Bill Bennett's meditations on Iraq Study Group
From National Review Online (h/t James Woclott's blog)
Smug, Arrogant, Insufferable [Bill Bennett]
I’ve now read the report, and I can’t add much beyond what Andy McCarthy and Rich Lowry have written about its contents and internal contradictions. For a report to identify the outside agitators (which happen to also be the worst terrorist-sponsoring states in the world — Iran & Syria) as "provid[ing] arms, financial support, and training for Shiite militias within Iraq," i.e., fomenting war, and then say we should negotiate and offer incentives to those countries is simply too much to bear. Insult is added to injury with the absurdity that Iran and Syria then become members of something called the Iraq Support Group. Committeeism simply got out of control here. (...)
This is the triumph of the therapeutic, where bipartisanship — a hug across the aisle — has become a higher value than justice. The crisis of the house divided has been inverted; we no longer are worried about the crisis but the House, the moral, the good, and the just take a backseat to collegiality. Does history really give a hoot about bipartisanship? Who cares whether they are getting along? The task is to do the right thing, especially in war. But, when relativism is the highest value, agreement becomes the highest goal, regardless of right and wrong. And, woe to those who disagree, they will be sent whence they came — the outer reaches of "extremism." This is the tyranny of the "best people" today’s equivalent of the Cliveden set.
One reporter asked if the president would accept this "edict," as if there's force of law here. (the press has bought into the tyranny already). Another asked how hard it would be for the president to give up his power, "to take his hands off the wheel." Do we all need a civics lesson? I’m tempted to go on about knowledge of American government, but for brevity, can we just say the president is the commander-in-chief and in charge — because he is elected by the people.
Perhaps the most systemic problem with the report is it didn't tell us how to win; it answered how to get out. The commissioners answered the wrong question, but it was the one they wanted to answer.
In all my time in Washington I've never seen such smugness, arrogance, or such insufferable moral superiority. Self-congratulatory. Full of itself. Horrible.
To paraphrase JFK, there's never been such "smugness, arrogance, or such insufferable moral superiority" in Washington, with the possible exception of when Bill Bennett dined alone.