during the period before the 2000 election when he was raising the money that would cement his aura of inevitability and win him the primary. None of them lifted a finger to try to prevent him from becoming President. They cared more about winning than about their country.
Likewise, there must have been people in the media who had enough access to him to know this, but who were too busy claiming that Al Gore had told lies he never told to let the country in on what they knew.
And altogether too many ordinary citizens cared more about whether he’d be a good person to have a beer with than whether he’d be a competent President.
I only pray that we all learn something from this. Bush certainly won’t.
My reaction when I read the Raw Story thing earlier today is: why are you reporting this as if it was news? The meeting with Kanan Makiya, and the attendees saying that Bush was unaware of a Shia/Sunni split was reported time and again, years ago, in several books, as well as many articles. This is a famous incident.
For instance, here is a mention of the famous meeting in 2004, on Political Animal.
Doesn’t everyone else remember how much of a meal was made out of this incident?
[Upon walking out of an elevator]
Chauncey Gardner: That was a very small room.
Gary, I do, but I’m beginning to think that you have to rinse and repeat (and rinse and repeat) to get the story across. Possibly related is Delong’s upset (anger seems too strong, and disgust doesn’t quite match) with Tom Ricks (several posts, scroll down) in which he wonders why Ricks did not note some of these things when they would have made more of a difference.
What was the country, during or just prior to the 2000 debates, of which Bush didn’t know the capital, and all of his supporters spent countless words describing why that kind of information wasn’t important for a Presidential candidate to know?
Phil: horribly, I believe it was Pakistan.
Moral Clarity Vs. Hard Choices
I think the ultimate lesson of the Bush years will end up being something along the lines of: moral clarity is something very easy to acquire, but hard choices are not quite as easy to make.
I guess you could say “talk is cheap” or something like that if
I thought this story was in the Packer book–I haven’t read the Packer book, but I think I’ve seen it referenced in connection with this.
“Gary, I do, but I’m beginning to think that you have to rinse and repeat (and rinse and repeat) to get the story across.”
I have utterly no objection to the story being reiterated a thousand and one times, of course. I just hate things that make me feel like I’ve switched to an alternate world, in which I’m the only one who remembers an event that was previously reported.
So my only objection is to Raw Story presenting this as if it’s gasp, brand-new information! A scoop! A revelation! No one ever knew this!
Because that leaves me wondering if I’m hallucinating, or switched worlds, or what-have-you. I hate that. I prefer to have read Phil Dick in my youth, not live in his world.
I wish I could recall which of the major Iraq books from a couple of years ago (the meeting was in either 2002 or 2003, I forget which; when I mentioned 2004 above, I meant that that’s when the cite from Washington Monthly I gave was from) did the anecdote, but I don’t recall just now, and quick googling didn’t turn it up. But I know I read it in countless book reviews of whichever major book it was.
Not one, Phil, three out of four
I don’t mean this as an apologia, in any sense, for Bush and his handlers and fixers. But remember the time when the Idiot Prince attained the GOP nomination. It was a period when supposedly serious, informed, influential people would say, with a straight face, that politics was over, public life a mirage — the really important action was this corporate merger or that IPO. City landscapes were going to be transformed by — no shit — the goddam Segway. W is the product of a delusional time. If Osama hadn’t revived his already plummeting fortunes, he would have been a one-term wonder, just like his old man.
Sorry, that quiz wasn’t about capitals, it was about leaders.
Aha! Aha! Found a link to Matt Yglesias citing:
I knew I wasn’t mad!
Um, Hilzoy, were you unaware of this? Jeepers, I had to spend an hour of digging to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Not fun.
Hour and twenty minutes, actually.
“Um, Hilzoy, were you unaware of this? Jeepers, I had to spend an hour of digging to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Not fun.”
I think outrages like this are often quickly submerged under following outrages.
That’s for people receptive to such messages. For others it just bounces off, until their resistance has been worn down by continued exposure to evidence of radical incompetence.
Likewise, there must have been people in the media who had enough access to him to know this, but who were too busy claiming that Al Gore had told lies he never told to let the country in on what they knew.
And altogether too many ordinary citizens cared more about whether he’d be a good person to have a beer with than whether he’d be a competent President.
I admit to being clueless about it at the time, but in hindsight, it reflects a profound media bias that works in favor of Republicans. Its more a matter of not crossing the Republicans and reprinting their spin without criticism, than it is about blatant favortism. Its about working the refs to get the calls in your favor — a more insidious type of bias.
It still exists now — one of the worst and oafish Presidents of the last 100 years largely gets a pass.
As a diversion, I would be happy to take him out for a beer, if the rest of you take the White House out for some sanity and just a little on the ball.
George Bush is America. This is what the other guys mean when they say we’re the ones who are anti-American.
Think about it. But not for too long; that would be unAmerican.
The events that succeeded after Bush-II’s first election fit with the way the election itself happened. The Democratic Party website, too, now is mentioning some of the people and situations in 2000 as if viewed the first time. The US political system has produced minority presidents rarely. Bush-II has afforded a long difficult look at minority party rule; it is a recipe for behind the scenes cliques’ having disproportionate influence, carpe diem, and all that.
The exit now six years later has a overlay of legitimacy. US people support their leader in time of conflict. I think Bush-II has matured with his six years of serving as president. But there has been a struggle to redifine the administration in a context of laws on Capitol Hill these past six weeks since the Hamdan decision at the Supreme Court forced that moment of reflection, and, interestingly, even driven by the way LULAC v Perry is resolving (TX court very recently having completed its own remap very unlike DeLay’s dream redistrict or the TX legislature’s); the Supreme Court took a gentle hand in fostering the TX redistrict remake, as well this past term.
On the south central Asia politics and metaphysics, it would be nice if we elected history aficionados president in the US more than other folks; we test the experiential gamut; in this era of made for television national political conventions.
Fortunately the internet is adding some journalism to the mix.
Phil: – Bob Somerby has an extensive account of how Beltway pundits glossed over the so-called ‘pop quiz’ flap:
“gotcha journalism”???
I thought it was called No Child Left Behind.
Just teach the facts.
Hey, listen, who cares if they are Shiites or Sunnis? Democractize them. Or kill them.
Or subdue them. Do something with them.
Midge Dector and I just need to fill her up.
Ok, here’s the proper link for the Somerby quote.
Apologies for my ineptitude.
Blame the alcohol.
(At least I refrained from uttering despicable remarks.)
“it would be nice if we elected history aficionados president in the US more than other folks”
I don’t know about “more than other folks,” but we’ve had history buff Presidents. This century, among those who spring to mind include Teddy Roosevelt and Harry S Truman. And even — and this is evidence that while it is useful, it is not sufficient — Richard Nixon.
Eisenhower, on the other hand, famously liked to read Zane Grey (the famous writer of Westerns, for those unfamiliar). Of course, while in his day he was derided by Democrats as an ignorant non-thinker, a) turns out he was actually very canny and smart, and put on a front; and b) his Presidency, for all that I can list a long set of terribly wrong decisions, and flaws (I’ve ranted here before about John Foster Dulles, and getting us started on Vietnam, and the Bay of Pigs, but there’s loads more), he looks like a genuis when compared against the G. W. Bush Presidency.
Let’s also not forget that Warren G. Harding remains up there in the top five Stupidest Presidents Ever. Good lord, was he an idiot.
Oh, and Woodrow Wilson was, of course, President of Princeton. He gets, let’s say, mixed reviews at best. (Among other things, one of the most racist Presidents ever, setting aside the pros and cons of his foreign policy.)
Actually, the link I showed is to someone’s blog whose site name makes it look like it is the DNC.
Yet, the content was what Hilzoy’s story recalled to mind. In this week when we just witnessed the continued hearings to define exactly what the Geneva Common Article Three says, all the old news induces some ennui.
Raw Story has had its brilliant times; it is cited in high places these days; though I gather my news elsewhere. Hilzoy has a good handle on humanity’s developments.
The link I provided above in the post two steps before this footnote contains the photo hilzoy’s comments brought to mind, the image of the Brooks Brothers Riot outside the recount room in FL in 2000 republished to the web on the day of the news in 2006 tht Joel Kaplan, a 2000 ‘BBRiot’er, had received an appointment to one of Karl Rove’s posts.
I was curious to remind myself what the actual questions were, again; I recall the whole thing very well, but not the precise questions.
It was name the “leaders” of the following countries: Pakistan, India, Chechnya and Taiwan.
Off the top of my head — obviously, you’ll have to trust me that I’m not googling — that’s, today, Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Singh (no, don’t recall his precise first name; “M” something), I definitely don’t recall the Chechnyan guy’s name without checking, and Taiwan’s is Chen — I don’t recall the exact spelling, Shiu-ban (I’m sure that’s close), who has been immersed in a ton of corruption scandals of late.
But, then, I do read a lot of international news most every day. And it’s fair to say that Musharaff’s profile is higher post-September 11th, 2001, than previously, to some degree.
And remembering “Singh” isn’t exactly hard.
I’d actually say that being able to name some important current or very recent events in a given important country is more important than precisely remembering the name of leader, though.
I’d care more about a candidate’s awareness, for instance, of the French riots over changing the job law to allow for greater ease at firing certain types of new workers, and being forced to back down, and of the riots in the Muslim slums, than being to name President Chirac and PM de Villepin and Nicholas Sarkozy, and so on. Some people just have a bad memory for names, after all.
“the Brooks Brothers Riot”
Yes, that was a charming moment, wasn’t it?
Just for the record, Gary, the quiz was in 2000 so Singh and Chen would have been marked wrong if Bush had uttered them. No snark intended.
Of course, they probably asked for Taiwan to avoid this scenario
“Just for the record, Gary, the quiz was in 2000 so Singh and Chen would have been marked wrong if Bush had uttered them.”
I’m perfectly well aware of that, of course. Kinda missed the point.
I already mentioned that “I recall the whole thing very well,” LJ. Then I specified “that’s, today….” Do you think I’m Vonnegut’s character from Slaughterhouse Five, unstuck in time, unable to remember when the campaign to elect Bush the first time was?
My point was to test how I’d do on the quiz today.
Well, since you said that it was easiy to remember Singh, especially after pointing out “Musharaff’s profile is higher post-September 11th, 2001” might lead some to think that Bush was really stupid for not being able to remember such a simple name. Hence, the ‘just for the record’.
“Well, since you said that it was easiy to remember Singh, especially after pointing out ‘Musharaff’s profile is higher post-September 11th, 2001’ might lead some to think that Bush was really stupid for not being able to remember such a simple name.”
Whereas I thought I was clearly pointing out why taking the test would be arguably easier today.
You know, by pointing out the differences between today and then. Having noted that I was taking it today. Not then.
Mock despair (that was “mock”? Shall I repeat it, so you don’t miss it? “Mock.”): Why do I bother, lord?
Did I mention that the despair was, you know, mock?
Maybe I’ll mention again that Kevin Drum just linked to me. 🙂 (And a really obscure link by Glenn Greenwald early today, too, although really buried in a post.)
Thus I try to avoid the despair.
Which I probably didn’t mention was mock, so you might have missed it.
Oh, and my mocking of you? Mock.
“On the south central Asia politics and metaphysics, it would be nice if we elected history aficionados president in the US more than other folks;”
Wasn’t Bush a History major at Yale?
Whereas I thought I was clearly pointing out why taking the test would be arguably easier today.
well, in 1999 nuclear powers Pakistan and India got to the brink of war and the second Chechnyan war had just begun
The thing that gets me about the oft-repeated “guy you’d rather have a beer with” test is the obvious difficulty of sharing a beer with a supposedly recovering alcoholic. Does this not bother anyone else?
Two Islamic Sects In Iraq
Combining what we know now, it seems more likely that Bush did know that there are different sects, I quite clearly disagree with the Raw Story on that, but that the White House, quite simply, didn’t anticipate the incredible differences and even downr…
Travis, presumably these people who would like to share a beer with Bush either do not believe he’s really sworn off booze – or else they do, and they think “Hey! All the more beer for me!”
I wonder who supports Bush because he’s the kind of guy you’d like to do a line of coke with?
Travis it bothered me then and bothers me now. Like how the supporters of a guy who goes mountain biking whenever he can made a public deal about a challenger who went wind surfing.
The most benign explanation I can think of is the jounalists are so intent on proving that they are not infected with liberal bias that they’re willing to let slip all manner of trivialities — and everything in the have-a-beer scenario is a triviality — and focus on the real issues. Trouble is, a vast number of voters aren’t paying any attention at all to the substantive issues, but are deciding which guy they like better. And so the framing of trivialities becomes the most significant thing.
On the IPO stuff, remember we also had a whole bunch of whiny self-absorbed left types who bought into a narrative even stupider than the have-a-beer story: there’s no diff between Gore & Bush, or between Dem and Rep. It’s not only with hindsight that this thinking is clearly and totally delusional — it was perfectly clear that a Bush nomination to the S Ct. was going to be Roberts/Alito while a Gore nomination was going to be Ginsburg/Breyer, and one can run down a whole long list of issues where the difference is just as clear. Tens of thousands of people in Florida bought into this foolishness fully enough to vote Nader. Say what you will about media bias, or shenanigans in Florida, the thing was really lost on the whiny left.
Ambassador: Bush Didnt Know There Were Two Sects of Islam
Raw Story Christian Avard reports that a former ambassador has a new book out about the incompetence of the Bush administration which makes the claim that President Bush did not know, two months before the invasion of Iraq, that Muslims were divided in…
CharleyCarp, I probably sympathise more than you do with left-wing voters who wish their choices weren’t a right-wing candidate and a raving right-wing candidate. Obviously, I think that voters should have picked the candidate who was only moderately right-wing, and the majority of voters did. True, if every single voter who voted for Nader had voted for Gore, and their vote had been counted, Gore wins.
But, as we now know, if every single vote cast in the Florida election had been counted, Gore wins: Bush “won” because an incomplete count gave him a tiny majority, and Republicans who wanted the count to stop there prevented a full count from taking place to establish the real winner.
In a democracy, you can’t legally do anything about voters (“whiny”, “left-wing”, or not) who choose to cast their vote for the candidate they prefer, whether or not that candidate has a chance of winning.
However, in a democracy, it’s your moral responsibility to ensure that all votes cast are counted, so that the candidate the majority of voters choose is declared the winner. In 2000, that was Al Gore: in 2004, it was probably John Kerry – the fact that we can’t say for sure who got most votes in 2004 is a tribute to Diebold (whose spokesman says, of how easily Diebold machines can be hacked, “For there to be a problem here, you’re basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software… I don’t believe these evil elections people exist.”) but not to American elections.
Electoral reform, not lambasting whiny left-wing voters, is the answer.
Galbraith another legacy like Plame and Wilson wanting some cash.
Kerry, deomcrats no term limits……..
Jes, look at the numbers. The impact of all the various misconduct in Florida 2000 is totally swamped by the effect of the Nader thing. And say what you want about people in the US thinking that Al Gore is too far to the right — I’m saying that this shows a level of maturity and a grip on reality exactly equivalent to thinking that Bush is the guy you’d rather have a beer with, and voting for him for that reason.
You don’t get better choices by throwing your vote away on delusional vanity quests. You get world wars. (To be fair, maybe people wouldn’t have known that, but they absolutely knew they were empowering the religious right. And didn’t care.)
Jes, we can’t get reform without winning first, and we can’t win without people on the left growing the f*ck up. And the first step has to be recognizing their mistake — not admitting it to me, I don’t expect that — just owning up to it themselves.
Gary: no, I didn’t remember it.
They cared more about winning than about their country.
I am curious if you think this is unique to Republicans. I see little evidence that either party places the value of electing the better candidate to the value of electing the candidate they believe has a better chance of victory. I seem to recall that being part of Senator Kerry’s draw in 2004, for example; he was supposed to be the guy who could beat President Bush, therefore he ought to be the nominee. I am sure that there were many Democrats who voted for Kerry for many reasons, but I do not think it unreasonable to note that the electability argument was one of Kerry’s selling points.
Political parties exist for one reason: to get candidates elected. While I’m sure people on either side would like to see the best of their party elevated to office, when push comes to shove the ability to win outweighs the ability of the candidate once in office. This is one reason the founders were so distrustful of factions, as they called them, and why people like Jefferson were so careful to keep their involvement with parties out of the public eye. Unfortunately, organizations dedicated to winning elections are far more likely to do so than organizations dedicated to putting forward the best candidate.
The problem is systemic. Unless we see a civic awakening among the average voter, it is unlikely to change regardless of the outputs it produces. Success breeds imitation, after all. It will be interesting to see which candidates the parties settle on in 2008.
First of all the word “claim” appears 4 times in the article. But we should take a former state department official’s claim (who just happens to be pimping a book) at face value. Galbraith thinks that Iraq should be broken up into 3 entities and he is particularly tied to the Kurds. That may be the best plan and it may end up being the de-facto reality.
With that said, I don’t have a hard time believing that the gist of it is true. It is obvious to anyone that we had no solid post-war plan. This little factoid would have played heavily in any such plan. I don’t expect Bush to have known this – I didn’t know a damned thing about Islam prior to 01 and would have been content taking that ignorance to my grave. But I do expect his advisors to have known it, and to have briefed him on it in detail. My biggest problem with W is the cronyism. Surrounding himself with cronies rather than competent advisors has been his biggest single mistake IMO.
Likewise, there must have been people in the media who had enough access to him to know this, but who were too busy claiming that Al Gore had told lies he never told to let the country in on what they knew.
Rinse and repeat indeed. The MSM is a Republican propaganda machine. Even after a senior editor admits that the media is in the tank for Kerry and good for 15 points. Even after the ombudsman of the NYT admits the paper has a liberal bias, that the editorial page is “thoroughly saturated in liberal theology” and even Arts & Leisure, Fashion, Sunday Style, Metro, Science, and yes even the News sections are all heavily infected with liberal bias. Even though poll after poll going back over 40 years has shown that the vast majority of the people staffing our news organizations are on the left – these lefties supposedly knowingly spin for the right.
But, as we now know, if every single vote cast in the Florida election had been counted, Gore wins: Bush “won” because an incomplete count gave him a tiny majority, and Republicans who wanted the count to stop there prevented a full count from taking place to establish the real winner.
Rinse and repeat. The fact that people still believe this almost 6 years later is proof enough that the concept is effective. Even after news organizations did their recounts using the various proposed methods (including the method Gore was pushing) there are diehard believers.
They cared more about winning than about their country.
Well that shoe is certainly on the other foot now, isn’t it? We should have national unity on at least a few important things – but that would detract from the reflexive opposition to BushCo.
I see little evidence that either party places the value of electing the better candidate to the value of electing the candidate they believe has a better chance of victory.
Assuming “better candidate” means the candidate whose beliefs are closest to mine, the netroots are kind of disproving that right now. They would rather risk losing a Senate seat than not see their guy as the candidate.
Assuming “better candidate” means the candidate whose beliefs are closest to mine, the netroots are kind of disproving that right now. They would rather risk losing a Senate seat than not see their guy as the candidate.
An excellent point. Although I don’t think many, if any, of the netroots believe Lamont isn’t a credible candidate in the general election as well, (nor am I aware of any evidence that he is not), so while they are taking some risk, it is not a huge one.
OCSteve, I think you’re confusing Lamont supporters with Laffey supporters.
