Out in the real world, this is a very standard question. Bush's answer shows (a) enormous contempt for the questioner, (b) contempt for the viewers who would like to hear the answer to the question, (c) a pathological aversion to looking back at his own performance, all coupled with (d) amazing arrogance.
Would you hire someone who gave you an answer like this during a job interview? There's something very wrong with this guy.
Posted by DeLong at October 9, 2004 08:07 AM | TrackBackEschaton: Q. President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision and what you did to correct it. Thank you.
Mr. Bush I - I have made a lot of decisions and some of them little, like appointments to boards you've never heard of, and some of them big. And in a war there's a lot of - there's a lot of tactical decisions that historians will look back and say, he shouldn't have done that, he shouldn't have made that decision. And I'll take responsibility for them. I'm human.
But on the big questions, about whether or not we should have gone into Afghanistan, the big question about whether we should have removed somebody in Iraq - I'll stand by those decisions because I think they're right. It's really what your - when they ask about the mistakes, that's what they're talking about. They're trying to say, did you make a mistake going into Iraq? And the answer is absolutely not. It was the right decision.
The Duelfer report confirmed that decision today because what Saddam Hussein was doing was trying to get rid of sanctions so he could reconstitute a weapons program and the biggest threat facing America is terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. We knew he hated us. We knew he'd been - invaded other countries. We knew he tortured his own people.
On the tax cut, it's a big decision. I did the right decision. Our recession was one of the shallowest in modern history.
Now you ask what mistakes. I've made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV.
But history will look back and I'm fully prepared to accept any mistakes that history judges to my administration. Because the president makes the decisions, the president has to take the responsibility.
Well that makes sense. After all, do you think Bush has ever had to go through a genuine job interview?
Posted by: Kuas at October 9, 2004 08:15 AMKerry has to directly ask the American people -- will they let Bush run from his record? Write to the editors:
This debate again made the choice clear -- you can vote for further fantasy, or you can recognize reality.
If you really believe that everything is going well in Iraq, where, every month, more Americans are butchered than the month before, vote for George Bush.
If you really believe freedom is on the march in Afghanistan, where heroin production is at record levels and the Taliban and warlords control much of the country, vote for George Bush.
If you really believe that the economy is doing great, where not enough jobs are created even to keep up with population growth, vote for George Bush.
If you really believe that those earning over $200,000 a year were abused by the tax code under Bill Clinton, and that trillions of dollars in new debt don't matter, vote for George Bush.
If you really believe that a microscopic clump of frozen cells deserves more moral consideration than Michael J. Fox, Christopher Reeve, and millions of other children and adults, vote for George Bush.
If you really believe that the current administration truly cares about the millions of kids who now live in poverty who didn't in 2000, that they care more about seniors than the drug companies, and that they care more about the environment than the oil, coal, logging, and mining companies, vote for George Bush.
If you really believe that yelling at and ridiculing those who disagree with or question you is the best way to lead, vote for George Bush.
But if you recognize that America has done better in the past, and can do better in the future, vote for change. Vote for John Kerry.
Posted by: MattB at October 9, 2004 08:16 AMThis article strikes me as important, though not on the subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09power.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Britain Feeling Pressed for Power
By ALAN COWELL
ASKAM, England - From her home above this village near the sea, Norma White, a retired schoolteacher, contemplates a vista stretching from her ornamental pond to the distant blades of a huge wind turbine that represents part of Britain's huge quandary about its future energy supplies.
With its North Sea oil and gas beginning to dwindle, its nuclear power generation set to be scaled back and its commitment to reducing greenhouse gases propelling a hunt for renewable energy sources - like tides, waves or wind - Britain is facing hard decisions that those in authority seem reluctant to take.
The most passionate argument is swirling around the contentious prospect of expanding nuclear power, which produces about one quarter of Britain's electricity.
'Gimmicks such as wind turbines are hardly relevant,' the newspaper columnist Simon Jenkins said recently. 'If Britain's leaders really believe in the apocalypse, only one technology is currently available to hold it at bay and that is nuclear power. All else is hypocrisy.'
The government has been less forthright.
In a major speech on climate change in September, Prime Minister Tony Blair said nuclear power remained an option to reduce carbon emissions - a goal that Britain has adopted with enthusiasm under the Kyoto agreement to cut greenhouse gases. That seemed to suggest nuclear power was back on the agenda.
Just a few days later, though, Patricia Hewitt, the minister of trade and industry, said there were 'no proposals now for building new nuclear power stations, but at some point in the future new nuclear build might be necessary if we are to meet our carbon targets.'
Her remarks prompted the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, to warn that time is running out. 'The government is saying we will come back and look at nuclear power when we've seen how well we are doing on energy efficiency gains,' he told a conference recently. 'But the time scale to do that is relatively short. I do think five years or less is when we've got to make a decision.'
The discussion is part of a wider and patchier debate across Europe since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 provoked such wide opposition to nuclear power that no new reactors have been built since then.
Some countries, like Italy, now call themselves nuclear-free zones. While France and Germany remain heavily dependent on nuclear power, Austria and Denmark have forsworn any use of it.
Elsewhere there are indications of a rethinking. Finland has ordered a $3.5 billion nuclear reactor, and opposition politicians in Germany have spoken about extending the deadline for closing nuclear plants past 2021. Sweden has generally delayed a promise made in 1980 to phase out nuclear power by 2010, but has now said it will close one of plant.
In the United States, no new nuclear plants have been ordered since the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. Nuclear power contributes 20.3 percent of the country's electricity needs.
At Mrs. White's home in this blustery northwestern corner of England, the energy debate is framed by the competing presence of wind farms on the hillsides and shores - and a massive nuclear plant just up the road.
'We are an island battered by the wind,' she said, explaining Britain's aptitude for renewable energy sources like winds, tides and waves. 'We are an island surrounded by the sea.'
But a few miles north of here, also on the coast, stands the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield that has long raised concerns about the costs and hazards of nuclear waste. And just down the road is Barrow in Furness, the home port of two specialist ships that recently carried American plutonium to France, accompanied by protests about the perils of transporting nuclear materials in an era of global terrorism.
'The question with nuclear power is this disposal business,' Mrs. White said. 'And there's always a huge question mark over it.'
In some ways, the onetime abundance of Britain's North Sea oil and gas in particular allowed it to prevaricate on future energy supplies leaving others to commit themselves to different sources of energy.
While Britain claims to be Europe's windiest nation, its wind farms produce only a tiny fraction of its electricity, and Denmark has taken a lead in turbine technology. And, while Britain is committed to reducing its reliance on nuclear power generation, France is deriving 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.
Unmentioned in the press so far was Bush's ad hoc "declassification" of a Senate vote on intelligence. Since the intelligence budget is classified, how do we know Sen. Kerry voted to cut it?
Posted by: christopher ball at October 9, 2004 08:34 AMI have watch Friday's debate 3 times now. Each time I amazed. Bush was a totally ass. He has all the charm of a wife beater.
Kaus, makes a great point. Bush has never had a job interview. He did not realize that the question was a standard interview question. What is more incrediable is why didn't any of his debate coaches prep him for this kind of question.
Does Dubya so routinely pull his nasty spoiled brat routine that even they were too intimidate to
ask such a question.
The True Bush comes out.
Who is the guy America wants to have a beer with now?
Although it hasn't gotten as much attention as some of the others, this was one of the key moments of the debate. In spite of the president's best efforts to mask the fact that he wasn't responding to what he was asked, it was clear that he was evading and avoiding. It was his most arrogant moment--both because he refuse dto admit he has ever made a mistake and because he didn't think it was necessary to answer the question. Maybe that worked with his base, but it surely alienated the uncommitted. No doubt we'll see it reflected in the polls next week.
Posted by: policywonk at October 9, 2004 08:41 AMBrad, I am not sure you have ever been to a job interview either.
In all fairness to Bush, his answer IS the recommended way to answer that stupid question on job interviews. Just walk over to Haas and ask the MBAs there how to answer that question. Their answer is to not answer it, instead to mouth things like, "oh, I guess I work too hard", "sometimes I am too diligent to the task at hand and forget to go to lunch", etc.
The question, at a job interview is unfair and stupid. Stupid because the questioner really has no way of determining the truth to the answer, and unfair as it rarely measures something of importance while doing the job, unless the job is as liar, Whitehouse Spokesman, or something like that.
Now Bush answered badly, because all of us, Dems and Rethugs, do know enough about Bush and the past four years to answer that question. And still Bush avoided the question. Bad answer as it lets us fill in our own answer.
Yes, Mr. Bush is a spoiled brat, who's never had a job interview, and becomes upset when his answers are not accepted with deference- look at his reaction to the Irish reporter who didn’t buy his answers about Abu Ghraib and other Iraq stupidities. However, there’s more to it. Rove and his men have prepped the President carefully. Bush isn’t lazy and has a plan.
Did you read, “War is a force that gives us meaning”? Voting against abortion and godless communists/muslims/terrorists is the same juice for many. We face many complex problems- global warming, petroleum addiction, the desire to give and receive benefits without paying for them- look at the stupid rules on flying to funerals or that emergency rooms must treat all comers without giving them the money to do it- the list is endless. People don’t want to work through the complex solutions to global warming, mercury pollution of our oceans, how our interventions in the Middle East ("we have to do it to safeguard the oil supply") turn more and more Muslims against us, etc.
They want a righteous knight or King Arthur on horseback singing Onward Christian Soldiers. That righteous knight doesn’t apologize or admit error- he calls for destruction of evil, making it all black and white, and exaltation of the righteous. That’s the script that they have, and that’s the father fantasy that many voters follow. Funny thing, does clearing brush fit in with Onward Christian Soldiers?
Posted by: anciano at October 9, 2004 09:02 AMThe question was fine if she would have asked name ONE mistake you have made as President. But three was silly.
Posted by: remo williams at October 9, 2004 09:10 AMBrad's never had a job interview. Right. Sure. Because we all know that getting tenure at one of the country's top schools is a walk in the park.
Jurassic Park, perhaps.
Posted by: Paul at October 9, 2004 09:10 AManciano identifies a real problem for Kerry's campaign. One Bush claim after another can be easily punctured, to the satisfaction of the alert, well-informed voter. But BBC World news did an interview yesterday with three Cleveland males suffering from job loss. They said roughly, " you gotta have security" and consequently leaned toward Bush. Why? Because Bush's "sock'em" bellicosity seems vaguely right and comforting to someone who cannot, sadly, distinguish the "green zone" from the "green hornet." In other words repeated by the undecided Ohio woman from Portsmouth, "You won't have to worry about the economy if you can't catch the terrorists." For these folks, it is the easiest thing to believe that Bush is despite all the sophisticated reporting from Baghdad out there catching terrorists. It is comfort for the careworn and ill-informed.
Posted by: g-lex at October 9, 2004 09:24 AMjerry, above, is correct, in that there is a correct way to answer the question. Bush did not give that answer. He denied the premise, and instead listed three things he thought he did right.
He could've said, "I wish I had gotten prescription drug coverage passed in my first year," or some damn thing. Or the standard, "I work too hard, I care too much, and I'm a perfectionist."
Instead, he dodged -- and insulted the questioner by presuming that her question was about Iraq. Notice that on the stem cell question, Kerry went out of his way to avoid ascribing an opinion to the questioner. He deliberately addressed what he called the "feeling in the question."
Posted by: Grumpy at October 9, 2004 10:01 AMThere are such people, and quite a few of them. If they swing the election to Bush, then democracy will have failed in America.
However, the mostly substantial questions posed yesterday gives me hope.
Posted by: sm at October 9, 2004 10:48 AMAs someone pointed out in comments at Atrios, he could have easily answered like this:
1 I can't pronounce nuclear
2 I can't manage to stay on bicycles or Segways
3 I shouldn't have eaten that pretzel
Then every one would have a good laugh and the question would be disarmed without him really answering it but no one would care. But Bush is not Reag
Posted by: Barry Freed at October 9, 2004 11:04 AMSimpsons reference: Homer's at a job interview with two others. When the "what's your biggest weakness" question is posed, the first two give brown nosing answers like "I work too hard." Homer, of course, says, "Well, I'm kind of lazy, and not very bright, . . . . "
Posted by: cc at October 9, 2004 11:59 AMI say again this question really exposed the lie that is the Dubya administration. Before the first debate blogger sights lile Cal-Pundit and Atrios asked for potential debate questions. This question was one of most common of the serious entries. You can not tell me that the Bushies does not have campaign staff that monitor the Blog sights. What about all the well placed trolls.
Bush acted like he was dumbfounded that somebody should even ask such a question. It is unlikely that his debate staff was incompetent. The question was one any incumbent should expect to be asked. The problem must have been that everybody surrounding the Bubble Boy is too intimidated by his bluster to even prepare him for the real world.
Posted by: llamajockey at October 9, 2004 12:18 PMJerry is wrong. The recommended way in B-school is to offer a truthful/plausible story about how you botched something and then to stress how you got out of it. In fact the question was two-part, and he never answered the second part either. (The "I work too much/I am too impatient" meme is the standard reponse to the other dumb question: What is your principal weakness?)
Reposting my pop quiz from the earlier thread, cuz I want answers: What should the Prezl have said?
OK, CLOSE THE BOOKS, POP QUIZ:
Imagine yourself in Dubya's shoes and try to come up with three mistakes that 1. show some capacity of introspection and self-reflection, and 2. don't make him look dumb. (So "I should've stopped reading The Pet Goat to the first graders and gone down to business protecting America" doesn't qualify.) The only one I can come up with is "I shouldn't have mentioned yellowcake."
Any others?
Posted by: ogmb at October 9, 2004 12:33 PMWhen W began dodging and obfuscating on that question, before turning back to his stump points about Iraq, I thought he was handing Kerry a golden opportunity that FITS the narrative that Kerry's developing.
So, rather than obsess about W's non-answer about his 3 questions, I wonder how we can circulate the answer Kerry SHOULD have given, rather than taking the Iraq bait again:
------
"Your question, [name], asked the President to name a mistake he had made, and how he fixed it. And it tells us something that he wasn't able -- that he was _incapable_ -- of naming a single mistake that _he_ saw and fixed.
I ask you: is there anyone in this room who hasn't made some mistake in the last four years?
So, the President's answer tells you a lot: once he makes his mind up, he can't see how he was wrong, no matter what. And if you can't see where you went wrong -- it's a complicated and dangerous world we live in, you know, and it's hard to believe the US government gets every policy on every major issue exactly right the first time -- well, if you can't see where you went wrong, then you can _never_ correct and improve your policy.
If I'm elected, I'll make the best decisions I can, as laid out in my plans. But if it turns out that a choice I make isn't the very best, isn't the one that makes America as strong and as safe as it can possibly be, then you bet I'll admit it and find out how to do better.
And that's what the American people wants. Because with this President, you can bet that every mistake he ever made will be with us as long as he stays in office, because he can't bring himself to admit he might have been wrong. Can we afford four more years of all the things this Administration has gotten wrong?"
------
How's that sound? Launch the meme!
Posted by: PQuincy at October 9, 2004 12:59 PMFabulous!!!! I was thinking the same thing (and grinding my teeth over Kerry's not giving this answer). You said it quite eloquently.
Posted by: Donna at October 9, 2004 06:13 PMFabulous!!!! I was thinking the same thing (and grinding my teeth over Kerry's not giving this answer). You said it quite eloquently.
Posted by: Donna at October 9, 2004 06:14 PMI think that this is possibly Bush's #1 mistake during the whole campain. Kerry, his team and all his supporters should repeat this and the corrolary interpretation at nauseam until Nov 2. Get busy on those TV ads, pleaaaaase!
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns at October 9, 2004 10:32 PM"Our recession was one of the shallowest in modern history." George must have confused modern history with his gene pool. I can't believe Kerry didn't seize Bush's dyskleptic answer and point out to the TV audience the incredible arrogant hubris of this guppie.
Of course, most men are the same way, trained lying dogs, Ari Fleischer being a pre-eminent among them. What a liar that son-of-a-bitch was! He always looked like he had a secret earpiece on, wired directly into Jerusalem HQ.
But if you really want to get grossed out,
look at pre-war footage of Chalabi creeping
around the palace grounds with that smirk.
"Flowers and candy! Flowers and candy!"
This is the most night-of-the-living-dead
administration I can recall since Eisenhower.
okay ogmb, how about:
First, I shouldn't taunt terrorists by saying things like, Bring 'em on! Such phrases do capture my private emotions, but I should keep them to myself or between my advisors, and not allow the press to trumpet them to the terrorists, who are only strengthened by such taunts.
Number two, it was wrong for me to accuse other countries of being morally weak, when they refused to join my war coalition. I recognise that other countries have different priorities and different worldviews, and their leaders have different pressures from their electorates than I do here. Accusing them of moral weaknesses only made them less likely to join me, and needlessly hurt our long-term relationships.
Finally, I should have shown a little more strength dealing with the congress, and vetoed some of those pork-filled spending bills that they passed, which only made the deficit bigger than it had to be. I didn't pay enough attention to what they were doing, and assumed since they were in my own party, that they were keeping things under control. Now I've learned they will spend our tax money to help their constituents and look out for their own reelection, and they need the checks and balances of my executive veto to maintain spending discipline.
Aside - I can't imagine Bush admitting any of these things. Sad.
Posted by: tjallen at October 10, 2004 01:35 AMI'd also like to keep alive the Prezdent's brilliant follow-up to this "three mistakes" question:
"The truth of that matter is, if you listen carefully, Saddam would still be in power if he [John Kerry?] were the president of the United States, 'And the world would be a lot better off.'"
Amen!!
MattB: If you really want to hit below the belt, add Ronald Reagan Sr. to Michael J. Fox's & Christopher Reeves' names.
Posted by: John Owens at October 10, 2004 02:19 AMThe shot of the woman who asked this question as Bush wrapped up his 'answer' were perfect. A sour little expression mixed with some disappointment that he'd failed to validate her concerns. I've tried to determine whether she was a leaning Kerry voter trying to trip the President up or a leaning Bush voter who needed reassurance of his connection to reality before solidifying her vote for him. Either way, she's in the Kerry camp now.
Posted by: tegwar at October 10, 2004 07:38 AM