He Did It His Way

In an only maybe unintentional reference to President Bush’s dyslexic-like difficulties with the English language, the New York Times headlined their article about his last press conference “Mistakes, I’ve Made a Few Bush Tells Reporters.” Or perhaps the writer was channeling Frank Sinatra. Either way, it comes as scant solace to learn that The Decider has finally decided that, yes, there might actually have been a thing or two in the past eight years that could have been better handled or enjoyed more positive outcomes.

“Mission Accomplished” for example. That stunningly premature assessment was given, let us recall, nearly six years ago, since when the majority of Iraqis living in their capital city have been without respite dealing with such minor annoyances as no electricity, no running water, and no certainty that their next shopping foray won’t result in an involuntary hospital visit.

Hurricane Katrina, you mention? “I thought long and hard about (it),” he said, leaving aside any suggestion that perhaps his thinking was, at the extreme of charity, insufficient to the task.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few?” Well, he did admit that “Not finding weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment.” And even more, that the grotesqueries perpetrated by U.S. military forces at Abu Graib were “a huge disappointment.” This surely retires the trophy for unadulterated, monumental gall. We are to accept that remorse for the result expunges the responsibility for bringing it about. This flawed logic is, of course, familiar to any eight-year old who blames the cookie jar for its fatal plunge to earth. In the instant case, the fevered efforts by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al to concoct a rationale for an invasion already green-lighted or the wholesale mangling of the law and human decency are consigned to Orwell’s memory hole.

As the historian George Santayana famously observed, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But the very capability to learn something from anything, or anyone, necessarily presumes sufficient humility to accept not having total command oneself of everything known and knowable.

We have every right – even a defensible need – to expect our President to have a healthy level of self-confidence. When it gives way to self-delusion, it’s past time to back the moving trucks up to the White House.

So long, George.