I think the people who preferred winning to being wise were the pundits–they sucked up to the right because they thought the right was invincible and they wanted to sit with the cool kids. Thre was some of that among the Democrats too (think Lieberman), but I agree with Hilzoy, the real offenders are the Republicans who keep voting for outright nutcases and criminals like Santorum and DeLay because anyone with their brand name was better in their minds than anyone if the other brand name. That failure to think and make distinctions really is something to be ashamed of.
Also while reporters ( the people who acquaint themsleves with information) tend to be liberal the editors and other managers ( who care more about sales and safety than the good of their country ) tend to be Republican. So the leftwing media is a myth–the final decsions about coverage are made by rightists.
Rinse and repeat indeed. The MSM is a Republican propaganda machine. Even after a senior editor admits that the media is in the tank for Kerry and good for 15 points. Even after the ombudsman of the NYT admits the paper has a liberal bias, that the editorial page is “thoroughly saturated in liberal theology” and even Arts & Leisure, Fashion, Sunday Style, Metro, Science, and yes even the News sections are all heavily infected with liberal bias. Even though poll after poll going back over 40 years has shown that the vast majority of the people staffing our news organizations are on the left – these lefties supposedly knowingly spin for the right.
As Roy Edroso so drily notes: “The general trend of our media criticism, online and off, is and has been for some time neither technological nor futuristic but political — a concerted attack on the famed ‘liberal media,’ a hydra-headed beast so insidiously powerful that it has managed to deliver the White House to its Democratic overlords in all but seven of the past ten Presidential elections.”
The Centre Cannot Hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. Its not getting better in Baghdad:
Army troops in and around the capital interviewed in the last week cite a long list of evidence that the center of the nation is coming undone: Villages have been abando…
OCSteve:
But I do expect his advisors to have known it, and to have briefed him on it in detail. My biggest problem with W is the cronyism. Surrounding himself with cronies rather than competent advisors has been his biggest single mistake IMO.
The fact that he surrounds himself with cronies is a symptom of a greater weakness in Bush himself — not a cause of his weak leadership (though cronies then re-emphasize his own failings). Weak cowardly people chose syncophants for subordinates, and then retain them even after their incompetence has been publically displayed. The cronyism speaks volumes about the weakness of Bush’s character.
OCSteve: Even after news organizations did their recounts using the various proposed methods (including the method Gore was pushing) there are diehard believers.
Well, yeah: the facts are the facts. Any recount that counted all votes cast came up with the same conclusion: more people in Florida voted for Gore than for Bush. I’m indeed a diehard believer in sticking to the facts, regardless of media spin.
Any recount that counted all votes cast came up with the same conclusion: more people in Florida voted for Gore than for Bush.
Any recount that counted all overvotes and undervotes came up for Gore. That is not quite the same as all the votes. Or do voters not have any responsibility to ensure they have properly marked their ballot prior to casting it?
“The fact that he surrounds himself with cronies is a symptom of a greater weakness in Bush himself”
Cheney was Ford’s CoS and CEO of Halliburton.
The “surrounded himself with cronies & sycophants” simply does not fly, especially combined with “the ignorant manipulated puppet”. Andrew Card, Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice…these were not Bush’s drinking buddies from the Ranger days. Any Republicn administration would have been proud to have them.
So what happened? I have been avoiding this blog since Andrew’s anecdote in comments about leaders only being as good as the information given them. This is the “Let Reagan be Reagan, it’s all Sununu’s or Regan’s fault” Republican method of protecting their symbols. The “weak manipulated puppet” line.
Fact is, the wrong guy got into the WH. A very very strong stubborn guy, who was going to invade Iraq, and would have fired Rumsfeld if Rumsfeld had tried to stop him. Read “1 percent”. Bush is calling the shots, based on ignorance and prejudice. The man is so incredibly arrogant that he would tell Colin Powell to take a flying leap if Powell got in his way on National Security matters.
GWB is one of the strongest most confidant Presidents in American history. Just arrogant and despicable and crazy. GWB himself mentioned dictators, so it is fair to compare GWB with Saddam or Stalin or Hitler, who were not exactly misused or misinformed by their surbordinates. Ribbentrop or his Soviet equivalent just had to be very careful about what he tried to tell his boss.
The evidence is in, and has been obvious for years. Paul O’Neill wasn’t kept from telling the bad news to Bush by the crafty manipulative subordinates. Bush wasn’t being protected, O’Neill was being protected. If the CEO of ALCOA had tried to tell Bush his numbers didn’t add up, the CEO of ALCOA was gone. This is not Card or Rove or Cheney.
This is George Bush. Just cause he is clueless doesn’t mean he can’t be the Decider. The American people have, like, spoken.
This is the “Let Reagan be Reagan, it’s all Sununu’s or Regan’s fault” Republican method of protecting their symbols. The “weak manipulated puppet” line.
Wow…I am beginning to wonder why I bother to post here at all, when what I say it ignored in favor of what people want to hear anyhow.
“Gary: no, I didn’t remember it.”
Hokay, that explains that. Thanks.
“As God is my witness, I thought Muslims could fly!”
Two points Andrew. First, an overvote isn’t necessarily improperly marked — the legal standard isn’t whether a ballot is machine readable, but whether the intent of the voter can be ascertained. Someone who checks the Gore box, and then checks the write in box, writing in Gore, has expressed an ascertainable intent. It’s not convenient, and God knows it’s now how I wish that voter had done it, but the state acted improperly when it refused to count that voter’s vote.
Second, on the senior appointments: I agree with you that a leader can only be as good as the information he/she acts upon, but this merely creates a floor. I don’t think the failures of Bush’s Iraq or Afghan policy are based on bad information from Rumsfeld, Powell, or Rice, but are endemic. Even a leader with good subordinates has to have good judgment, and has to weigh the actual situation, and stick with reality when looking at likely outcomes. In my view, the current policy has been suffused with magical thinking from the start, and while there may have been plenty of people who shared in it, the fact that the President seems to be one of them means that he owns the whole ugly mess.
I do not blame the President for the failure to capture or kill UBL before February 1, 2002. Failure to do so by August 5, 2006? That’s his, lock, stock, and barrel.
OCSteve chimed in with this:
That’s because by the standard that the Bush team initially demanded for a Florida recount, Gore would have won the state in 2000. As for the rest of the talking points you posted, I’ll refer you to your own statement of “Rinse and repeat.”
Charley,
My question regarding the voting is: what responsibility does the voter have to make sure his vote is marked properly? I understand the concept of overvotes and undervotes, but when people fail to take the time to mark their ballot properly, I’m curious how much care they spent on determining who they planned to vote for.
As for the leadership, I’m with President Truman: the buck stops in the Oval Office. President Bush is responsible for selecting the advisors who surround him, so even if the proximate cause of the error is bad data from a subordinate, the ultimate responsibility rests with the President.
If a significant number of the people intended to use a system use it wrongly, that indicates a problem with the design of the system. I think Don Norman’s thoughts apply to paper ballots as well as systems involving computers:
KC,
I have no objection to reforms designed to make ballot entry simpler. However, after 15 years in the Army, there’s one thing I’ve learned: you can’t idiot-proof anything. There’s always a better idiot out there somewhere. (And I say this as a firm believer in the theory that we are all, from time-to-time, idiots, in that we all do dumb things more often than we’d like to admit.)
“I understand the concept of overvotes and undervotes, but when people fail to take the time to mark their ballot properly, I’m curious how much care they spent on determining who they planned to vote for.”
Those seem like entirely disconnected skills to me.
Someone could be a genius political scientist for seventy years, and still have cerebal palsy, or multiple sclerois, or just plain be bad with their hands. What’s one got to do with the other?
Moreover, our system doesn’t allow, and rightly so, for tests of how much a citizen studies for an election. That, too, is not relevant. And shouldn’t be. (Much as I admit I have prejudices that run in the opposite direction; but I recognize that my prejudices are anti-democratic.)
Andrew, if you’ll throw out all the votes of people who picked the guy they fantasized they’d rather have a beer with, I’d be willing to throw out the votes who didn’t spend enough time to mark a ballot so that it would be machine readable.
Charley,
I’d make that deal, but I’m curious how you propose to ascertain the former.
Trust me, I’ll take care of it. ;- )
Gary,
You’re kidding, right? I don’t think one needs to be a rocket scientist to take the time to check your ballot before you submit it to make sure it is filled out properly.
Again, I would be pleased to see reforms that would reduce the number of errors. I’m a big fan of paper ballots, myself. When I lived in Massachusetts, our ballots had broken arrows pointing to the candidates. You filled in the open space in the arrow of the candidate you preferred, so you ended up with a complete arrow pointing to the candidates you selected. Simple, easy to check after the fact if a recount is required, and no worries about hanging chads, dimpled chads, etc. And as long as we make sure people have the option to get a new ballot if they do err, then there’s no reason people shouldn’t be able to fill theirs out properly.
Charley,
You’re such a handy guy. 😉
Just to be a smarta**, wasn’t it President Clinton who asked the famous question, who would you trust to order you a pizza, in the 1996 election? 🙂
Andrew: see why I had that little ‘oh no!’ (the one I thought better of) the first time the 2000 election came up? This has been mild so far.
hilzoy,
At least I haven’t been accused of wanting anyone dead yet. I’ll take what I can get.
yep — and much of the day has gone by without me being called a feminazi. Admittedly, I have been at home, painting, by myself, so it’s not clear that I would have noticed. Still, the fact that the furniture hasn’t accused me of anything is a start.
o.O
Does the furniture speak to you often? I’m just asking.
Enquiring minds want to know: were Eva Braun and Leni Riefenstahl feminazis? Or am I not understanding the whole feminazi concept? (And I feel very much left out by that letter, I should note.)
Andrew: if I doubleclick on the word my browser Opera takes me here.
Andrew: I had similar thoughts when I first heard the term feminazi.
Although it wasn’t Braun and Riefenstahl who initially came to mind…
hey, I was only 14 (and enamoured with Joe Bob Briggs) at the time.
