Reprogramming $700 Million In an article titled "My Misgivings" Bruce Barlet is saying essentially what Bruce Reed lays out in "Bush's War Against Wonks"
In short, President Bush often seems to operate like the character from "Alice in Wonderland" who declared, "Sentence first -- verdict afterwards." Instead of figuring out why and how things should be done before acting, the White House seems to act first and then create ex post facto rationalizations for that decision in lieu of serious deliberation.
If this lead to his decision to go it alone without proper input it might explain why there was no legal analyses conducted to see if Congress in the funding of Afghanistan authorized the $700 million for Iraq at the same time. Maybe in Wonderland its the same place? However it did say this:
The supplemental spending bill approved Sept. 14 granted unprecedented flexibility to the president to decide how the money would be spent. But lawmakers wrote, “The president shall consult with chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer of these funds.”[The Hill]
Juan Cole has an interesting post on his experience of sharing a congressional panel of experts discussion with Richard Perle. Granted this is completely out of context but parallels the lack of consideration as if in Wonderland all the answers are already known.
Perle has this bizarre black and white view of the world and demonizes people right and left.
and later in the same post this:
It is indicative of the Alice in Wonderland world in which these Washington Think Tank operators live that Perle could make such an obviously false observation with a straight face. Even a child who has been watching CNN for the past three weeks would know that there was a mass uprising. (Even ten percent of the American-trained police switched sides and joined the opposition, and 40% of Iraqi security men refused to show up to fight the insurgents.)
3:21:08 PM 
|
