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BUSH'S CHARACTER PROBLEM: SEBASTIAN MALLABY SCORES
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Monday, Aug 30 2004, 10:35AM
I USED TO THINK THAT SEBASTIAN MALLABY WAS A MANIC NEOLIBERAL. I have always respected the former Economist magazine writer and thinker who now writes as an editorial writer at the Washington Post, but much of his writing years ago was so heavily on the go-go globalization side that I wondered whether he ever thought seriously about the costs and adjustments, and real train wrecks in some societies, associated with high speed neoliberal style globalization.
I was wrong because Sebastian Mallaby -- and his wife the talented and thoughtful top U.S. economics correspondent, Zanny Minton Beddoes -- have emerged as two important writers who can write about neoliberalism while not suspending conscience or political rationality. Mallaby is out there with Harvard's Dani Rodrik arguing that we need to get the developing nation problem right -- and that whether it is more enlightened drug policies or finally removing anachronistic farm subsidies -- failing to think about the "welfare to work" road map in Congo will eventually undermine globalization.
Beddoes, as well, while a believer in the net economic benefits of outsourcing of jobs focuses a great deal on the burdens faced by those who carry the burden for outsourcing and thinks that the Bush administration has simply failed to implement policies that help retrain and rehire displaced workers.
Today, Mallaby poses "The Character Question" about George Bush in his op-ed in the Washington Post and asks the question of whether Bush is all attitude and boldness combined with intellectual laziness and ignorance -- or whether he is fundamentally duplicitous and a liar. These words are mine -- but the article poses roughly this set of questions.
Mallaby writes:
This weakness (sometimes defending positions that have no intellectual basis) is most commonly associated with this war in Iraq -- a radical policy that has backfired on him. Even if you accept the case for war, the way Bush has argued it raises fundamental character issues. Why did he claim links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein despite the lack of evidence? Had he failed to absorb the facts, or was he being plain dishonest?
Why did he allow the postwar planning to be so scandalously poor? Could he not be bothered to cross-examine the officials who were drawing up plans that would determine his standing in history? Bush appears to have been deaf to the chorus of outside experts who warned that nation-building would be difficult. Doesn't this illustrate a lazy lack of curiosity about how bold ideas will play out in the real world? Doesn't this raise doubts about Bush's fitness to be President?
Believe me, Sebastian Mallaby is as tough on John Kerry in the pages of the Post. As in his critique of Kerry, Mallaby pulls no punches on the questions that should be posed to Bush and those of his team in power.
Questions are important and legitimate. Why are so many of our nation's best journalists failing to pose the kinds of questions Mallaby is posing?
Why didn't anyone ask James Shlesinger if he would resign over the Abu Ghraib mess if he were in Rumsfeld's shoes?
Why isn't anyone asking Senator Joe Lieberman why he is mixing his name and reputation with James Woolsey who is making financial profits off of the Iraq War.
Why isn't anyone asking our former chief spy James Woolsey whether he feels guilty for serving as the lawyer for Ahmed Chalabi who now seems at the nexus of an intelligence investigation involving BOTH Israel and Iran? John Le Carre must love this.
I got goose bumps reading Mallaby's hit on the Bush tax cuts. He writes:
The clearest illustration of this inflexibility (not acknowledging mistakes) is not Iraq. It is the central plank of the economic agenda: the tax cuts. These were conceived when the economy was booming and huge budget surpluses were expected, but when the boom turned inito bust, Bush showed no ability to course-correct. Almost unbelievably, Bush not only rammed through the huge tax cut he had promised in the campaign: He cut taxes again in 2002 and a third time in 2003. Even now he seems ready to sign an appalling pork-ridden corporate tax reduction. . .
Again, this is not just a policy issue; it goes to Bush's character. How can he push such a dramatic shift in economic policy without grappling with the basic point that his cuts are unaffordable?
. . .Bush fails to understand that his policies are unsustainable, or perhaps he understands but refuses to say so. In other words he is either ignorant or dishonest: Neither suggests that he deserves the trust of the electorate.
