Bush: "Scowcroft has become a pain in the ass..."

[Rose Siding]

written by Sidney Blumenthal...

snip>
Bush has borne resentment against his father's alter ego since before Scowcroft privately rebuked him for his Iraq follies more than a year ago -- an incident that has not previously been reported. Bush "did not receive it well," said a friend of Scowcroft's. In "A World Transformed," the elder Bush's 1998 memoir, coauthored with Scowcroft, they explained why the then-president decided not to seize Baghdad in the Gulf War: "Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." In the run-up to the Iraq war, Scowcroft wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal warning of the danger. Bush derided him, according to conservative biographers Peter and Rachel Schweizer in "The Bushes": "Scowcroft has become a pain in the ass in his old age," they quoted Bush. The Schweizers write, "Although he never went public with them, the president's own father shared many of Scowcroft's concerns." Despite his belief that the younger Bush's policies were disastrous, Scowcroft publicly supported him for reelection mainly out of loyalty to the father.

The rejection of Kanter is a compound rejection of Scowcroft and James Baker -- the tough, cunning, results-oriented operator who as White House chief of staff saved the Reagan presidency from its ideologues, managed the elder Bush's successful campaign in 1988, and was summoned by the family in 2000 to rescue George W. in Florida. When all else failed (the voters, for example), Baker arranged the outcome that put Bush in the Oval Office. In the 1995 memoir of his years as secretary of treasury and state, Baker observed that in the Gulf War the administration's "one overriding strategic concern was to avoid what we often referred to as the Lebanonization of Iraq, which we believed would create a geopolitical nightmare." In private, Baker is scathing about the current occupant of the White House, people who have spoken with him have recently related to me. Now the one indispensable creator of the Bush family political fortunes is repudiated.

Those Republican elders who warned of endless war are purged. And those who advised Bush that Saddam was building nuclear weapons, that with a light military force the operation would be a "cakewalk," that capturing Baghdad was a "mission accomplished," and that the Iraqi army should be disbanded, are rewarded.

Powell, the outgoing secretary of state fighting his last battle, a rearguard action against his own administration on behalf of his tattered reputation, is leaking stories to the Washington Post about how his advice went unheeded. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whose heart beats with the compassion of a crocodile, clings to his job by staging Florence Nightingale-like tableaux of hand-holding the wounded, while declaiming into the desert wind about "victory." Since the election, 203 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 1,674 wounded.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/12/30/neocons/index.html

[Fridays Child]

1. Sid, hon, try to stay off of small private airplanes, 'kay?

Speaking truth to power can be a risky business. :scared:

[pretzel4gore]

3. if geebush whacked baker, or scowcraft

he's redeem himself very slightly in my eyes...scowcraft, and baker, made geebush inevitable...at least geeb (brother of john ellis, or 'jeb') is stupid

[saltpoint]

2. People who are intelligent with a broad perspective --

-- and plenty of experience and know-how are "pain(s) in the ass" for alcoholic dimwits like Dubya.

The president of the free world has failed us when he fails to consult and respect the best minds out there.

[Pithy Cherub]

4. * bites the hand that handed him the 2000 election

and the General who mentored Condi. (Obviously, nothing important stuck) This is a real treatise on building groupthink at the highest levels of government! No erstwhile previously loyal bushbot is above the wrath of the chimperor. :scared: