February 09, 2005
Promotion, Policy, and Politics
Bush has made Karl Rove Assistant Chief of Staff. So what?
Well, If you’ve read Ron Suskind’s book about Paul O’Neill’s tenure, The Price of Loyalty, the theme of most of the criticism is that the Bush Administration doesn’t have clear policies, only politics. Now we have a political consultant at a rank where he can directly set policy.
It's not merely that the man setting the political tone his is known through various works to have a paranoid, vengeful manner of dealing with political opponents, as is reported in the book Bush's Brain, in an even stronger position to filter information coming to him and controlling access. Those things are bad by themselves, but they are worse when we put them in the context of real events.
In my entry The Depths of Memory, I brought up the intelligence and policy failures that plagued us in Iraq. In other posts it's been taxes, social security, and other things.
If there's one common thread it is this: the Bush administration has time and agains chosen political expedience over practical necessity, the dogma of ideologues over critical examination of the real facts on the ground. The fact that we have had three tax cuts in a time of war, where unpredictable costs skyrocket, is a sign of this. Even now, Rumsfeld is trying to cook the books.
Even after all the tax cuts, Bush has pushed and continued to push changes in our entitlements system that are busting the bank. His medicare drug benefit has added 160 billion dollars a year to the budget. His Social security plan, if it ever gets off the ground, Adds 200 billion dollars a year over ten years to our liabilities. Both sets of changes actually endanger the systems, threatening to send both to an earlier demise.
Bush seems to be copying fellow Texan LBJ in his Guns and Butter approach, waging a huge war and creating huge entitlements at the same time. Does he have enough of a sense of history to understand what resulted from that the last time?
Despite the successes and dissimilarities, the political approach to Iraq has had startling similarities to Vietnam. Again, optimism and loyalty are prized over dissent and dark predictions. Your access to the president doesn't depend on whether he needs your expertise , it depends on whether you tell him things that he wants to hear, and say things to the public that make the politics and dogma he believes in look good.
The same thing happened with LBJ. If you didn't have a positive outlook on Vietnam, if you didn't drink the Kool-Aid, they simply shut you out. They actively smeared those who contradicted or qualified the Administration's politically motivated position.
Early in the war, the similarities are chilling. An Administration gets us into a land war over dubious causes, after a build up that is mainly the fault of the administration itself. Again we go in light, and at the beginning our casualties are light. But they escalate in time, and the cost in blood rises. Again we go in without a clear understanding of how we get out. Again we are promised that the people will universally love us, and the truth turns out to be much more complicated. Again we tell ourselves that the numbers of the enemy will fall through attrition.
These are not symptoms of inevitable defeat. I think we stand a good chance of winning here, and the Iraqi people with us. But what the above similarities indicate is that the policy is more political than practical. Practical military leadership means going in when one has a cause to back up one's actions, and no other worthwhile choice. Practical leadership means understanding that Guerilla wars are not wars of attrition like conventional conflicts, but instead wars of political supremacy.
Practical military leadership means overwhelming force that doesn't allow an enemy to regain their breath, suffocating troop presence, and reasons for going to war tight enough that opponents and critics can't pry open the armor of justification to get at your reputation within. It means fighting wars knowing that winning isn't always about taking pieces off the board. It's about not waiting to redress one's errors until the effects and implications of those mistakes have already permeated the situation itself.
LBJ hamstrung himself by making the war itself a personal cause, with those questioning its course dealing him personal insult and showing disrespect to this country. He made unwavering faith in a flawed policy the sign of one's patriotism. Given the human mind's ability to rationalize just about anything, this created a situation where people emotionally defend, even to this day, a policy even the Republicans in power came to question. Cheney himself believed he had better things to do than fight the Vietnam War. He got five different exemptions to avoid the fight. Even now, though, he and the president he serves under use similar tactics to get people to support the war in Iraq.
I recalled in my previous post the question asked by many gung-ho conservatives and hawks: "Have you forgotten?"
It's a question that implies much about its subject. Mostly it implies that the person in question dissents from some lack of spine or character, that they've forgotten the blood sacrifice of that day long ago, where Americans lost their lives at the hands of our enemies. When the question works, it is often a triumph of sensibilities over the senses, of emotion over reason. It is part of the strategy that people like Karl Rove have been using to push policy on all of us.
What the question really asks, in Rove's terms is, will you give up asking these uncomfortable questions that give my boss a hard time at the polls? Will you stop getting in the way of his leadership? Whatever worries you, it tells us, doesn't matter because your worries are the product of a weak spine.
For Rove, the problem of whether his president is right is inconsequential. He's there to change things, to make the country over in his ideal party's image. The bill of consequences can always be paid later. Anything is better than Democrats and liberals remaining in power, in the long run.
He has played a dangerous game, with many officials working alongside him, that has consequences which reach farther than he can imagine. The easiest trap for human beings to fall into when dealing with the rest of the world is the one between their own ears. When policy, access, administration, and other checks and balances are shifted around to perpetuate a certain dogma, we trade awareness for ignorance, and fact for illusion, and it becomes very difficult to deal with the problem effectively.
The signal sent by the Bush administration by rewarding the likes of Karl Rove is that appearances mean more than the facts. In this term, they and the public will find out just how wrong that assumption is.
Posted by Stephen Daugherty at February 9, 2005 09:57 AMThere is nothing wrong with Rove’s Appointment. Bush is just formalizing what has been reality for a long time. Let the Republicans have him. When Bush slashes Senior Benefits, Education and other Programs, it will be fun to see all those Red States whine…
Posted by: Aldous at February 9, 2005 07:24 PMAldous- this is how Bush “slashes” the welfare/entitlement state- http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/02/09/medicare.costs.ap/index.html.
I cant believe you liberals dont love this guy. What kind of Democrat would have been able to get a 720 billion (!!!) perscription drug give away to old people while getting most Republicans on board. If i was a statist leftist, i would love this guy! Unfortunately, I am someone who believes in small government, individual rights, and individual responsibility. Bush is giving away the game to big-government liberals and they are too angry to even be happy about it.
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at February 9, 2005 07:45 PMI would tell you, Misha, that Modern Liberals are pragmatists, and not so much the socialists that the depression era Democrats were. We are willing to spend, and to tax to support it, but we follow the example (intentional or not) of Bill Clinton, who combined sensible spending with sensible tax rates. We want programs and entitlements, but we want it on a sustainable basis, and in a way that does not surpress the economy.
The conservatives and libertarians, unfortunately, have pigeonholed us as big spenders, even as the conservatives have spent like money grew on trees. Bush and the rest want it all, and because nobody in the government will gainsay them, they get it all.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 9, 2005 08:08 PMMisha:
Now, now Misha. Don’t go anti-Bush on us now. With Jack gone, we Proressives depend on you. Just because Bush doubled the Medicare Costs does not mean any of that money will go to Patients. If you read the fine print, the bulk of that money will actually go to HMO’s who are NOT required to improve their services. Just one more example of Bush taking care of Corporations.
Aldous- like I said in my other post, I can see the different sides of Bush. I am a libertarian on most issues, and I voted that way in the last presidential election. That doesnt mean that I dont support Bush on the Iraq war or on social security reform, and that doesnt mean I dont oppose him on his irresponsible spending, this treatement of detainees in guantanamo. You see, its not so easy to put some people in a box :)
As for the myth that the medicare bill is anything but a giant give away to seniors so bush could win florida, all you need to do is look at the AARP’s support for this bill. The AARP has one mission- to get goodies for seniors. This was 720 billion worth of goodies, and they took the American people for every penny.
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at February 9, 2005 09:36 PMMisha, you need a few facts. The Democrats wanted the Government to negotiate lower Rx pricing saving tax payers billions as it turns out. But the GOP wanted a windfall for their lobbyists and Pharmaceutical campaign contribution buddies.
And, the AARP signed on to the Medicare Bill before it was written assuming what was told to them was complete and accurate. When they finally got to read the bill as it was being passed, they regretted their taking the Republicans on good faith and vowed never to make that mistake with Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) again.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 10, 2005 07:33 AMDavid, can you please cite a source for the following claim:
“When they finally got to read the bill as it was being passed, they regretted their taking the Republicans on good faith and vowed never to make that mistake with Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) again.”
thanks.
