The Leaderless Presidency
Forest Gump is a movie based on the life of an idiot. US foreign/domestic policy is a conundrum based on the presidency of an idiot. This is not to disparage Bush's IQ, which may be fairly high, but his competency level for the job at hand. When the press tires of the who-lied-and-when-and-why storyline, we will still be stuck with Forest Gump in the White House for at least one more year--and more than likely, five more, if the economy improves and the UN eventually provides cover for us in Iraq.
Call it the experiment that failed. Some of us thought we had a country that was great enough to run on automatic pilot, but we were mistaken. Presidents 1 through 42 (with the possible exception of Warren Harding) made leadership look deceptively easy. Even the paranoid presidencies of Nixon and LBJ had their uplifting moments: These were men with brains, ability and an interest in affairs of state.The old Commie-basher opened up China, and the old segregationist championed the Civil Rights Act.
So number 43 is really something new in American history: an inheritor of power who lacks the skills, training and interest to use it. You can't compare Dubya with John Quincey Adams, for instance, who was a well educated if failed president. A more apt comparison would be inept Roman emperors and European kings who inherited power and ruled by divine right. The Bush administration is the nation's first leaderless presidency.
Several years ago an Israeli friend of mine said to me: You Americans are lucky. No matter what your leaders do, no matter how comatose and absentee your voters are, your country will still be intact in the morning and functioning quite well. America, in the last analysis, all but runs itself.
I'm afraid that's like saying, the NY Yankees are so great, that they could land in the upper division even if one of the players wasn't an athlete. The myth of perpetual motion also comes to mind.
Our Fearless Leaderless
In other words, this is a great country, but not great enough to run itself. We've been essentially leaderless for the past three years--and don't tell me about Cheney. Like fellow troglodytes Bin Laden and Saddam, he's gone underground--and left no forwarding address. So forget about accountability.
While several presidents have pretended to be out of the loop at times, now we have a president who really is. Brad DeLong has noticed:
But perhaps the most interesting thing is that everyone in Washington--Democrats, Republicans, and independents; journalists and political hacks; experts on national security and those who believe that "Star Wars" is ready for deployment--everyone, starts from the assumption that George W. Bush is a sock puppet. It is inconceivable to everybody that George W. Bush might have asked questions about the reliability of claims "in the speech presented to him." It is inconceivable to everybody that George W. Bush might have actually gotten himself briefed at some point about the quality of the evidence that Saddam was going full-throttle to reconstruct his nuclear program. It is inconceivable to everybody that George W. Bush might have the curiosity about the world and the factual knowledge of even a part-time intern working on Andrew Sullivan's weblog.
W. Bush was ever in any loop, or feels that the statement that George W. Bush was totally out of the loop needs any justification or support at all. It is taken for granted by all--perhaps most for granted by the Republicans who know him better than the rest of us--that we have an Idiot Sultan at the formal head of our government.
Depending on your sense of humor, your politics, and your blood pressure, Bush's gaffes--from "Does Brazil have a lot of black people?"--which he supposedly asked the shocked president of Brazil, to I this week's bizarre Photo op with Kofi Annan, are either comic-book funny or downright surrealistic.
Asked this week whether Saddam had a weapons program, our fearless leaderless replied:
The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region.
Journalists, natch, questioned the new press secretary, Scott McClellan, on our Leaderless's weird remark:
Two quick questions, one on Iraq. When the President said of Saddam Hussein, we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in and he wouldn't let them in, why didn't he say that, when the inspectors went into Iraq?
MR. McCLELLAN: What he was referring to was the fact that Saddam Hussein was not complying with 1441, that he continued his past pattern and refused to comply with Resolution 1441 of the United Nations Security Council, which was his final opportunity to comply. And the fact that he was trying to thwart the inspectors every step of the way, and keep them from doing their job. So that's what he's referring to in that statement.
Q But that isn't what he said.
(No answer from McClellan, who moves quickly on to the next and unrelated question.)
12:14:22 AM 
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