Sebastian Mallaby, and his former Economist magazine colleagues Zanny Minton Beddoes, Adrian Wooldridge, John Micklethwait, John Parker -- and there are probably others on staff there -- are all the sort of writers who are biased towards a "kinder, gentler" conservatism and kind of soft neoliberalism. They are the kind of center-right commentators that if Fox News were fair and balanced they would be using. I know that many of my progressive friends despise the Economist magazine -- but these folks are everything that I would hope from serious thinkers in both moderate Republican and moderate Democrat circles.
Bill Emmott, editor of the Economist and an old friend who used to be Tokyo Bureau Chief for the magazine, and his editors were big supporters of the Iraq War. They did not have unanimity in their circle -- but the fact is that the Economist ate crow, for the most part, and admitted their failures of perspective and reporting this last year. I give them credit for that.
But mostly -- though he is no longer at the Economist -- Sebastian Mallaby deserves kudos for having the guts to pose exactly the right questions about Bush's continual resistance of empirical reality -- "Is he either ignorant or dishonest."
Congratulations Sebastian Mallaby -- for reacquainting us with our backbone and political conscience.
-- Steve Clemons
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Oh my god! Mallaby's piece is scoreage. Thanks Steve for highlighting it. Not all of us check the Wash Post every day. I like how you phrased the need to get a conscience back in political writing. wonderful, wonderful blog steve.
"Ignorant or dishonest?"
As I recall my logic, "or" is conventionally inclusive, which is to say, it means "one, the other, or both" unless otherwise qualified.
I think George W. Bush is both ignorant and dishonest. I do not think he rises to the level of a Nixon or a Reagan. Moreover, I think he has a potentially dangerous "temperment", to use Oliver Wendall Holmes terminology.
Moreover, the American people did not elect him. He was installed by the bi-partisan concession-tending establishment in Washington, along with their sycophants in the press.
::JRBehrman
> I know that many of my progressive friends despise the Economist magazine
I regard myself as a progressive Democrate and
I have subscribed to the Economist for years.
I also subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, whose
editorial page I despise (I'll be polite and not
mention where I hope Robert Bartley is right now).
Compared to the Wall Street Journal editorial
page, the Economist is rather mild. I refer to them
as "the Torry Bastards". In their latest issue
which had Bush II on the cover with the title,
in french, "He regrets nothing", they offered the
most tepid possible support for Bush. They don't
seem to like "Mr. Bush" much, but as Torry Bastards
they seem to feel honor bound to support him.
Stiff upper lip and think of Thacher, Marge that
is, not her most embarassing son.
There is no periodical in the US that provides
international coverage like the Economist. So
even if one disagrees with their editorials,
the news coverage is worth the price. I feel
the same way about the WSJ: their news coverage
is worth the lies printed in the editorial section.
There have been a number of occasions where the
news articles directly contradicted the editorials.
The real threat to globalization is "factor price equalization" in the U.S. when trading with low-wage Giga-states like China, and the refusal of US elites to face up to it. In other words, nothing wrong with free trade that wage subsidies and a progressive consumption tax can't fix. But for that to happen you have to take the principle of compensation" in trade theory seriously, and contemplate income redistribution. Even The Economists occassionally admits as much. Get hip guys!
I'm not sure Bush is either ignorant or dishonest - I think he has a plan, and gutting the surplus was part of it. So were the huge tax cuts...let's call it another brick on the road to Total Neoliberalization - the privatization of everything.
If there's no surplus, and you've raided Social Security to fund the tax cuts, and your party believes in minimal government, and demonizes social democracy as welfare for the masses, then the only thing left is to continue the plunder, stay the course, and privatize, privatize, privatize. Let'em pay and those that can't will sink to the bottom. Tant pis!
It's a neoliberal piety, wreaking of reformist guilt, to say that Bush has to be ignorant or dishonest. He's only doing what Mallaby espoused in his neoliberalism-is-the-world heyday - and currently it's manifesting itself in the US as globalization from within, privatization from within, spreading democracy and free markets without - to Iraq, in this round.