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at February 10, 2005 10:28 AMMisha, google “backlash AARP ” for a news about the backlash against the AARP once the bill passed. Even the chief AARP proponent of the Bill, the CEO of AARP admitted the AARP received enough backlash from members to warrant his addressing the issue in a newsletter on the subject on the AARP site.
As to trusting the Republicans, look at the AARP position on all legislation proposed by Republicans which impact AARP issues since the Medicare Rx bill, it no longer rings with the support that the AARP gave the Rx bill. They learned their lesson… and it is obvious to most who receive the AARP newspaper sent to members on a regular basis.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 10, 2005 04:03 PMDavid, with all due respect, if you start a post with “you need a few facts”, you should be able to at least link to an article from a reputable source backing up your claim! (for example, the statement “vowed never to make that mistake with Republicans” implies that you have evidence of such a vow- or, more accurately, that you have a statement from an AARP leader saying somethign to this effect).
As I see it, the AARP supported this huge give away because that is what they are in business to do- get huge give aways to seniors. Their support for the bill, even after passage, is a matter of public record. The backlash came mostly from Democrats who wanted to take credit for getting perscription drugs passed, but now the Republicans got the credit. They used the same simple-minded rhetoric that anything Bush does is bad, therefor this plan must be bad. If the SAME EXACT plan was passed under Clinton, the left would have hailed it as a major achievement.
Having said that, I am completely against the bill because it is just another wasteful give away to a powerful special interest/voting group. It is no coincedence that seniors, through the AARP, are always able to extract so many goodies from our elected officials- after all, they vote in such high numbers. They are a faction, in the classic federailst 10 sense…
Misha
You ignored the elephant in the room: the Medicare drug bill made it illegal for the federal government to negotiate for lower drug prices in its largest medical plan. How is this not a giveaway to the drug companies? You can insist the giveaway was to seniors, but you, as a guy who loves to challenge others for “facts”, should be able to show exactly how many billions seniors will save through this legislation, taking into account the unlimited capacity of the drug companies to accelerate pricing under this bill (why do you think the estimates of its costs keep going up?).
Posted by: Mental Wimp at February 10, 2005 07:34 PMMisha:
There is no denying the Prescription Drug Bill only benefits the Drug Companies. All those Billions added represent the jacking up of the price for previously negotiated drugs. You don’t need to be a Business Major to understand. The Drug Bill essentially makes the Drug Companies a Monopoly since it keeps Competitors from underbidding each other. How much can you charge when you are the ONLY Company allowed under Contract to sell Aspirin to seniors? Does your Price go up or down?
Wimp & Aldous,
Please back up your claims.
Thank you,
The Opinions-Are-Not-Facts Police
Politician, n. 1. one who accepts other people’s money; 2. one who spends other people’s money; 3. one who is paid to do 1 & 2, over and over again.
Posted by: mike at February 15, 2005 09:15 PMmike, which claims are you skeptical of?
It’s a fact that the current legislation makes it illegal for the government to negotiate lower bulk drug prices for the millions of Medicare recipients.
It’s also a fact the the drug companies boosted prices right before the “benefit” went into effect.
AP —
I try to be an equal-opportunity skeptic.
Maybe I’m entering into the middle of something where certain premises have already been accepted as fact, but I like to see support for statements.
I think journalism sticks to the facts, and that Op/Ed isn’t journalism (although it often pretends to be).
If we stick to the facts, intelligent people can form their own opinions. If we don’t believe people are intelligent, why are we discussing politics with them? If we express our opinions we should be clear that that’s what they are—opinions.
That said, I believe both your statements are true. However, is there a causal link? How much motive should we attribute to the parties involved (in this case drug cos & the POTUS)?
Of course there’s a causal motive: the Bush and other GOP campaigns were heavily funded by the drug industries.
But you probably won’t find documentery evidence of a direct link. It’s just typical Washington influence buying. I’ve given up hope that there will be a moment of revulsion that convinces Americans that direct donations to politicians should be eliminated. The right is calling it a matter of free speech, and the left pays it lip service, but does very little.
Agreed.
Unfortunately, even if you get rid of the direct contribuions, there are other organizations that will be more than happy to spend people’s money on campaigning (& lobbying for that matter).
The money thing messes up these guys’ objectivity in a bad way.
Posted by: mike at February 17, 2005 09:05 AM
