I think that is the wrong question. The real question to ask is “How are decisions made in the White House?” Let’s look at how they approach the Iraq set of problems.
People need to drop back and step away from trying to figure out what is on Bush’s mind.
It is my best guess that the White House is a triumvirate, with Rove as domestic czar and leader of the Republican party mechanism, Cheney as the foreign policy/military/Intelligence czar, and Bush as the nice-guy front man who gives the speeches written for him. You may notice a big gap in that. There is no policy expert who knows how things are really done within government (as opposed to merely giving orders, delegating, and firing those who don’t toe the line), and there is no economics expert.
What coordination actually occurs among the trimvirate is mostly at the staff level, but these guys make the final decisions. Staff members don’t present problems to them. They present (acceptable) solutions.
The problem for the triumvirate with Iraq is that Iraq was a Cheney initiative that is now bleeding over to become a Rove problem. It has become a coordination problem within the triumvirate. But Bush is a “delegator”, not one who coordinates between different points of view. Cheney is a high-ego person who is not ready to admit a mistake in Iraq, so the domestic problems doubtless already perceived by Rove are not going to influence him.
All three operate on the strategy that if you decide something will be done and refuse to admit error or compromise, your opponents/enemies will end up compromising away their power and giving you what you want.
The absence of a central coordinator and of a government policy expert is requiring military people aware of the disaster that is Iraq (Our potential military collapse not the least of the problems) to use public political pressure to try to influence the triumverate. This runs up against the “never admit error or mistake” attitude all three have.
This is a dysfunctional group made up of less than fully functional individuals. You will never be able to understand “Bush’s policy.” It is a resultant of the individual positions and the relative political power of the individuals involved.
The vaunted Bush loyalty is key in this. Failure by a loyal minion is rewarded by promotion – See Bolton and Wolfowitz. Rove and Cheney are in place, cannot be promoted, and will not be chastised, corrected, abandoned or left to hang out to dry. These two, with Bush, are the current “Presidency.” Failure by one is failure by all. For response failure or error, see the “Refusal to admit error” above.
Bush takes his marching orders from the other two members of the triumverate. Remember when he asked about the third tax cut and Cheney cut him off?
Look to the group processes, not the individaul ideas. America’s problem is not “How Bush Thinks.” It is “How the dysfunctional group Presidency fails to function.” The failures can be grouped into failure to listen to bad news, failure to coordiate between the members of the triumverate, failure to make government function efficiently, and failure to apparently even comprehend economics and the economic impacts of the federal government on American society and on international trade. There is also a total failure to understand how America relates to the rest of the world. As important as this is, it seems to me to be minor compared to the basic dysfunctions of the White House.
This is a set of problems caused by a dysfunctional group trying to run things, not just a question of “How does Bush think.” But it is still Bush’s individual responsibility.
[Cross-posted from TPM Cafe and Politics Plus Stuff.]
my snarky comment “couldn’t this be titled ‘How does a male give birth?'”. đŸ™‚
Nice analysis; I think that financial impact is not always discounted or ignored — just directly or indirectly used to benefit those they want to benefit — whether or not it benefits America as a whole. That could apply to the richest of the rich via heavily slanted tax cuts, tax cuts to oil industry corporations at a time of record prices and profits, and faith-based initiatives to help shore up the electorate that does not always see the corporatist/fascist policies for what they are.
My hope is that courtesy Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald, the unraveling of the triumverate will occur sooner rather than later, and the “admit no error” policy will be the ultimate downfall.
I don’t think the financial aspect is ignored. It is merely a component of the political decisions. “Financial Impact” is always looked at from the point of view of “On the next election” and “Rewarding supporters.”
Those are political, not economic decisions. There is no one of the top three who has a clue about macro-economics, nor do they care.
I agree with you that we can hope that Mr. Fitzgerald gets his job done soon and effectively. I personally hope he has a good set of body-guards and an efficient personal security staff.
How does Rumsfeld fit into this? And the Neocons…?
