Did we all see Joe Klein's latest column suggesting "What Bush Should Have Said" to the American Legion recently? No? Oh, but you must:
Joe Klein's column
It says "Web Exclusive," so maybe that explains it--how a well-known columnist writing for an internationally- influential organ can publish an idealized, fantasy version of a Presidential address that so completely ignores the salient and the true. If it's only for the web (home of cranky partisan bloggers and networking teenagers), who cares?
Still, damn it, someone has to care. Someone has to supply what Klein, in his effort at public service speechwriting, has inexplicably left out. Therefore, this critique of Klein's critique.
Klein starts by suggesting, or hoping, that Bush say this:
My fellow members of the American Legion, I have made some serious mistakes and miscalculations in our struggle against Islamic extremism over the past five years. Some of these were made out of anger and impatience in the months after we were so viciously attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Others were made out of my heartfelt belief that our American values--freedom, democracy, market economics--are the surest path away from the fury and despair that have plagued the nations at the heart of the Islamic world. I still believe deeply in those values.
Noble sentiments, yes, and hence not remotely credible. What Bush should have said is this:
"My fellow members of the American Legion. First, how the hell does it make sense that I get to claim to be in the American Legion? Isn't your group for war veterans? And aren't I famous from sea to shining sea as having squirmed, lied, and pulled strings to get out of having to serve my country, climaxing in just running away and not showing up? Okay, just asking.
"Next: I have made some serious mistakes and miscalculations in our struggle against Islamic extremism over the past five years. Some of these were made in anger over September 11, blah blah blah. Others were made out of my heartfelt belief that American values blah. But most were made out of two things: One is my sincere and heartfelt belief that whatever benefits corporations is the most important thing to our nation, so that "pursuing evildoers" or "stopping Islamic extremism" or "capturing Osama bin Laden" are only desirable if they can be combined with the pursuit of control over oil reserves.
Second, I was deeply motivated by my own personal, subjective ignorance about almost everything on earth, including history, non-Christian religions, and simple human nature. That's why I was the willing tool of people like Messrs. Wolfowitz, Perle, Tenet, and the usual gang of idiots over at the Weekly Standard. Having seen all of their predictions come out wrong, and having watched every single thing their critics warned us of come to pass, I have quite naturally rewarded all of them with promotions, medals, and deluxe fruit baskets from Harry and David."
(snip)
Now Klein (perhaps satirically; maybe it's all a joke) suggests this:
I want to tell you something I've never acknowledged: the U.N. inspection regime that was forced on Saddam Hussein in 2002 was working. We should have had more patience with it and supported it more fully. In the end, it would have revealed what we now know: that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. That revelation would have destroyed the dictator's credibility. His brutal regime might have toppled from within. At the very least, his power would have been severely compromised. But--impatient again--we rushed to war, without sufficient preparation and sufficient allies.
...whereas what he should have suggested is this:
"I want to tell you something I've never acknowledged: the U.N. inspection regime that was forced on Saddam Hussein in 2002 was working. But then, when I say it's something "I've never acknowledged," I guess I'm being kind of cute. Because that's how I am. What I really mean is, it's something about which I and my surrogates (Mr. Cheney, Dr. Rice, Mr. Rumsfeld, and numerous others too numerous to count) have openly and deliberately and repeatedly lied. When confronted with those lies, we have all responded with more lies. Now that--the essentially mendacious and manipulative nature of my entire administration--is something I've never acknowledged. "Impatience" had nothing to do with it, unless by that you mean, "impatience" to do what I want to do, regardless of any mitigating factors, including but not limited to a concern for the loss of human life--ours, Iraqi, whoever.
"Why, then, should you or anyone believe a word I say about literally anything? You shouldn't. Nor should you believe anything Mr. Cheney, Dr. Rice, or Mr. Rumsfeld say. If the Secretary of State says, "It's a nice day," you should reach for your umbrella."
Klein suggests the President then say:
One of the many books I've read this summer was Fiasco, by Tom Ricks of the Washington Post. It is a careful summation of the military mistakes we've made in Iraq.
This, alas, is inadequate. Rather, that passage should read:
"One of the many books I've read this summer was Fiasco, by Tom Ricks of the Washington Post. But having said that, I might as well say, One of the many books I've read this summer is In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust, which I read in the original Italian.
"As for the 'mistakes' we've made in Iraq, I'm not so sure they were mistakes. We're building several military bases there as we speak. We're constructing an embassy the size of the Vatican. It will have its own flag. It will issue its own postage stamps. Its own special "fight song" is currently being composed by a couple of Nashville songwriters responsible for creating some of the most insipid and mindlessly jingoistic country-western hits in our lifetime. In other words, to people who claim we had no "exit strategy" for Iraq, let me say, you don't need an exit strategy when you don't intend to exit, now, do you?"
(snip)
Finally, Klein wishes Bush had said this:
Here at home, I call on Democrats to join with me in building an alternative energy strategy to limit our dependence on foreign oil. Everything is on the table, including a tax on carbon-based fuels.
Nice, thoughtful, but hardly adequate. It would be better if Bush said this:
"Here at home, I call on Democrats to join with me in building an alternative energy strategy to limit our dependence on foreign oil. I do this because--having overseen an entirely-Republican dominated government for six years, during which Republicans of every shape and size have marginalized, demonized, blocked, shut out, exiled, reviled, and demagogically vilified every Democrat in the country--I have no shame, no memory, and no common sense. Everything is on the table except honesty, respect, and the least particle of personal or institutional accountability."
Klein ends thus:
These initiatives may not succeed. But the time for fancy words and grand theories about changing the world has passed. We need to take action now.
But, really, shouldn't the President end thus?
"These initiatives may not succeed. Ask me if I care. I think we can all agree that I just fucking don't. Do I act like a man who means well? Do I act like a man who has respect for knowledge? Do I act like a man who lives up to the Christian ideals he so frequently professes? Having never once, from the campaign in 2000 to this morning, told the truth, accepted responsibility and its consequences, or done anything not calculated to enrich my friends or buy political power, I am happy to continue to dispense fancy words, as long as someone can write them for me, and grand theories about changing the world, as long as those theories are acceptable to my party and its contributors. We need to take action now, by which I mean, eat lunch."