Allen and Weisman write this piece as if the problem is with everyone else except Bush.

You are completely right: this utterly misses the point. It couldn't matter less whether the problem is Bush, Rove, Cheney or anyone. The problem is that, for whatever reason, this White House is incapable of sensible changes of course.

Somehow, people went too far when they backed off of the "Bush is stupid" idea, and substituted the 'moral clarity' (i.e., stubbornness) idea to try to make sense out of the administration's demonstrable lack of policy thinking.

O'Neill's quote that "there is no policy making function in the White House; it starts and ends with whatever Rove says is good politics." sounds incriminating and makes a nice talking point but like the statement from the previous post that "Bush is gullible" these statements don't represent a very deep understanding of the current political situation and therefore don't enable us to respond to the very real challenges properly.

1/10th of one percent of the population give the vast majority of campaign contributions. These are the people who control the military/industial complex, and also own the mainstream media. These are Bush's constituency. The agenda is clear: To transfer as much wealth to these people as possible and dismantle the social welfare state for the rest of us, as constrained by political realities. Sure they don't want to move so fast that they lose the election, but if they do, one could not argue they they have not been very, very successful at their agenda. Indeed, even if Nader were to be elected and Democrats take back both houses, he would be unable to undo the damage to the commonweal in two terms that has been effected upon it in one. These people have been very successful politicians.

Now, why is there no policy crafting in the White House? These people are trying to enact what polls tell us is an unpopular agenda; indeed, one that would be deeply unpopular if the 50% of the population that thinks that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 had a clue as to what is really going on. Crafting policy in the White House would only expose them to the possibility of embarrassing leaks about unpopular positions. Therefore all policy is worked out (largely before the 2000 selection) in the right wing think tanks. They figure out how and what is to be done and all the nuances, as well as polling the repercusions, and Rove handles the implementation (timing of announcements, distraction with wedge issues, etc.)

And Bush is not gullible. He might not be exceptionally bright, but he has understood the broad outlines of the agenda and the basic talking points of "compassionate conservatism" since being the tough guy for dad. Nobody cares that Chalabi is a lier; he is still their man in Iraq and that's why he is being paid. That is not too say that we don't care, but again that the vast majority of the public is completely ignorant of these issues. As long as Merikans are not being killed who really carese what those dark skinned people are up to.

So, let's call things as they are. We have egregious crony capitalism, an unprecedented restriction of personal rights and expansion of corporate rights bordering on fascism, and an imperial policy that is reckless and bound to make us less safe. But as far as the Bushites are concerned they have been extremely successful in enacting their dangerous agenda. It remains to be seen how many of the wealthy that control the stories in the mass media are slowly coming to their senses.

When a regime such as this, one that actually prefers the Big Lie -- for its distracting effects -- to the truth in all cases, it behooves us to not let our thinking get confused, no matter how nice it sounds.

Malooga:

The statement about the lack of a policymaking operation in the White House and having all such decisions subservient to whatever is good politics is still accurate and doesn't represent anyone having their "thinking get confused." But thanks for your interpretation. I agree with almost all of it.

Pls dont. GOP is playing the "bush is stupid"
game again. They are playing the low expectation
game again.

They also wanted to make Bush look reasonable
to Independents and undecided voters. Bush
has been running too far to the right, now
they want to get him back to the middle for
Nov.

Excellent writing. The explanation in the last two paragraphs, especially, apply to other areas of Bush policies. Excellent.