There's overwhelming evidence that President Bush lives inside a bubble. Not a man-sized shroud of incompetence, but an administration-wide cocoon of flat-earthers, sycophants and yes-men. A team dangerously wed to a woefully misguided world view living in an intellectual vacuum.
When reality has managed to penetrate the shield his closest advisers have erected around the president, the reaction is troubling. On three notable occasions - Hurricane Katrina, the Dubai ports deal and Haditha - officials have said that the president was unaware of what happened or was happening until it was too late. In two cases, Katrina and Haditha, it took the media to alert the president to the extent of the bad news.
Color me reactionary, but the president's first reaction to bad news shouldn't be, "Huh?" By now we're used to system-wide deceit coming from the administration. But couple that with exploding levels of sheltered incompetence and it's easy to see that things will get far worse before they get better.
As thousands died along the Gulf Coast, reports indicate the scope of the tragedy didn't sink in with the president until Thursday, September 1, four days after he
changed subjects in an impromptu speech from impending disaster to the situation in Iraq. Three days after he
failed to ask a single question during a crucial briefing. Two days after his
guitar lessons.
Newsweek's Evan Thomas reported that, as America was coming to grips with unprecedented disaster along the Gulf Coast, the president remained in the dark. "Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans," Thomas wrote. "Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One." Inspires confidence in this president, don't you think?
Earlier this year, as politicians on both sides of the aisle spoke out against the outsourcing of the security of our most vital ports to a state-run foreign company, Bush remained in his bubble. Then-mouthpiece Scott McClellan told reporters on February 22 that the president was unaware of the deal until it had already been approved. "He became aware of it over the last several days," McClellan said, adding that the agreement had went through a congressionally-mandated review process. He said this despite the fact he couldn't explain why a legally mandated 45-day investigation of the transfer failed to occur. Or that those who should have been consulted hadn't been. Or that there were clear ties between Dubai Ports World and the Bush administration.
One day earlier, Bush, despite being unaware of the deal until it was too late, didn't hesitate to play the race card. "I think it sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it's okay for a company from one country to manage the port," Bush said February 21, "but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world can't manage the port." So the president, who didn't even know about the agreement until it was already settled, couldn't restrain himself from calling its opponents racist. This coming from the man whose default foreign policy considers Middle Easterners the enemy.
Moving from the United Arab Emirates to Iraq, the official word is that Bush is also in the dark on what may prove to be the darkest moment of the war. Darker than Fallujah. Darker than Abu Ghraib. What allegedly happened in Haditha last November - the prolonged massacre of two dozen Iraqi civilians - could singlehandedly reverse whatever gains have been made in Iraq and could inflame an already pronounced anti-American sentiment in the region. A momentous event, one that Bush didn't know about until prompted by reporters.
Said an Associated Press account, "Frederick Jones, spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said Time magazine brought the matter to the attention of the multinational force in Baghdad on Feb. 10. 'The questions by Time magazine prompted an inquiry into the Haditha incident and revealed a potential cover-up,' Jones said. 'The president was briefed soon after the inquiry was opened.'" A cover-up that likely won't be punished, as reports indicate the investigation will only focus on enlisted soldiers, not the officers likely responsible for any obfuscation.
Surely this trend troubles you. Shouldn't it trouble everyone? On how many occasions have we learned that this president was riding his bike when trouble hit? On how many occasions have we discovered that news was kept from the commander-in-chief until long after we knew the whole story? While it's important we remain current on the news of the day, I think we can agree the president shouldn't be the last to know. Nor should the president be so painfully, consistently incompetent.
Or is there something else at play? The choice these stories present isn't a good one: Either the president is in the dark - a cause for concern - or he's not in the dark and is lying about how much he knows, a much greater concern. Of course, there's a third option, that the president is at the same time dishonest and incompetent, which, to me, sounds like the most obvious conclusion. And "dishonest" and "incompetent" aren't two words I'd like used to best describe a president.