As for Iraq, the invasion and plunder of Iraq is not imperialism, it's the logical extension of neoliberal ideology, the face of hard power.Look who led the charge - cheney, rumsfeld, bush - corporate types all - if you don't play the game our way, we'll just force democracy and free markets on you.
Why is anyone surprised, most of all, Sebastian Mallaby? In his early guise, he'd be cheering.
As if ignorance and/or dishonesty weren't bad enough, there is a much worse aspect of GWB's character to think about.
He is very reckless.
Constantly has all his chips (and yours and mine too) in the pot on nearly every hand. Fine if you always get good cards, but not all that attractive when the cards don't go your way.
This is well illustrated by thinking about an Iraq might-have-been: suppose the political climate had been just a little different in the US in early March of 2003, and the Admin had felt constrained to go along with the Canadian/Mexican compromise proposal -- allowing Blix et al some additional time. As we know now, the result of this would have been neither evidence of WMD stockpiles, nor evidence of significant cheating. The longer the inspections went on, the worse this would get.
Until we would have been forced to admit what we now understand to be the case -- that the intelligence of everyone involved was based on incorrect assumptions, and that there are no dangerous levels of WMD in Iraq.
The consequence would be that Hussein would have stayed in power, we'd have had to pull back our forces, and the Pres would look like an even bigger fool than he does now. It's not too farfetched to assume that a movement to relax sanctions or Iraq would build up serious steam, leaving us weaker, and Hussein stronger.
Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if a century hence historians seriously argued that the reason we invaded without a new UN resolution and without waiting for the conclusion of inspections is that the first rounds of inspections showed that we had seriously overstated the case and we feared that we had more to lose from continued inspections than Hussein. The choice then became between invading and hoping Chalabi's siren song was right, or backing down in front of the whole world, leaving an emboldened Hussein to actually pursue WMD development.
Similar examples abound from throughout the GWB presidency, and indeed his adult life.
On the tax cuts, it seems that he kept pushing
them because his advisors told him cuts would
stimulate the economy; even if only the rich
were to receive relief. His father lost over
the economy and he did not want to repeat that
error. That is giving aWol the benefit of a
doubt. Else, he was doing Grover's bidding to
drown the gov't in a bathtub, and so on.
Geez, Mallaby finally stopped drinking the KoolAid. This should get him frozen out of any future interviews with Bush adminstration honchos.
Mallaby hits this one out of the park because he looks at the results of Bush policy. Of course, the policy is never exactly what Bush promises.
Is self-delusional ignorance or dishonesty?
Bush's "a lazy lack of curiosity about how bold ideas will play out in the real world," and his obvious failure to absorb the facts, are a factor of his being a Believer. A Believer that it is God's hand that moves events in this world; a Believer that he is guided by a "higher Father;" a Believer in the prophesy of End Times in which he plays a major role.
Thus, it matters not how bold ideas play out in the real world since it is already written in the Good Book how those bold ideas play out. Bible prophesy tells us all we need to know. George is merely an instrument in God's hand to fashion world events so that Christ's Kingdom of 1,000 years duration will be realized. George don't need no book learnin' save but that one Book that shall show him the way. His bold ideas passed unto him from the Lord will play out according to God's plan for the real world.
So Mallaby's and other's discomfort with Bush needs to be ratcheted up to "hair on fire" if they really want to reveal Bush's character.
Bush's seeming ignorance is merely a deep conviction in the literalist Evangelical form of Christianity. Or, to say it more plainly, we have a true honest to goodness religious fanatic in the most sensitive office in the world. We have a man whose beliefs are akin to that of any nefarious suicide cult that ever was, a cult whose Good Book ends with the people of the world in Total War against each other as the cult members are Saved by being Raptured up. Heavens Gate escapes to Hale Bop. Let's just say Bush is the most dangerous man since Hitler.
Now all this seems over the top, but let's take the more inflammatory statements out of the above and just ask, "Would you be happy with having the most powerful person on the planet being a fundamentalist religious zealot whose religion tells him he is lording over the End Times which is God's will.?"