Andrew: I don’t understand it much myself, other than its origin in Rush Limbaugh’s fevered brain. I mean: I will go to my grave a feminist (unless I’m wildly wrong about the future), and I don’t think I have many Nazi-like traits, besides the blond hair and blue eyes. Still, I’m pretty sure I’m the sort of person Limbaugh had in mind.
Are you sure you can’t qualify under ‘fag sympathizer’?
My question regarding the voting is: what responsibility does the voter have to make sure his vote is marked properly? I understand the concept of overvotes and undervotes, but when people fail to take the time to mark their ballot properly, I’m curious how much care they spent on determining who they planned to vote for.
I’m curious here, because you seem like a reasonable guy generally. What do you mean by ‘responsibility’ here? When I think of responsibility, I generally think of something like an obligation to bear costs, or to repair damage, when those costs or damages are caused by one’s own actions.
Here, you seem to be characterizing a decision not to count votes despite the fact that the intention of the voter was unambiguous (say, someone who filled in the Gore optiscan bubble, and also wrote in ‘Gore’ as a write-in candidate) as asking them to bear ‘responsibility’ for not following directions. What cost, or damage, to any other person or entity was caused by their error, that not counting their vote transfers back to them? I don’t see any cost (beyond the de minimus cost of taking a second look at the ballot — that administrative cost can’t possibly be what you’re thinking of) of counting those votes, given that they’re unambiguous.
So what do you mean by asking about responsibility? I don’t understand how you’re framing the question.
Actually, I was being sarcastic re: feminazi. I am sadly familiar with the term. I was trying (unsuccessfully, it would seem) to poke fun at those who use it seriously.
And yes, I qualify as ‘fag sympathizer,’ but I think that’s true of all of us. I mean, come on: I’m looking to kill 18,000 people a year. I think that deserves a little recognition.
Liz,
I guess I’m just anal retentive, but it seems to me people ought to take a little time to make sure they’ve done the job right, whether it’s voting or any other task. I’m less concerned with the kind of situation you describe than the ridiculous permutations we saw in Florida in 2000, with dimpled chads, chads hanging by one corner, two corners, three corners, etc. While in Florida we also had the butterfly ballot, which I’m reasonably certain threw the state to Bush, if we set that aside the outcome was effectively a tie. And in that case, trying to ascertain the intent of the voter tends to depend to no small degree on the preference of the person checking the ballot. That places a degree of subjectivity into the process that I think undermines its value.
morning Andrew,
A small point unrelated to anything content wise, but I politely request that you avoid the ‘why do I bother to post here’ and the ‘I must want 18,000 dead’ comments. The commentariat was pretty much all contra Jes’ reasoning, and Bob has said that he stepped back to give you room here precisely because his views run opposite to yours. I really don’t want to go into the ‘show me a right wing site that would do the same courtesy’ food fight, but it will come up if you use that as a consistent hook, I think.
I’m not talking about ambiguous ballots. I’m asking how you see ‘responsibility’ as applicable to the question of whether or not to count an unambiguous ballot that isn’t machine-readable.
Does counting such a ballot wrongfully impose a cost on anyone that you think the careless voter should bear instead? And do you think that not counting the ballot transfers the cost back to the careless voter? I don’t see any such cost, and in the absence of such a cost, I don’t see how the voter’s ‘responsibility’ is relevant to the question of whether to count their unambiguous vote.
lj,
I’ve never been good at playing defense. But your point is noted, and I shall endeavor to play nice. Although I will point out at least one right-wing site that would do so.
Liz,
It accrues no additional cost assuming the votes are being checked by hand anyhow. I guess I define responsibility differently than you do, however. It seems to me that people have a responsibility to themselves to do the job right; given how long some people stand in line just to vote, to have your vote discarded because you didn’t fill it out properly abrogates one’s responsibility to oneself. Don’t you think we have responsibilities to ourselves as individuals?
To be clear: if the votes are being counted by hand anyhow and the voter’s intent is unambiguous, I do not object to counting it.
“None of them lifted a finger to try to prevent him from becoming President. They cared more about winning than about their country.”
Well, the people who ran against him in the primary tried to prevent him from becoming president….
Don’t you think we have responsibilities to ourselves as individuals?
Sure, I just don’t think of accuracy in following the directions for filling out a form as in itself an important responsibility to myself, nor one that a failure in would justify my disenfranchisement — pride in my work only goes so far.
To be clear: if the votes are being counted by hand anyhow and the voter’s intent is unambiguous, I do not object to counting it.
Good to know, and very sane of you. I shouldn’t be arguing about this six years later anyway — the ‘responsibility’ argument just freaks me out. It always sounds to me as if not counting their votes is thought of as a punishment for the careless (although unambiguous) voter, and that seems entirely weird to me. I’m glad to know you don’t feel that way.
I don’t see how the voter’s ‘responsibility’ is relevant to the question of whether to count their unambiguous vote.
It isn’t relevant, especially since the person bearing the cost of the vote not being counted is the candidate, not the voter.
And are we sure the voting instructions were absolutely clear? Does the fact that there were a lot of these overvotes not suggest that there was a bit of ambiguity there?
Liz,
As a Red Sox fan, I perfectly understand. You don’t stew about the blowouts. You stew about blowing a two-run lead with two outs with one strike between you and your first Championship in 78 years when your closer loses his mind and begins throwing batting practice and his replacement lets the tying run score on a wild pitch and your manager hasn’t made his usual defensive replacement of his first baseman…
I’m sorry…what were we talking about?
“I don’t think one needs to be a rocket scientist to take the time to check your ballot before you submit it to make sure it is filled out properly.”
And the reason you believe most people have good vision — particularly elderly people in Palm Beach — and are proficient in English, is?
This is the privilege of youth, good health, good eyesight, and steady hands, speaking, Andrew.
And, for that matter, even complete idiots have a right to vote, which I only mention because you brought up intelligence.
But I, for one, can’t read a ballot without reading glasses; it’s a blur to me; and I haven’t been able to afford a pair of prescription glasses in fifteen years, and I lost my last pair about 4 years ago; the reading glasses let me read decent-sized print, but not with complete comfortability. If it weren’t for the ability of computers to let one enlarge fonts, I wouldn’t be able to read what you wrote and respond to you.
And I’m only 47. And I don’t have trembling hands. And I’m lucky enough to be clever.
On the whole faux-populist manufactured PR myth about “having a beer with Bush,” the Onion did a good takedown here.
Ah, but I’m clever enough to be lucky.
Not proficient in English !=stupid or ignorant. And I was under the belief precincts were required to provide ballots in voters’ native languages?
As for bad eyesight and shaky hands, how about some large-print ballots? Do they not already offer those?
Hmm, that last comment may have come out sounding sharper than I meant it to, which was not sharp at all. If so, sorry. I also hadn’t read the rest of the comments following, yet, to realize that a whole context of 2000 rehashing followed.
Rest assured that I have no interest in rehashing 2000 and Florida; the subject has long long long bored me silly (I mean, I know what I think, but if someone disagrees with me, as a rule, I don’t feel a compulsion to make sure they know how and why and that they are wrong).
Also I came back from shopping at the supermarket a bit ago — almost killing myself carrying too much stuff, as usual, and feeling like someday I’m going to drop of a heart attack from that, but I still have to go back to get more essentials tomorrow, but I digress — where I used the blood pressure machine, as usual, and it was 215/1**, so I took another blood pressure pill awhile ago, and now, as usual, I’m feeling spacy and wobbly. Which also cuts out my editor.
Feel free to go back to the Red Sox talk, of which I can say nothing but than to inquire as to which stadium has the best hot dogs?
I didn’t notice anything particularly sharp in the response, Gary. No blood, no report.
I’m not sure which stadium has the best hot dogs; I’ve only been to about half-a-dozen: Fenway, Yankee Stadium, Wrigley, Arlington, Coors, and Cincinnati. Plus two that have been since torn down. I know that my wife is of the opinion that Fenway’s hot dogs have declined markedly in quality since our youth, as they no longer wrap them in foil and allow them to marinate in the steam boxes.
I was going to make two comments, about physical and social factors that affect voting in ways that I don’t think are well described as the voter’s fault.
Gary’s covered the physical ones, however. So for my first point, go back and re-read his of 6:22 pm, and remember that as he says, he’s lucky enough to be clever. He can be articulate about what’s wrong and informed about what would help. Nothing in being disabled guarantees that, and indeed, a lot of people with clear-cut physical problems never get the chance to realize that there is something physically wrong with them, and it’s not just that they’re lazy or slow learners or whatever.
The other point is social. People who are on or near a social margin of many kinds often have good reason not to trust authorities when they say “of course we’re listening”. They’re used to being hung up on, being misrepresented in official tallies, regarded with automatic suspicion when anything goes wrong, and so on. Under those circumstances, punching out the hole for a candidate and then writing them in in the write-on slot can often be simply understood as added emphasis: “yes, you guys, I really mean it with this candidate, so pay attention”. It’s not following the instructions…but it is responding to a lifetime’s demonstration of what it takes to get the authorities’ atttention.
And I was under the belief precincts were required to provide ballots in voters’ native languages?
Interesting that you should bring this up. You may wish to take a look at the MLA linguistic census map to get an idea of the linguistic diversity that we are talking about. That the notion of ballots in other languages is seized upon by some on the right can be seen by these links here, here, and here. I’m hoping that you disagree with the sentiments on offer there.
On the languages question: I took my (incoming 7th grader) son in this morning for his training to be an Election Aide, and in the class, the county elections guy told us what the law was about foreign languages. There’s a numerical cut-off, 5% I think, but also a requirement about literacy. In my county, we have Spanish language ballots and instructions. We do not have Chinese ballots/instructions, although there are enough Chinese speakers in the county, because they are, on average, sufficiently literate in English. Only Spanish qualifies for ballots in my county.
Obviously, though, that fact that the average is at a certain level doesn’t mean that each individual is at that level.
