Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

I just can't help but mention that the people who signed off on the Bay of ... oh.

Never mind.

Safire may be leaning on Bush in the same way that WSJ did last week in its editorial supporting Rumsfeld. The editorial made it clear that if Bush didn't support Rumsfeld, WSJ would find it difficult to support Bush.

"Safire may be leaning on Bush in the same way that WSJ did last week in its editorial supporting Rumsfeld. The editorial made it clear that if Bush didn't support Rumsfeld, WSJ would find it difficult to support Bush."

This should be an example of a dictionary explanation of the term "nailed it."

I think that the only way I could be more disgusted with G. W. Bush is if I were a Bush supporter.

I think Safire is fully aware of the double entendre he wrote.

Had to peruse a few Safire articles to check my first impression that this ( confusing the Secretary of Defense office with that of the President) was an accident. Why would anyone need to read more than 1 article by this man?
Safire writes for those that are as old (and as tired) as he is. So his half-baked thought was making a positive connection (JFK) while mindlessly trashing Bush's non-performance role. The latter, decidedly not intended. So, Yes it is an accident and yes it is revealing. But will it be seen and appreciated by his readership?

Of course maybe Safire has an inside lead on maneuvers in the pentagon (Oooh conspiracy theory...oooh) to ahem deal with Bush... Well, of course this looney sea may be as accurate as his reports on sales by the French company "Société Nationale des Poudres et Explosifs" of dimethyl hydrazine to the Iraqis...
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/15/french.list
In one of his zaniest pieces he explains that one reason the French were so worried of american troops in Baghdad is that the americans would find this stuff and reveal French complicity with terra.

dimethyl hydrazine? Nah.. What Safire should worry about is Trifluoperazine.

Calmo,

Somewhere in this great country of ours there are undoubtedly people who have no qualms about torturing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners, but who are aghast at the sexual nature of much of said torture and humiliation. After a brief bout of soul-searching, they will, to a person, vote for Bush as though nothing offensive to them had ever happened.

Almost nobody on the right will notice Safire's gaffette, and it will make no difference to those few who do.

GWB is losing a lot of support within Republican and conservative circles. The one thing we can't stand more than anything else is incompetence. It's the reason why most of us became conservatives. The rest of my colleagues are just waking up to what I realized a long time ago - in time to vote against the man who smeared McCain so horribly it wasn't even within the bounds of the slackest most wild imaginations of truth or decency.

Hopefully some more will wake up to the fact that above all else, GWB is a loser, and as "grown-ups" if we conservatives sell out on that ... then we might as well give up and call ourselves dems. Of course the wing of the party that doesn't believe that is the radical anti-abortionist, anti-big government, anti-evolution wing of the party. That's what's scary, how those guys have pushed out or silenced almost everyone else who disagrees.

Thomas, I've been trying to see it your way, to no avail. Has Safire got anything going for him that I missed in the dozen or so articles that I visited? This man is no Bush critic, yet you say he is "leaning on Bush (to support Rumsfeld)". This would be breaking new ground for Safire, no?
The effect (of the purported "leaning") was to marginalize Bush: what an insignificant (little wort or) player beside JFK. This insight coming from Safire is a delicious irony.

JFK authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion. There's no indication that Bush authorized prisoner mistreatment.

The comparison is flawed.

Tom Marney - I don't expect a nontrivial number of the people you're talking about (mostly fundies, of course) to cross party lines and vote for Kerry.

BUT it's genuinely possible that a significant number of them, out of sheer disgust with Bush, just might not bother to vote this November.

I think the same is true for the people oldman speaks of, too.

I'd settle for that in a heartbeat.

Sorry, am, but ALL the evidence suggests that Bush authorized everything going on in Iraq. Didn't you read the newspaper thsi morning? Rummy is doing a "Superb Job."

Nobody is ever going to find a document that says "fry em on a griddle till they talk." Although some reports seem to come awfully close to that.

The complete disavowal of the Geneva conventions is all that you need to hang GWB in any fair court.

"Almost nobody on the right will notice Safire's gaffette, and it will make no difference to those few who do."

Actually, they'll think the gaffe is in comparing Abu Ghraib to the Bay of Pigs, which they'll believe was far worse than the events at the prison.

to follow up on Jon H's point...
or they'll say something like "JFK authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion. There's no indication that Bush authorized prisoner mistreatment"
they don't do nuance.

Let me quote a larger slice of Safire's drivle:
"In last week's apology before the Senate, Rumsfeld assumed ultimate responsibility, as J.F.K. did after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The Pentagon chief failed to foresee and warn the president of the danger lurking in the Army's public announcement in January of its criminal investigation into prisoner abuse. He failed to put the nation's reputation ahead of the regulation prohibiting "command influence" in criminal investigations, which protects the accused in courts-martial."

It's a stretch to think Rumsfeld failed to notify Bush about the Jan. public notice of prisoner abuse. Just a slip? It's even a larger stretch to acknowledge that the public would then be better informed than Bush on this issue. ( Bush is(?) informed only through his advisors --we are so lucky.)
But to try and justify this (in)action as an exercise in preserving the rights of the accused in courts-martial at the cost of damaging the nation's reputation??
As in 'Better not tell Dubya about this as this might mean the alleged raper won't get a fair hearing'?
As in 'Better to let it all hang out and possibly soil the nation's reputation than fail to comply with the 'command influence regulations'? As if Rumsfeld cared about regulations.
Sorry, Safire is past it.

RT, I hope you're right.

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