What to make of the former Treasury secretary’s complaints? The paranoia about planning for war against Saddam early on is silly: of course, there were plans. Regime change had been national policy under late Clinton. Less easy to dismiss are O’Neill’s complaints that fit with John DiIulio’s, when he quit. To wit: This White House is all about politics. Yes, and banks are full of money. But with this White House, there is a level of politicization that’s striking. When challenged on the important question of whether stockpiles of Saddam’s WMDs have been found in contrast to mere infrastructure, plans, and scientists, the president told Diane Sawyer, “What’s the difference?” The glibness of that response still rankles. There was no difference to the president as long as the politics worked out okay, and, in general, he made the right decision. But someone who cannot anguish over his own mistakes may be doomed to repeat them. Integrity means the ability to question yourself. It does not mean the peremptory dismissal of all criticism.
POLITICAL BUSH: The supremacy of politics over everything accounts, of course, for some spectacular coups – like the immigration proposal – and some hideous errors – like the steel tariffs. But it remains one of the most illuminating prisms through which to understand this administration. The second criticism is one I’ve also seen close-up: an absolute refusal even to contemplate that they have a spending or deficit problem. Josh Bolten’s response is to ignore actual spending totals and focus on what the administration intended to disburse. Mankiw cannot defend the deficits and when he does, it’s painful. Rove abruptly dismisses any discussion of deficits – on the grounds (surprise!) that they don’t swing votes in a growing economy. So what? They destroy economies in the long run. Money O’Neill quote from Time:
In an economic meeting in the Vice President’s office, O’Neill started pitching, describing how the numbers showed that growing budget deficits threatened the economy. Cheney cut him off. “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” he said. O’Neill was too dumbfounded to respond. Cheney continued: “We won the midterms. This is our due.”
That rings true to me. There is, within this administration, a deep antipathy to questioning certain shibboleths. I wonder who has dared to tell the president that his space program ideas cannot be funded responsibly and so should not be funded. I bet no one. The same kind of blank refusal to consider alternative views can be seen in the fact that, despite enormous (and good) research from within the administration on how to prepare very carefully for the post-war in Iraq, much of it was ignored. Some of this blindness can help a president be decisive and drive events. Some leads into disaster. Much of the O’Neill stuff can be dismissed as sour grapes. But there are some worrying themes about the way this administration runs itself that rightly endure. The only sure bet is that the administration will ignore them.
The Dish 