They asked the kids signing up to be Election Aides to make sure to put down any foreign languages they speak, and told us a story from the last election cycle of a 9th grader helping an elderly Korean-speaking voter with the different ballot entries.
OT, but FYI:
Election Aides greet voters as they enter the precinct, direct them to the sign-in or sample ballot tables, know where the bathrooms and phones are, pick-up the cards the voters use for the electronic machines, invite elderly voters to sit in the chairs if lines are long while reminding the people behind them in line to let them back in libne when the time comes, and are supposed to be generally helpful.
The Aides work a 4 hour shift, and it counts towards the hours of community service each student must amass to graduate from high school.
lj,
I am of mixed mind. On the one hand, I am concerned that people who are incapable of following the issues are casting ballots anyhow. On the other hand, most people who speak English don’t appeart to be making a considered vote either, so the non-English speaking types are just assimilating. When you look at it that way, it’s a good news story.
More seriously, I realize that non-English speakers face significant difficulties in voting, as do those Bruce mentioned. And I’m willing to see them given certain allowances to help them through the process. In particular, I’d like to see ballots similar to those I mentioned upthread used, as those are about as close to idiot-proof as I can imagine. Also, they’re a damn sight better than voting machines that provide no physical evidence of how someone intended to vote, which I consider an incredibly bad idea.
Anyhoo, I realize there is no silver bullet in this. The whole responsibility thing is just a touchy subject with me.
Have been wondering, since your 2000/04 elections, something. Why aren’t the ballots for President printed exactly the same allover. A simple tick the box (or mark on comp). No confusion. No matter where you live or how you vote you see the same and mark the box of your choice.
Debbie,
The U.S. Constitution gives the states the authority to determine how they choose their electors. To create a national ballot would, I believe, require an amendment.
Debbie,
they aren’t the same because each state elects a representative to the college of electors who then elect the president, so the system is set up to avoid the situation you describe. There are a lot more wrinkles, but that’s the basic idea.
Why would you want to avoid that situation. would it be simpler to have the ballot the same?
sorry would it not be simpler
Debbie,
It goes back to the origins of the country. In 1787, when the Constitution was written, quite a few states were not interested in a particularly snug union. Therefore many powers were left in the hands of the state governments.
Debbie, I can tell you that in my county, for the upcoming election, there are 23 different ballots. Within the county. Hilzoy lives in a different Maryland county, and it probably has as many.
Elections are organized and run by counties here, and the ballot that we get has all the races on it: federal offices (only legislative this year), governor, state legislature, county council, judges, state constitutional amendments, county charter amendments, and so on. The county designs and prints the ballot, so mine and Hilzoy’s aren’t just going to have different races (mostly) and candidates, but they could have very different designs.
I suppose the counties could print two ballots — a uniform federal ballot and the county ballot appropriate to the particular races — but that would require a federalization of the process that no one is willing to put enough muscle into to get it passed.
“On the one hand, I am concerned that people who are incapable of following the issues are casting ballots anyhow.”
I don’t understand where this train of thought goes, though, other than to a station in which we wind up giving people literacy tests, or tests of knowledge of current events, which I know perfectly well is not where you are intending to go, of course.
But since we’re not going to those stations, what’s the point of going even a single foot down the track?
We don’t pass judgment on people’s knowledge, or smarts, as a measure of whether they’re entitled to vote. They can be raving imbeciles (okay, there is an actual minimum IQ that if you’re below you can be legally challenged on, in some areas, I think, but generally speaking), or literal psychotic paranoids, and you can live in a basement, or overseas, for twenty years, and never have once seen a newspaper, and you’re entitled to vote.
So what’s the relevance of vague murmurings of “concern” about people’s — you didn’t use the following term, so when I put it in quotation marks, it’s not as a quotation, but as a paraphrase — “qualifications”?
That’s simply antithetical to our basic system of government — democracy, not meritocracy, or elitism, regardless of its mixed merits and demerits. That’s our system, after all.
I may have misunderstood: 23 sounds way too low. Maybe it was 23 within the Silver Spring portion of the county. Anyway, we have a whoole lot of elections at the same time, and are given a single ballot.
In the states in which I’ve voted, one has no awareness of the identities of the electors. That is, I’ve always had only the names of the Presidential (and vice-presidential) candidates on my ballots, although I understand that some states do it differently.
“Why would you want to avoid that situation. would it be simpler to have the ballot the same?”
Basically, you’re asking why we have a federal system.
Every state is different, and makes its own electoral laws (within the bounds of federal court decisions on what’s Constitutional).
Every election has a wide range of issues at various levels of office: local, county, possibly regional, state, and every other year, federal. And each state is different, and in each state, each county (possibly a larger region as well), then within counties, there may be subregional government, and then there’s likely, though not always, a municipality.
Some ballots in some places in some years may be relatively uncomplicated.
I’ve had ballots here in Boulder with upwards of 200 different choices, with dozens of categories.
That’s why it can’t all be “the same” and “simpler.”
Andrew: as a fellow responsibility fiend, here’s my take:
Responsibility is generally specific to individuals, for particular decisions. I think it is my responsibility (not necessarily in LizardBreath’s sense, but in the sense of: my job) to cast my vote clearly. (Although I’m not sure I would have known off the top of my head that punching and writing in was a lack of clarity.)
On the other hand, I also think it’s the responsibility of whoever runs the elections for a given area to do whatever is possible to allow citizens to vote even when they are in some excusable though non-optimal way not doing their job right. (Excusable here is meant to mark the difference between honest mistakes and e.g. smearing jam all over your ballot for kicks. No one has to accommodate that.)
As a voter, I control my actions, and should try to accommodate myself to the election system, which is not up to me, as best I can, whether or not the people designing it have done a good job. Since I’m not them, I have to treat their level of responsibility as a feature of my world, not as something under my voluntary control. Likewise, if I am designing the election system, choosing which languages to have translators for, how to design the ballot, etc., I have to take the vagaries of voters (other than myself) as a feature of my world, which I need to take into account, since it’s not under my voluntary control.
That being the case, I’m happy saying that some people probably don’t take their civic responsibilities seriously enough, but that this does not in any way excuse someone who, asked to design a voting system, designs it in a way that requires perfection of voters. Whether I progress to blame in any given case would depend on what mistakes were made, and how bad they were, and so on.
Gary,
Just because I don’t support making people demonstrate they’ve earned a ballot doesn’t mean I cannot be concerned about people who cast them without putting any thought into them. One can be concerned about something without believing that some action needs to be taken, after all.
Debbie, I thought of another reason: candidates have to qualify to get on the ballot in each state. The major party candidates get on everywhere, but fringe candidates differ from state to state.
“One can be concerned about something without believing that some action needs to be taken, after all.”
True. And as I said, my own prejudices are frankly elitist. So maybe I’m simply over-reacting in response to myself. 🙂
For instance, when I look at how awful so many parents are at parenting, part of me — totally unseriously, I can’t see the notion as anything other than frighteningly totalitarian, I do not actually want this done — but part of me has the prejudice that people shouldn’t be allowed to be parents without first passing a bunch of exams to test their skills, and make sure they’re qualified.
Similarly, only people who pass my test on what the Right Answer is to various political issues should be allowed to vote.
😉
“Debbie, I thought of another reason: candidates have to qualify to get on the ballot in each state. The major party candidates get on everywhere, but fringe candidates differ from state to state.”
And to elaborate on that, each state has a different set of qualifying minor parties on the ballot, not just individuals. So, for instance, in NY State, along with half a dozen or more really minor parties, you’ll have the New York Liberal Party and the New York Conservative Party, as well as the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. But New Jersey will have a whole different mix of parties, and while almost every state has the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, the other party mix will be unique. (I say “almost,” because last I looked there was no Democratic Party in Minnesota, but still the traditional Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.)
It’s ultra-common for foreigners to not understand the federal nature of the U.S. system unless they’ve made a close study of it; I know very few who have, and I’ve had this and conversations along allied topics with hundreds of non-U.S. friends over the years. Hell, plenty of U.S. citizens don’t really understand it; it’s kinda complicated. (Though many countries’ systems are; ours happens to be one of the larger ones, though, and which gets, for obvious reasons, and unusual amount of worldwide attention.)
Oh no. Not ’00 again! Personally, I think Bush got the most votes in ’04 (he did even w/o counting Ohio, but I put that aside), but didn’t win in Florida in ’00.
Two things. Nader received about 90K votes. An argument for IRV, perhaps?
Anyway, as to voter responsibility, are they responsible for the wrongly printed ballots that led to the Buchanan votes that even B. said were probably not his? Undervotes the creator of the ballot said was a design related problem? Republicans getting a hand respecting certain military ballots and filling out registration forms? If the state wrongly disenfrancised felons by a system purposefully geared to err to that end? etc.
When only 537 votes were at stake, such things sort of come to mind.
Enough though. Now if Benitez didn’t fail to get that out .. Zeile ran …
non-felons and voting machine, that is.
It’s ultra-common for foreigners to not understand the federal nature of the U.S. system unless they’ve made a close study of it
One could take away the implication that non US systems aren’t full of complexities (not saying that Gary doesn’t realize this, etc. etc. etc.) Here in Japan, all ballots require handwriting the name, which is why many candidates use a hiragana script to list their names. Also, they have recently gone to a two tiered party roll format that seems to make sense on the macro scale, but for the two candidates I have worked for on the local level, I really have no idea what is going on. I find the system of voter registration for UK parliament elections to be very strange. The wrinkles the preferential Ozzie voting system makes my head hurt (I dated an Aussie about 18 years ago, so my understanding is dated) and try explaining the NZ MMP system instituted in 1993 to an American.
Joe, I think that any voting system is going to have problems with a very close vote. This is not claiming that the problems with the 00 election were simply systemic, just that when you are dealing with such small margins, (witness the Washington gubernatorial(?) election), repeated recounts will produce different results.
