VON HOFFMAN AWARD NOMINEE

Alas, it goes to my friend Jake Tapper, who penned a classic early Bush administration piece in March of 2001 that mocked Bush for blurting out the crass, stupid, know-nothing comment: “Part of the problem in dealing with North Korea [is] there’s not very much transparency. We’re not certain as to whether or not they’re keeping all terms of all agreements.” Jake then cites plenty of experts mocking Bush’s gaffe. One such anonymous foreign policy expert was asked by Tapper if he had any suggestions for Bush. The expert replied: “Not really. He said a really stupid thing. It seems obvious that he shouldn’t say stupid things in the future.” Jake makes some good points about Colin Powell getting ahead of the president and some early disarray in the foreign policy establishment. He also quotes Frank Gaffney for fairness. But the underlying tone of the piece is that we have this moronic president who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We now know that we had a pretty smart president who saw what the foreign policy machers couldn’t. In Powell’s words at the time, “The president has made it clear that he understands the nature of regime in Pyongyang and will not be fooled by the nature of that regime and will view it in a very, very realistic, realistic way.” When will Bush’s critics begin to realize that they’re not smarter than he is; and they ocasionally say some really stupid things? It seems obvious that they shouldn’t say stupid things in the future.