I considered adding Rumsfeld to the analysis, but he is actually a White House outsider. As Sec-Def he is the operator for Dick Cheney. I also think he is someone Cheney trusts, so when he pushed the idea that the Army could operate leaner, faster, more effectively, it fit right into the plan to invade Iraq. We didn’t have enough troops to do it without that belief.
Needless to say, Rumsfeld has a similar ego to that of Dick Cheney, and the small, light and efficient military ground forces were his hobby horse. He felt that the military people were just resisting being improved rather than having good reasons to disbelieve his scheme. I get the impression that you can disagree with him, and he will listen instead of just relegating you to Alaska or someplace, but he is also a total team player and never will publicly disagree with the triumvirate.
The Neo-Cons seem to me to be the public relations branch of the hard line foreign policy Republicans. They have had close connections to Cheney since he has similar views, and they also felt put out to pasture by the fall of the USSR and then Clinton’s election. They continually have candidates making the career trip up through the various political appointee positions whenever there is a Republican President, and when 9/11 occurred they already had the extreme ideas and people in positions to do something about it.
9/11 was an extremist hardline Republican’s dream. Their ideas fit with Bush’s decision patterns.
I read somewhere that he is known to be a person who, when offered a set of alternative ways to achieve a goal, will choose the alternative that offers the largest possible return for effort expended no matter how unlikely it is to succeed. I also heard somewhere that this is characteristic of a lot of successful oil production executives, so it is reasonable to me that Bush would adopt this decision pattern. It isn’t as unreasonable as it might seem, since he also believes that a good executive makes unlikely decisions into reality. That is part of what is behind his refusal to admit error or to negotiate with opponents.
The Neo-Cons offered such a “swing-for-the-fences” option, and they already had good relations with Cheney who is the military/Foreign policy guru on the team.
So I think the answer to both of your questions is much the same. Both Rumsfeld and the NeoCons had previous trusted status with the triumvirate, and they each offered options that fit the biases the triumvirate brought to the problems they were facing.
This is pure opinion on my part, and my information comes from the media. But if I were to research it and ask first party witnesses, I would structure questions to prove or disprove those hypotheses. [I’d also ask some open-end general questions to try to build some other hypotheses, but that is an issue of research methods and you were asking for my opinion. [grin]] Whoever gets to write the first drafts of the history of this administration is going to be doing a lot of biography and abnormal psychology. None of the members of the triumvirate particularly understand history, sociology, government, or any other significant body of modern knowledge. The brightest is Rove, and he dropped out of college to focus on winning elections.
Very insightful. I’ve been looking for your comments and diaries ever since you impressed the hell out of me with this one on the Iraq and Vietnam thread. Bookmarked your blog, er, on-line magazine, too.
This diary and your comment in reply to Susan’s question made me realize how vague some of my thoughts on the relationship between the PNAC/neo-cons and the actual administration have been.
Yes, “dysfunctional triumvirate” fits. And “. . . Rumsfeld and the NeoCons had previous trusted status with the triumvirate, and they each offered options that fit the biases the triumvirate brought to the problems they were facing.”
Explains a lot. Also, your pointing out their economic cluelessness. I’ve often thought that they were using the rich and the greedy in the Republican party just as surely as they use the fundamentalist wing of the party – to consolidate power at all costs.
The fundamentalists seem to be getting more power than they really ever meant them to have, and I think they may be losing control over them. Will the rich and greedy also bite back? Are they beginning to realize that the economic consequences of the “triumvirate’s” policies will threaten their wealth?
Thanks for the kind words.
Talking about the triumvirate, I just found an interesting comment on Talking Points Memo by Steve Clemmons.
According to Steve, John Bolton was undermining Colin Powell, Richard Armitage and others with Dick Cheney’s support and approval. Now that he has gotten the recess appointment to the UN, he is beginning to do the same to Condi Rice. Again, it is with Dick Cheney’s approval.
If true, it supports my theory that Bush does not coordinate the others, and in this case, Cheney is going after one of Bush’s key people. Cheney freelances and is beyond control. I would guess that “W” doesn’t dare do anything about it.
I am still trying to determine the basic reasons why the White House had to get Bolton to the UN. It looks like whatever the reasons are, they are Cheney’s reasons more than Bush’s.