“Wow…I am beginning to wonder why I bother to post here at all, when what I say it ignored in favor of what people want to hear anyhow.” …Andrew 1:12
This was my s[pecific reference to Andrew, the line he misleadingly quoted was not directed specifically at him:
“So what happened? I have been avoiding this blog since Andrew’s anecdote in comments about leaders only being as good as the information given them.”
I do not like being called a liar, and I do not like having to search thru hundreds of comments to quote people back at themselves. I like to think people are responsible and remember what they have written. In the thread “Random Musings” of several days ago, Andrew said in comments, and I quote the entire thing:
“how can people this stupid get to be so powerful?”
“I’m not sure it is necessarily stupid as opposed to uninformed. The more responsibility one has, the harder it is to see anything personally, and so the more you have to rely on subordinates to sum up data for you. I had a commander once who was almost completely cut off from what was happening in his brigade, because his Executive Officer and Operations Officer made sure that what made it to his desk told him what they wanted him to know. He was not stupid in any sense of the word, but he made some decisions that were unwise because they were based on bad data. I suspect the problem is even greater at the level of head of state.” …Andrew, “Random Musings”, 3:19 pm
Friend of Farber’s, indeed
Meanwhile, any thoughts on this?
Meanwhile, any thoughts on this?
The top of the left hand column of smoke does look like it’s a poor cloning job. A higher resolution picture would be required to tell for sure.
The evidence presented in the update is a real stretch, however. I’m not seeing it.
“As for the leadership, I’m with President Truman: the buck stops in the Oval Office. President Bush is responsible for selecting the advisors who surround him, so even if the proximate cause of the error is bad data from a subordinate, the ultimate responsibility rests with the President.”
And this is exactly the kind of vague protection I was talking about. Ronald Reagan admitted he was “responsible” for the stupid deaths of the Marines in Beirut, and there the buck and everything else stopped and died. Reagan sure didn’t pay any consequences, I guess that was up to the American people to make him pay at the ballot box. Or something.
Was Reagan “responsible”? In what sense? In the same sense as if I had personally shot those marines? If a major had made a mistake that resulted in the needless deaths of 261 soldiers, would that major simply get to say “I am responsible.” and move on, keep his job and maybe get promoted?
Sometimes “accepting responsibility” is not a way of accepting the blame and costs, but a way of avoiding them. The Decider has decided that Rumsfeld is A-OK and keeps his job. Anyone putting any further blame on Rumsfeld is not serious. Rummy is not the one who should resign.
Looking at a slightly larger version here (second in the search results), I’d say the left column is very suspicious.
Bob: As I read the comment of Andrew’s that you quoted, it says that bad info can be a problem, which is surely true. It doesn’t seem to say that this is always a problem, which is what your version of it seems to imply.
Just how I read it, for what it’s worth.
Bob, as someone who has considered your positions and been quite sympathetic to them, I think you are being a bit harsh on Andrew in this case. I think his comment in this thread is a bit of jockeying for rhetorical position rather than a considered stance of your position (which needs to be traced back quite a bit, before Andrew appeared here) and I view his earlier statement as attempting to stake out his position as he started on this blog. This is not to say that I agree with him on that point, but I think you are reacting a bit too strongly.
Stan, you may want to contact Reuters directly, they publish the online comments of their readers here, which is a rather fascinating look on the kinds of errors that can creep in. Reuters has had their photos doctored (by the Daily Mail, for example), so they are quite sensitive to the dangers, so if it were doctored, I’m sure you would get a response.
As I stated or implied, Andrew’s position, to the degree I understand it, is neither new or unique. Although perhaps uniquely applied to Republican occupants of the Oval Office.
The general rule: If your subordinates are incompetent or untrustworthy with bad consequences and damage, you must pay the price of firing those subordinates. This is costly in terms of losing a trusted advisor, and it is embarrassing in terms of admitting that your personnel judgement is inadequate, and that your future assignments are to be doubted. However, if you are unwilling to pay the price of firing the subordinates, you should resign yourself.
If on the other hand, the mistakes are your own fault, and the mistakes either in policy or assignments are egregious, you yourself must resign. No Major who consistently assigns screw-ups gets promoted to Colonel. Or shouldn’t. No one gets to say:”Yes, all the Vice-Presidents I have promoted are complete screw-ups. I am keeping them in their positions, and remaining in my job. Oh, and I take complete responsibility. Sue me”
You know, I knew Rummy since back in the Nixon years, and I never considered him an idiot. OTOH, I have no evidence that GWB was ever anything but an ass. I am supposed to someone seriously (Djerijian, for instance) that says all-of-a-sudden Rumsfeld goes to work for GWB and becomes the idiot?
At least CB is entertaining.
What makes me crazy about this is just that I am old. I can remember the years of watching the Nixon gang go one-by-one, and hearing Republicans say:”But Nixon is still a great statesman.”
I can remember distinctly arguing at a dining room table with an Army Captain about command responsibility and the Nixon WH.
I remember years of the same stuff with Reagan. All Ollie’s and Poindexter’s fault. But Reagan is still a great President.
35 years of the same stuff. I am tired, and will not listen anymore.
“One could take away the implication that non US systems aren’t full of complexities….”
If one didn’t actually read what Gary wrote, which included a specific statement otherwise: “Though many countries’ systems are….”
Bob, I don’t think the obvious fact that the President is not up to the task (that’s the nicest way I can think to say it) says anything about Rumsfeld’s competence. He seems to be completely incompetent — I’m talking about dealing with reality outside the government, not turf fighting within the government — all on his own.
“The wrinkles the preferential Ozzie voting system makes my head hurt….”
It’s extremely simple, actually, once one is at all familiar with it. I say this because the science fiction fan travel funds, which send a representative back and forth between North America and Europe (Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, TAFF), and between Australia/New Zealand and North America (Down Under Fan Fund, DUFF), and Europe and Australia/New Zealand (Get-Up-And-Over Fan Fund, GUFF), more or less every year, all use the system, and I’ve been voting in it since I was 12. One just numbers one’s preferences: 1, 2, 3, 4. Utterly simple.
Counting is slightly more of a headache, but I’ve done that too, and it’s just a matter of a lot of counting, and in each round, the candidate with the lowest number of votes gets dropped, and her votes redistributed in the next round, until there’s a final winner.
“Joe, I think that any voting system is going to have problems with a very close vote.”
Oh, and in fact there’s a theory that proves that every voting system has problems and is imperfect. Arrow’s impossibility theory. Ran into this in discussions of voting systems some thirty years or so ago.
Just don’t ask me to explain it.
Argh! I’d have sworn I typed “theorm” twice, but my fingers know better than I do!
Charley, it is arguable that Cheney did not do well at Halliburton, but I don’t remember Rumsfeld having a bad reputation before entering the GWB WH. Am I misinformed?
I have stated before, and I will repeat: I suspect Rumsfeld is doing the best he can under the constraints placed on him by the President. If Rumsfeld asked Bush for 300k more troops, just like Sinseki, Rumsfeld would be gone. Does the President make the individual decisions on body armor and Humvees? Perhaps not, but my guess is that Bush has a closer touch to the Defense budget, where he wants the money to go, and whose complaints he will listen to and who he will ignore than most people admit.
Rumsfeld understands the Man, and sticks around knowing his replacement, as in Porter Goss or Harriet Miers, could be unspeakably worse.
“the obvious fact that the President is not up to the task”
See Andrew, this is where I differ with hilzoy and many others. “Incompetence” or inadequacy is not how I characterize the problem.
An imaginary conversation:
Rumsfeld:”Mr President, soldiers are dying and being maimed in Iraq due to inadequate body armor and insufficient plating on transport. I am here to ask that you shift some funds from SDI”
Bush:”Wait a minute. SDI is campaign contributors and guys I went to school with. In fact, none of my people did any of that soldier stuff for real and I don’t kow why I should care about them. Poor people, they don’t vote for me.
So no. No funds for body armor. And I am going to remember this conversation, Rummy. Don’t ever try to embarrass me again.”
There is no incompetence, or even stupidity.
Bob, I think you and I are operating under different assumptions wrt Rumsfeld’s role. I think he’s fully invested, himself, in his transformation agenda, and was wont to believe in the magical thinking required to launch the war as it was launched, and wage it as it has been waged. I do not say this to excuse the President, of whom I could not think less. (As you may have gathered over the last few years). When I say not up to the task, I don’t mean that he’s stupid, in a low IQ kind of way. I think he’s so carried away with ideology that he is not able to reason clearly from his position forward. He’s also using the wrong yardstick — one where, among other things, his re-election amounts to a success of some kind of his policies.
And Bob: I also didn’t read Andrew’s comment to say anything more favorable than: “it’s not clear that the appropriate criticism here has to be ‘stupid’.”
“I think he’s [Rumsfeld] fully invested, himself, in his transformation agenda”
Bush himself discussed the “lighter, faster” thing in a speech in 1999, IIRC. Now that certainly could have been under the ifluence of Rumsfeld, I don’t know. Or it could simply be part of an agenda Rumsfeld and many in the defense establishment have shared for years. In either case, it would not be exclusive to Rumsfeld.
I personally believe it is part of the decades-long project to make the Pentagon an extension of the Republican Party. Get those left-leaning grunts outathere, and winnow the Force down to the Right thinking professional types. This is also part of the reason there was not ever a move for more troops after 9/11. How ya gonna keep em down on the farm after they’ve seen Baghdad? Too many good kids came back from Vietnam utterly ruined. The Party remembers.
Umm, I guess you can see I disagreed pretty strongly with Andrew’s post about the military. Although I did not comment.
At least Trevino has called for a draft.
Gary: Doesn’t everyone else remember how much of a meal was made out of this incident?
For the billionth time, I think, I wish I had one-hundreth of Gary’s abilty to consume and retrieve data.
