The Establishment Strikes Back, Part II
Last week, I wrote about Laurence Wilkerson’s diatribe at the New American Foundation in Washington. This week, Wilkerson is back, this time writing in the LA Times. And just like last week, his opinions are incoherent and not based on verified facts. Here’s a sample of this week’s rantings:
I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal. Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift, not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy.
Well.
Let’s see if I’ve got this right. The “cabal” was led by the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense, with the “witting support of the president” and that Dr. Rice “was simply steamrolled by this cabal.”
Further, this “cabal” actually made decisions without putting it up to a vote within the establishment. I thought that people at the upper echelons of the Executive Branch were given power to make decisions without putting things up to a vote of the bureaucrats.
When Wilkerson says that the “insular and secret workings were efficient and swift, not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship”, what he’s saying is that he’s upset that his opinions weren’t given the weight he thinks they should’ve been given.
As for his constant use of the word “cabal,” it’s intended to draw attention to himself so he’s more marketable for the ultra-liberal speaking circuit. If you took his comments at face value, you’d have to believe that he’s against the President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense should defer to the bureaucrats at the State Department.
The other outrageous comment he made is that Dr. Rice got “steamrolled” by the cabal. When it comes to foreign policy, Dr. Rice and Dick Cheney are the two most-trusted advisors to President Bush. First and foremost, Dr. Rice is too brilliant and influential to get steamrolled. Secondly, President Bush would run roughshod on anyone that tried steamrolling her. Not because she can’t ‘take care of herself’ but because he values her opinion way too much to let someone get away with keeping her out of the loop.
But a second and far more important reason is that the nature of both governance and crisis has changed in the modern age.
From managing the environment to securing sufficient energy resources, from dealing with trafficking in human beings to performing peacekeeping missions abroad, governing is vastly more complicated than ever before in human history. Further, the crises the U.S. government confronts today are so multifaceted, so complex, so fast-breaking, and almost always with such incredible potential for regional and global ripple effects, that to depart from the systematic decision-making process laid out in the 1947 statute invites disaster.
Actually, bureaucrats with agendas complicate things because they overvalue their opinions too much. Decision-makers like President Bush, Vice President Cheney and now Secretary of State are de-emphasizing the bureaucrats because bureaucrats represent the ‘realist’ line of foreign policy thinking. President Bush has proven time and again that an idealist foreign policy is vastly superior to the realist line of thinking. Here’s a comparison of the idealist vs. realist achievements:
The freeing of 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq vs. 16 UN Security Council resolutions pleading ‘pretty pretty please’ that Saddam tell us about his WMD’s. Advantage: Idealist
Mass graves of innocent Iraqi citizens vs. 2 elections, the ratification of the Iraqi Constitution and women having real human rights, including to run for office and to vote. Advantage: Idealist
Free elections in Lebanon vs. decades of Syrian domination of Lebanon. Advantage: Idealist
Libya turning over its WMD’s and agreeing to periodic weapons inspections vs. Libya exporting terrorists worldwide. Advantage: Idealist
It seems to me that a strong case is made for idealist foreign policy decisions and that the realist foreign policy is woefully lacking. That isn’t surprising but it’s noteworthy. Think of those principles when you go to the ballot box next November and especially when you vote for the next president in 2008.
It takes firm leadership to preside over the bureaucracy. But it also takes a willingness to listen to dissenting opinions. It requires leaders who can analyze, synthesize, ponder and decide. The administration’s performance during its first four years would have been even worse without Powell’s damage control. At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president’s hand. He told him everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it.
Talk about insulting. In Wilkerson’s world, the President is some idiot who had to be led by the hand through the maze of foreign policy in the aftermath of 9/11. Only the intervention of Gen. Powell kept this from being an utter disaster. In case you can’t tell after reading this, the color of the sky in Wilkerson’s world isn’t the same as in our world.
In Wilkerson’s world, the bureaucrats in the State Department were the brilliant people and the President, whose foreign policy accomplishments compare favorably with any president in last half century, was the idiot. Talk about hubris. Talk about delusion.
Sadly, he represents the thinking within the bureaucracy. It’s time that this President cleans out that swamp and replaces Wilkersonesque bureaucrats with clear-thinkers.
Cross-posted at Boxer Watch
UPDATE:
Q&O refers to “the wise philosopher kings” of government
October 30th, 2005 at 9:34 am
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