Bush Critics You Should Trust

[hadrons]

A guide to the conservatives and Republicans who have turned on the president.
By John Dickerson
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006, at 7:22 PM ET

… ere's a brief guide to the Bush critics with pro-Bush backgrounds. What can they teach the public—and perhaps the administration—about the president that the lefty hacks can't. Here are three major themes in their work:

1. George Bush is no conservative. One new book worth a look is Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, by Bruce Bartlett. Bartlett, no relation to White House Counselor Dan Bartlett, is a conservative true believer. He served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and is a respected conservative economist and policy analyst. (He was ultimately fired from the conservative think tank where he worked for his Bush criticism.) The central critique of Bartlett's book is that George Bush has betrayed Reagan conservatism…

2. He's a bad CEO. It is compelling to hear George Bush talk about his theory of management: Set big goals, pick the right people, empower them, and then make clear decisions based on their work. To make sure you're on the right track, measure results and hold your team accountable… Bush's penchant for loyalty, political victory, and ideology got in the way of his appealing management theories.

Ex-Bush officials from counterrorism adviser Richard Clarke to John DiIulio, the first head of Bush's faith-based initiative, have made this case, but former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill did the most compelling job in Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty…

3. He was hellbent on war. Paul Pillar, the 28-year CIA veteran who most recently coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East, argues in Foreign Affairs that the president and his aides were so anxious to spread democracy in the Middle East they ignored intelligence that argued against an invasion or predicted a messy aftermath… Pillar writes that the intelligence community did assessments before the invasion that indicated a postwar Iraq "would not provide fertile ground for democracy" but would rather erupt into a sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites…

....

http://www.slate.com/id/2136717/

[Selatius]

1. Gee, "sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites..."

Somebody wanna tell me what's happening in Iraq today?

[KoKo]

2. Interesting read...thanks for the post. n/t