And having just seen “A Scanner Darkly” (recommended, by the way), I sympathize about the PKDickedness of the world these days.
I wrote:
“The wrinkles [in] the preferential Ozzie voting system makes my head hurt….”
And gary replied
“It’s extremely simple, actually, once one is at all familiar with it.”
That’s why I said ‘wrinkles’. Like mandatory voting or informal voting or two party preferred voting or the optional preferential voting in NSW.
Onwards and upwards.
Bob, your comments remind me of a Rolling Stone story about how Cheney has screwed up everything he has ever touched, giving chapter and verse. It was in the same issue that profiled Michael Moore. I’m not sure if it really matters whether Bush is crazy like a fox or not for most intents and purposes, but I do see that if we accept the ‘mcmanus thesis’ (no snark intended with that label), then it becomes important (perhaps essential) to have a narrative that justifies taking it to the streets. Again, no snark is intended by observing this, but my feeling is that any cabal worth its salt would have been able to plan a little better rather than bringing things to this point of fubar.
“The wrinkles the preferential Ozzie voting system makes my head hurt”
LJ The preferential system is an interesting one and I think it reflects a good principle of design that you have a simple functional level and an optional level of complexity. A bit like a digital camera with point-and-shoot mode and then a manual mode.
In an Australian senate ticket you can vote ‘above the line’ with a single ‘1’ for the party of your choice and then the preferences are directed by the party you’ve chosen. For political tragics like myself , you can vote ‘below the line’ and number each 30 or so candidates individually.
It works well and less people are disenfanchised through error. As we ask of Ikea – should a man’s books lay on the floor because he cannot use an allen key?
“For the billionth time, I think, I wish I had one-hundreth of Gary’s abilty to consume and retrieve data.”
That’s very kind. If only I could do more more to remember where I read something rather than succeed only something like approximately one out of one hundred times. (As I said, that’s part of why I blog: so I can find stuff again; and it’s why I became famous in my circles for skills with a search engine, back when it was Alta Vista, and then Google, before everyone could do it: because I had to.)
But I’m really good at remembering that I read something, and really bad, much of the time, at remembering where I read it. And for that matter, I’m good at remembering that I read a thing, but not necessarily at all good at remembering the details.
So, basically, it’s like I have an index in my head, without the full facts, and the index doesn’t actually go anywhere by itself — no actual page numbers — the just the index entry. 🙂
But this is why I adore the internet, and search engines. It supplies both ends for me most of the time now. (And thus I actually appear far more intelligent online than I do in person, in which case I do a lot of stammering about, “uh, there was this piece — I don’t remember where exactly — and it has the facts on that — which I don’t quite remember — but the gist was — I think — that sort of [blahblahblah].”)
“…about how Cheney has screwed up everything he has ever touched, giving chapter and verse.”
OK, see the gentleman is worth a half billion, was CEO of Halliburton and is Vice-President of the United States, and I am the one who has to prove he is not an idiot and incompetent? I do have a rough hoe to row.
Liberals are not the only ones who hold such interesting views of the world, where Cheney’s King Midas-in-reverse ability is fully demonstrated by his wealth and achievement.
Their opposites often said that trailer-trash-born Bill Clinton, Rhodes scholar who married another attractive Rhodes scholar, one of the best and highest women in the world, won, lost, came back and won multiple governorships in a state not completely suited to his politics, twice elected President with high approval ratings…was a totally worthless human being.
Note the difference:Clinton achieved very little in either policy or politics during his Presidency, yet Republicans call him brilliant…a skilled politician, smart, capable and morally worthless.
Bush has won every election save the first, has managed to become rich with zero achievement and apparently little effort, and has made some extremely substantial and lasting policy/political/IR changes during his terms, and liberals call him an idiot.
You are right, I got some splainin to do. But I suspect liberals would rather look smart than be rich might have sumpin to do with it. It sure seems more important to the blogosphere to have been “right” on Iraq earlier than the next dude than to actually stop the friggin war.
Bob, I wasn’t trying to ambush you with the reference or demand that you explain anything. The piece is here and is worth a read. It puts Cheney’s ascension to CEO of Halliburton in a slightly different light.
“That’s very kind. If only I could do more more to remember where I read something rather than succeed only something like approximately one out of one hundred times.”
Ugh, I hate it when I want to cite something and I can’t remember where I read it.
“That’s why I said ‘wrinkles’. Like mandatory voting or informal voting or two party preferred voting or the optional preferential voting in NSW.”
OK, I’ll bite: Mandatory voting has nothing to do with the vote counting system, it just means that everyone has to vote; informal voting = undervotes and overvotes that Andrew was banging on about earlier, ie a local name for erroneously marked votes (deliberate or otherwise); 2party preferred voting doesn’t exist, it’s a construct used only for polling purposes. Optional preferential voting I’ll admit is confusing, but also isn’t used for national elections.
My point is that Gary’s right; the system really is simpler than it looks.
I feel that when Debbie brought up our Aussie system a while back the replies kind of missed the point; she asked why the US system is the way it is and recieved historical answers, but none that provide a meaningful justification for it in modern terms beyond the implication that hey, that’s the way it’s always been and it would be too hard to change now. Which seems to actually be the case to me. If you were designing an electoral system for the US now from scratch, you’d be daft as a brush if you came up with the one you’ve actually got.
First of all, thanks for the clarifying handle Another Andrew. When I was learning about the system was during the rise of Pauline Hanson and the One Nation party, there was a lot of discussion as to how such a party could arise in the context of Australian politics. And because there are a small number of states, the springboard effect seems more pronounced, so experimentation on the local level yields a much stronger effect on the national level so, as I understand it, efforts are underway to introduce optional preferential voting nation wide, driven by the fact that informal votes are around 5% of the total. But a lot of it is what you are used to. I’ve never voted in a preferential election, so I’m wondering how one tries to quantify whether someone should be your 4th ranked or 5th ranked choice.
As far as reasons for the US system, I believe that Australia (as well as New Zealand) has been quite eager to experiment with their voting system, whereas the US has been historically very conservative (small c) with election. To illustrate the conservatism of the system, the voting is always Tuesday, a weekday, which necessitates people getting off work to vote (though some states make it a holiday and other states mandate that employers give employees time off) But if one can’t change something as simple as the day the election takes place on, it really underlines how conservative the system is.
That conservatism has often been defended by the fact that the system always produced a clear winner, even though it was possible to have a person lose the popular vote but with the election. While the idea of designing the electoral system from scratch is appealing (I would certainly like to see it) I see a certain inherent conservatism that is further exacerbated by the fact that the stakes are so high right now, that if either side put forwards a proposal, it will be assumed to be providing an advantage to the proposing party. I would love to be wrong (I think the 2000 election revealed a lot of problems), but I don’t see any possibility for it changing in the ways that you suggest. However, if others feel that it is possible, I hope they will chime in.
“I’ve never voted in a preferential election, so I’m wondering how one tries to quantify whether someone should be your 4th ranked or 5th ranked choice.”
That’s not really a question about the voting system, but about one’s own psyche.
An option we use in those sf fan elections that may not be in use in political elections in Australia — I have no idea and shan’t bother to look it up — is “no preference,” and one can insert that at any point at which it’s useful. Thus: 1, 2, no preference, and then one just stops bothering to add further rankings. As I said, whether that’s available in Australia, I do not know.
“To illustrate the conservatism of the system, the voting is always Tuesday, a weekday, which necessitates people getting off work to vote…”
Aside from the fact that for years now people in many states and places have been voting by mail, and have a couple of weeks to do so — we’ve been doing it here in Colorado for several years, and I know various other states are also allowing that — that’s correct.
But I don’t see a complete overhaul of the federal and state voting system allowing for two separate sets of ballots — which would be the crucial step — coming any time in the foreseeable future, no.
The fact that elections are run by the states isn’t much of an excuse anymore for not having a federal standard. The federal government hasn’t been shy in recent decades about bribing or threatening states into going along with various federal mandates (raising the drinking age to 21, for example), so if it really wanted to it could get the states to reform things.
OT:Arthur Lee of the 60s group Love died Friday of leukemia. How come nobody told me? This was not a group I listened to at the time, but only discovered as I began collecting psych in the 90s. “Forever Changes” is ranked #40 alltime by Rolling Stone, and I certainly consider it one of the top ten 60s psych albums.
Yahoo Article
AMG Love Entry
“Oh the snot has caked against my pants
It has turned to crystal
There’s a bluebird singing on a branch
Guess I’ll get my pistol”
…
This is the time and life that I am living
And I’ll face each day with a smile
For the time that I’ve been given’s such a little while
And the things that I must do consist of more than style
This is the only thing that I am sure of
And that’s all that lives is gonna die
And there’ll always be some people here to wonder why
And for every happy hello, there will be good-bye
There’ll be time for you to put yourself on
For the interested: Reuters yanks the photo and suspends the photographer.
It’s a huge mistake to take this report at face value, Hilzoy. The story may be true or it may not be true, but I disagree with proffering it as truth. (If you follow the OTB trackback, you’ll see that there were at least two speeches prior to the story in which Bush mentioned both Sunni and Shia; I wouldn’t be surprised if, by tomorrow morning, we have off-the-cuff remarks from the relevant period that discredit the story.)
Just out of curiousity, von, at what point do we take a report like this as being true? And what evidence do we have that Bush’s speeches reflect his knowledge, priorities and goals (*cough*going to mars*cough*)
Note that the two speechs are simply a list of people against Saddam. Thinking that the Shia were equivalent of “Kurds, Turkomans and others” is as big a mistake as not knowing they existed at all (as is indicated by listing the Sunni in the group of civilian persecuted by Saddam)
von: I noted that Raw Story interviewed Peter Galbraith. I tend to taake his judgment with a grain of salt, but I don’t at all question his veracity. There remains the fact that he wasn’t there, but I don’t think he’d pass on something he didn’t have serious reasons for believing to be true.
