He read it in a book
I found this WaPo frontpager on the collapse of the "freedom agenda" fascinating.
I think the description of the genesis of this policy says a whole lot about how this administration works. George Bush read a book by neocon idol Nathan Sharansky, and decided unilaterally that he alone would free the world.
No discussion with the policy makers or implementers. Bush just read a book and decided he was the Jesus.
Now, the Bush people try to spin the failure of "the freedom agenda" as a problem of bureaucratic inertia, that there were those in the government who just didn't buy into the idea, but really, isn't the problem a president who decides to throw out most of the foreign policy conducted since the second world war more or less on a week long personal whim?
This hits on an underlying flaw in this administration that has created so much wreckage: The concept that ideas are stronger than reality. How many times has this administration set off on a course before any real consideration of the reality the policy will be operating in? No plan survives contact with the enemy? That's bull. Good plans do.
It speaks to a vast egotism of infallibility.
(Oh, and no mention in the article that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others get a free pass on "freedom"?)
I think the description of the genesis of this policy says a whole lot about how this administration works. George Bush read a book by neocon idol Nathan Sharansky, and decided unilaterally that he alone would free the world.
No discussion with the policy makers or implementers. Bush just read a book and decided he was the Jesus.
Now, the Bush people try to spin the failure of "the freedom agenda" as a problem of bureaucratic inertia, that there were those in the government who just didn't buy into the idea, but really, isn't the problem a president who decides to throw out most of the foreign policy conducted since the second world war more or less on a week long personal whim?
This hits on an underlying flaw in this administration that has created so much wreckage: The concept that ideas are stronger than reality. How many times has this administration set off on a course before any real consideration of the reality the policy will be operating in? No plan survives contact with the enemy? That's bull. Good plans do.
It speaks to a vast egotism of infallibility.
(Oh, and no mention in the article that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others get a free pass on "freedom"?)
posted by mikevotes at
9:53 PM
1 Comments:
This reminds me of one of my favorite Steven Wright jokes: "I like to pick up hitchhikers and then I tell them, 'Buckle up. I saw this in a cartoon once, but I think I can do it.'"
By
-epm, at 9:17 AM
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