Will anyone be bold enough to tell of the extreme grave peril the world is in if Bush gets elected. Probably not, because no one will risk bashing these mad religious beliefs and how Bush is very likely in their thrall. So the election will end up being up for grabs and Bush will win because God says he must, thus anything goes, and Kerry will be thoroughly whipped.
Carswell, Carswell, Carswell (tsk, tsk, tsk),
I was looking around to see what all this spy stuff was about, came across this nastiness about Our President, then found you doing the devil's work. What you want to have Armageddon at some later date when Iran will have nuclear weapons? We must do this now, clean out this rats nest of a Middle East, and Bush must be at the helm having the most natural instincts to do it and do it right, without leaving any loose strings. He'll wrap it all up in the next four years! Haven't you heard McCain's speech at the Convention tonight? Go listen to it and get religion. One other thing, the 1,000 years of peace you disparage is within grasp if we go no holds barred with the Grand Strategy, and its a noble cause whatever the cost. So get on board or be Left Behind. That's the real meaning of the Rapture, rising to the occasion that has been presented to Christians to make a better world once and for all. You who opt out will suffer in your cowardice to do the ultimate good that will last a millenium. Don't let your heart and soul be Left Behind in the old world as others of true noble hearts, pure of soul, strive boldly to remake the world in God's image. Peace? Let that be for later, much later, after we can be sure that it will be an everlasting peace. Finally, I feel I must give you some credit, after having railed against your defeatism, for pointing out that George W. Bush will win because it is God's will. I will give you a little insight into why. With unwavering belief in the Lord Jesus Christ one can do anything because one has the confidence of the Lord strengthening one at every turn and one can do anything, anything with the Lord at your side, for no matter what it is, if it is done to fulfill God's will, you can be assured that you will be forgiven by Jesus, His Son, at Judgement Day, and I say Amen to that. Praise the Lord and Come to Jesus!
Harlon?
Sarcasm?
Harlon,
Wow. You are scaring the willis out of me. If you are faking it (which I hope you are), you are really good and that's actually really funny. Though if your comment is a joke you might want to, you know, let us know by using a corny emoticon like ;-). If it was a joke ignore this whole comment (I had fun writing it though).
On the other hand, if you are serious...stop smoking whatever it is that you are smoking. I am really much too naive to tell if you are serious or not, so just in case you are serious let me give you one one brief and one epic pointer:
1) Find another blog on which to post your comments, you have obviously lost your way. This blog is a refreshing oasis of clarity. You sir (or madam) are a shameful disgrace to a meaningful discussion of ideas (it being such a rarity in all of human history).
2) The Truth in the religious devotion you espouse is suspect. To find the Truth, remain silent and sit quietly for many hours a day. You will find that the True Truth is beyond words and that each one of us including Our President is just a slight breath in the Universe and that our purpose is to harmonize not eulogize:
"Iran will cause Armageddon with nuclear weapons." I really doubt it. But while you are at it, instead of invading Iraq to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons how about America stepping up to the plate and devising a solution so that no nation (including the U.S. possess WMDs). It would seem more efficient. Duh.
"This rats nest of a Middle East." If Our President wasn't so ignorant and dishonest he would get out of bed with the Oil Industry and eliminate it. It takes a fairly dull 5 year old child to realize that our dependence on, not just foreign, but all oil, is our most serious national security weakness. The rats nest in the Middle East was directly created by years of western meddling in affairs. We are paying the price of decisions made during the Cold War. As we are overpaying for Iraq, we overpaid the Cold War as well. Again, an intel failure of overestimating the Soviet Union. Why do Neocons always think that our enemies are stronger than they are?
"He'll wrap it up in the next four years." Well that's a very convenient time span isn't it. How did you calculate that Bush will "succeed" in all of his glorious plans within the next four years? Which leads me to the question, does Jesus have a timeline? Does God have a day planner, a calendar, MS-Project?
"If we go no holds barred with the Grand Strategy, and its a noble cause whatever the cost." Right, and is that what Jesus died for? Hmmmm...was Hiroshima a noble cause? Are you sure that killing 100,000+ civilians men women and children in one fell swoop was justified whatever the cost. If your answer is anything else but "I am not powerful enough to know." You are nothing else but a very, very bad Christian. Try to improve. Peace starts with Peace. The kind of Peace that starts with a War is, in reality, just the dawn of a new War. Have you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? It might enlighten you somewhat on the complexity of this issue.
