THE TIMES OP-ED PAGE v. BUSH: A DRAW

Frank Rich Shoots - and Scores!

Frank Rich hammers the Bush Administration's style-over-substance governance style - which has produced the Waco "summit" in lieu of economic policy and and Ashcroft's hype-conferences over systematic domestic security reform. In this context, he asks the following pointed question:

What's been most remarkable about the Iraq project so far is how an administration as effectively secretive as this one could spring so many leaks of invasion scenarios to the press. It strains credulity to assert that this is all an ingenious conspiracy to fake out Saddam. The leaks fake us out instead, inuring us to the new war to come.

Up until this point, I had been going with the disgruntled establishment theory - that the realists in the State Department and career b-crats in the Pentagon were leaking to sabotage the neocons push for action. On the other hand, Rich has a good point - Rove & Co. may prefer for these leaks to keep coming. That way, the debate on Iraq dominating the news cycle, and pushes other fronts in the war on terror to the background. Which of course, leads one to question - what do when the war on Iraq is necessary AND the Bushies are trying to milk it for all the political returns it can bring?


Dowd Swings -- and Misses !!

According to Maureen, the realist/neocon debate on Iraq is really no more than Bush the Younger having "daddy issues."

The Bush I moderates worry that the Bush II ideologues will use terrorism as an alibi for imperialism. Bush II thinks Bush I is trapped in self-justification.

Note to Maureen: Your so-called "moderates" happen to be quite dogmatic adherents of Realism. Scowcraft, Poppy and Baker all page obeisance before the twin altars of Sovreignity and Stability. What goes on inside an international border, on the other hand, is none of our business. It was this unswerving commitment to realism that led Bush I to appease the Saudis, abandon democratic reform in liberating Kuwait, and permit an unvanquished Saddam to massacre Kurdish and Shi'ite rebels. A decade later, with the clear decline of the nation-state ongoing, and in the aftermath of a devastating terror attack from a non-state actor, labeling the desperate clinging to an outdated theory "moderate" is a mistake only a foreign policy amateur could make. It's really too bad that Comedy Central cancelled "That's My Bush!", depriving Dowd of her true calling - political sitcom writer.