Well, I’m just a tad skeptical about this as well. It requires that George wasn’t paying any attention at all back in 1991. Given that his father was president at the time, I’d think that even someone otherwise incurious would be paying attention.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if, by tomorrow morning, we have off-the-cuff remarks from the relevant period that discredit the story.”
Why would this happen tomorrow, but not in 2003, when it was in the NY Times Magazine, and in Packer’s The Assassin’s Gate, and in countless book reviews, Von?
Please do explain what makes tomorrow special. And what would you suggest explains Kanan Makiya, Hatem Mukhlis, and Rand Rahim, the three people at the meeting, not refuting the famous story back in 2003? As well as the White House not responding to it then, when it was far more prominently reported than in Raw Story?
Mind, I’m not saying the story is true. I just don’t understand the reasoning by which it would somehow be knocked down tomorrow, rather than in 2003.
Slart: “It requires that George wasn’t paying any attention at all back in 1991.”
For foreign affairs? And what evidence would you submit to demonstrate George W.’s interest in the topic of Islam then?
Slarti: Well, I’m just a tad skeptical about this as well. It requires that George wasn’t paying any attention at all back in 1991.
Why would you be skeptical about that, Slarti?
Given that his father was president at the time, I’d think that even someone otherwise incurious would be paying attention.
You think that Bush was more likely to be curious about Muslims when his father was President than now when he himself is President? Bush’s entire career as President has been publicly marked by instances where Bush appears to lack even ordinary human curiosity about something that won’t affect him personally: what would happen to New Orleans when Katrina struck, for example.
And what evidence would you submit to demonstrate George W.’s interest in the topic of Islam then?
Now, if I’d claimed that I was refuting the notion hilzoy put forth in the main post, this might matter. Since I didn’t, and was instead expressing doubt. Because after all, the Shia Uprising was one of GHWB’s failures, IMO, and not exactly low profile given that I noticed it at the time.
Lost part of a sentence, there. No matter.
I realize that the prospect of a pile-on glitters, but could we just don’t and say we did? And then move on to what sort of evidence constitutes a valid data point on this? And as a side issue, why wonkishness has generally been considered more of a sin than ignorance?
Slarti, I’m aware this is not much of a compliment, but I’m prepared to bet large sums (say, £5) that you are way more interested in and informed about current events/foreign news than George W. Bush. And that you were in 1991, too.
lj: And then move on to what sort of evidence constitutes a valid data point on this?
I don’t think there is possible evidence, actually: it’s all a matter of faith. (There is, of course, a mountain of evidence that George W. Bush is a profoundly incurious and illinformed man, President or not: but about this specific instance, Slarti or Von would need to come up with some instance of the President saying something that clearly showed Bush did know about Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims before this interview in February 2003.
Possibly now, but in 1991 I read far more cereal boxes than I did newspapers.
“Because after all, the Shia Uprising was one of GHWB’s failures, IMO, and not exactly low profile given that I noticed it at the time.”
But you’re still implying — perhaps not intentionally — that G. W. Bush would have been reading about, or at least talking to someone about, Islam, and the details of foreign countries. There’s no evidence for any such expectation that I’m aware of.
“Slarti, I’m aware this is not much of a compliment, but I’m prepared to bet large sums (say, £5) that you are way more interested in and informed about current events/foreign news than George W. Bush.”
This is one of those occasional occasions where I’m with Jes. Not because I’m looking for some excuse to bash George W. I’m just not aware of any evidence that he was ever interested in reading anything at all about, or taking any other interest in, furrin countries, or non-Christian religions, before he was, at least, governor.
Jes: “…but about this specific instance, Slarti or Von would need to come up with some instance of the President saying something that clearly showed Bush did know about Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims before this interview in February 2003.”
And that would be demonstration of understanding, not just rote recital of the words “Shia” and “Sunni.”
Although at this point, people think what they think of G. W. B., so I don’t think the point is terribly important, one way or another. It’s not as if there’s not enough evidence on the table to make up one’s mind what one thinks of the man.
And as a side issue, why wonkishness has generally been considered more of a sin than ignorance?
If someone could figure this out and fix it, they’d fix America. The peculiar variety of American anti-intellectualism certainly predates any of us.
I was reminded of it the other day in one of the two recent healthcare threads, when hilzoy criticized OCSteve’s link to the Frasier Institute and pointed out their biases, and he replied, No argument. If I had the $ to spare I could order up a report by “experts” proving the sky is red and not really blue. That was just high on a huge list of results from google and it seemed to be correlated with other reports. Scare quotes and all.
So the hatred of “eggheads” has been going on for at least a century and a half in this country, but the modern Republican devaluation of actual expertise to the point where it becomes irony-quoted “expertise” is a real triumph for them on that front.
But you’re still implying — perhaps not intentionally — that G. W. Bush would have been reading about, or at least talking to someone about, Islam, and the details of foreign countries. There’s no evidence for any such expectation that I’m aware of.
No, I’m just pointing out that for him not to even have been aware that there was more than one Islamic sect (if that’s the right word) in Iraq, the topic would have to have never come up in conversation. With his father. Who was, presumably, aware of this distinction, having just been involved in Iraq, and having been the head of the CIA.
But I agree this is one of those topics that can lead to millions…nay, billions of wasted pixels. I don’t mistake GWB for a rocket scientist, mind you, but it just sort of beggars belief that absolutely nothing about the religious factions in Iraq ever came up in conversation. Ever. In the dozen years between the Shia uprising and the invasion.
Sorry, I keep forgetting to put some quotey-things around passages written by others. It should be obvious that I’m not trying to plagiarize, here.
“But I agree this is one of those topics that can lead to millions…nay, billions of wasted pixels.”
Yeah, well, I doubt either of us really has much more to say about it.
“I don’t mistake GWB for a rocket scientist, mind you, but it just sort of beggars belief that absolutely nothing about the religious factions in Iraq ever came up in conversation.”
We’ll have to agree that we have different evaluations of this. Doesn’t beggar my belief in the slightest.
As I said, I’m not saying I firmly believe the story is true. It could have gotten garbled; it could just be flat wrong.
But it was reported prominently in 2003, as I’ve grounded in fact, and I’d be considerably more startled at neither Kanan Makiya, nor Hatem Mukhlis, nor Rand Rahim standing up to say “hey, that never happened!,” if it weren’t true. What would be their possible motivation for keeping quiet all this time?
And I don’t find the notion that G. W. didn’t sit around discussing Islam with Dad, or anyone else, hard to believe in the slightest. So we’ll just have to note that we have different evaluations of the probabilities here.
but the modern Republican devaluation of actual expertise to the point where it becomes irony-quoted “expertise” is a real triumph for them on that front.
I’ve maintained, in my darker days, that this is a deliberate strategy being pursued by some conservative elements as part of a deliberate war on perceptions of reality, a post-modern attempt to roll back the Enlightenment. It uses the language of science and the scientific method, yet it isn’t either; it must be deliberate, at a certain level, but many of its adherents don’t seem to buy into the deeper mendacity; and all I really know about it is that it’s one of the greatest dangers the country’s ever faced, but almost no-one seems to know it’s there.
Slarti: No, I’m just pointing out that for him not to even have been aware that there was more than one Islamic sect (if that’s the right word) in Iraq, the topic would have to have never come up in conversation. With his father. Who was, presumably, aware of this distinction, having just been involved in Iraq, and having been the head of the CIA.
Oh, a report that George H. W. Bush didn’t know that Shi’ite and Sunni are two sects in Islam would be much less convincing, I agree. But I see no reason assume that Bush 41 and Bush 43 ever talked to each other about it. I can believe that Bush 43 could have heard about “the Shi’ite uprising” – I also find it perfectly within my comprehension of the man’s character that it never occurred to him to ask “These Shi’ite’s – who exactly are they?” Asking that kind of question isn’t the kind of thing Bush does, in all our public knowledge of the man. And in 1991, Bush Jr was in the middle of a financial scandal that I can’t help feeling likely made his father have less than warm and cosy feelings towards him.
More situational awareness from the President.
Uh-huh.
Judging by this link (events which occurred before Galbraith allegedly heard what he heard), Bush was aware of the differences between the Muslim sects. I conclude that either Galbraith is lying or Bush was joking.
Judging by this link (events which occurred before Galbraith allegedly heard what he heard), Bush was aware of the differences between the Muslim sects. I conclude that either Galbraith is lying or Bush was joking.
Or Bush was parroting the lines in a speech written by somebody else.
Charles, there wasn’t a link, but if you look at von’s 8:18, he cites the same site and comment and makes the same point, to which I responded here. I’d also point out that there are a lot of other possibilities between “Galbraith is lying or Bush was joking”.
I’ve got no time at the moment, but: the words may be literally true, but Bush may have been making a joke; he might have been being sarcastic; he might have misunderstood or the quote taken out of context; etc. Or perhaps the words were misheard. None of those require anyone to call K.G. a liar. (But, of course, maybe he is.)*
The report of an anti-Bush partisan casting Bush in a bad light should not be reported as fact, upon which we can all draw conclusions and make speculations and engage in psychology and the like.
*Although regrettable, I must pull rank here as a lawyer: I have considerable more experience with seeing the spoken and printed word twisted, misinterpreted, plucked out of context, misheard, and missrepresented than most of y’all. (I like to think that I’ve done none of those things, but, in a dispute, what is “critical context” to one lawyer is frequently “obfuscation” to his opponent.)
Von, for the frigging umpteenth time, who gives a flying leap about Ken Galbraith? What about Kanan Makiya, Hatem Mukhlis, and Rand Rahim, the three people at the meeting, and George Packer?
Could you please respond to what I’ve pointed out 5 times now?
Sorry, von. No namby pamby court here. You are in the blogosphere now, so it’s either Galbraith the liar or Bush the standup comedian. There is no middle. ;^)