"Remake the world in God's Image". Wow, that's interesting. Isn't the world already in God's Image? How can humans possibly have the power to remake anything in God's image. Might want to review the whole "humility" thing in Christian literature.
"With unwavering belief in the Lord Jesus Christ..." Wow, here you really go and down the whole cooler of Kool-Aid. First of all, humans are incapable of having an unwavering belief in anything. We are all sinners, remember, DUH! If you try real hard and practice and develop your belief in the Almighty you will be able to harmonize with the Universe and be empowered to help those less happy than you. But to do this you need to shut up and sit quietly because you, as a human, have not the power to discern what is God's will. Do not try to tell us what is God's Will you blasphemous slut of devilry! Humble yourself before the Universe and know your place.
And, above all, relax! Smile, laugh about it. I sincerely hope you find your way because you obviously lost it.
Sorry, Mr. Clemons, your blog is incredibly above this ignorant bantering between the blind masses. But hey, that's what Blog comments are for right?
I hadn't read Mallaby until I read this piece. To me, it read like a confession. In essence, Mallaby says that Bush (or those employed by him) has radical ideas, some that Mallaby likes, but that Bush has demonstrated a striking lack of prudence and practicality when deciding how and when to implement them.
Bush doesn't strike me as a particularly forceful personality. Religious faith may have something to do with that, but so does faith in the people he has around him. He trusts the judgment of people like Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld and, I believe, relies on it in lieu of objective analysis. That their judgments largely reinforce Bush's instincts/inclinations helps too. When you pray for wisdom, you're even more inclined to believe the trusted (and forceful) amongst you since, you know, God's in control and won't lead you astray.
The national press tends to be dismissive of religious fundamentalists. This is the biggest complaints religious conservatives have and why they view the media as "liberal". At the same time this causes the press to gloss over Bush religious beliefs, because the press really does not understand fundamentalist religion and has difficulty writing critically about it.
What Carswell seems to be pointing out is that the nation, before this election, is at a point akin to June 2001 when Geo Tenet was described by Richard Clarke as coming to the White House with "hair on fire" over intelligence that we were going to be hit by terrorists, and hit hard we were because the administration refused to take the threat serious enough.
This nation does not take Bush and the Evangelical beliefs serious enough. These people shreik in glee over the prospect of being so fortunate to be living in the biblically prophesized End Times. The media ignores them like they ignored Jim Jones, and Heavens Gate, like they ignore Rev. Moon, but now we're confronted with a President, that's not to bright, seemingly on auto-pilot, his moves in office so perplexing that we are reduced to explaining him as either ignorant or dishonest. We are unable to say "he's mad, stark raving mad!" because we are unable to publicly unmask the underlying truths about millenialist Evengelical Christianity that has 20% to 30% of the country hoping, praying, and full of faith that their beloved Armageddon is at hand, and more so than ever because one of theirs, George Bush, is in the White House.
Surreal as we stand frozen, watching, allowing it all to happened without a peep. I'm surely not going to raise my voice about it except here in the blog wilderness. If I did so in public people would look at me as they do that guy wearing the sandwich board advertising "The End Is Near." I hope someone out there will lay it all on the line, reputation, family, career, and prominently in public expose the madmen and women in our country starting with their leader. Hell, the Right-wing could do it, if the shoe was on the other foot, as evidenced by their daily screeds of ridicule and derision directed at the Left.
Woe Eeee Oh, I think that's only part of the explanation. Politics is, if anything, a grab bag of opportunism. Traditional conservatives and corporate interests don't share this glee for Armageddon, but they are interested the power of the WH. They're more than happy to support Bush as long as they get their agenda enacted. If there's a story here, it's the alliance of religious conservatives, traditional conservatives and corporate interests where the overlap in political perspective is fairly small. But the alliance succeeds because each group gets a little something from a Bush presidency.
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