I read “The Caine Mutiny” this weekend while staying up with my wee son. The book kept me turning pages till the end, but when I finished, I can’t say that it was a really good book. And yet Captain Queeg’s character has become an essential bit of pop cultural literacy. My father-in-law tells me that this is the result of the popular movie instead of the book. I’ll have to rent the movie at some point.

At any rate, Queeg’s penchant for refusing to accept responsibility got me thinking about Annika’s post about the presidential debate, in which she writes, in her colorful argot:

The last question chosen by Gibson was for the president to name not one,
not two, but three fucking mistakes! The last question of the debate, mind you.
That was punk-ass biased, no question about it. And the Prez refused to play
that game. i’m proud of him. i liked his take too. Let the historians decide,
he’s the president and it’s not up to him. What the president couldn’t say, but
which is nonetheless the real reason is that, despite the demands of the
touchy-feely Oprahcized society we are now cursed with, no President of the
United States should ever admit to making one single mistake on questions of
policy while he sits in office. Never Ever Fucking Ever No Way Ever Never.

I wrote way back in April about my moment of clarity on this administration:

The other lightning bolt came from watching CNN. I caught part of a
Rumsfeld news conference. The SecDef was explaining to a reporter that “no one
could have predicted the insurgency”

What!?

What the Fuck!?

Many, many people predicted the insurgency.

My blogger colleagues will remember that I supported the morality of the
war to save the Kurds AND believed that we had to eliminate the long-term threat
the Hussein posed to our national interest. My one reservation was the fear that
the Bush team would fight the war on the cheap and fail to win the peace. I
should have placed more weight on that reservation, because it has come to pass.
Our failure to go in with enough force or to plan for the occupation has cost us
dearly. And the Bush team can’t see, or won’t see why this is a problem.

Months ago, Rumsfeld himself had gotten into a public pissing match with
the Chief of Staff over troop numbers. The Chief of Staff has said that more men
were needed to prevent the growth of an insurgency. Rumsfeld overruled him,
discounting the dangers ahead. And this same son of a bitch now has the temerity
to claim that “no one could have predicted the insurgency!”

I suddenly realized: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are so driven by ideology
that they are unable to modify policy to match reality. While this is obnoxious
on the domestic side of the slate (the ideological partisanship of the “Mayberry
Machiavellis” has been amply demonstrated by former players in the
administration), it is dangerous and immoral on the international front. If a
group of people who are psychologically incapable of questioning their tactics
lead us into an unwinnable war (and we can’t win this war on the cheap -
you need more troops to fight a guerilla insurgency than you do a traditional
enemy - you have to guard huge numbers of soft targets) and can’t change their
tactics, they need to be removed.”

We have seen more evidence of this refusal to adjust to reality in the last six months. Cheney and Bush’s refusal to accept the 9-11 report that Saddam had nothing o do with 9-11 is just one example. Bush chants, zen-like, about consistency.

Well, how that consistency working so far? The refusal to change tactics on the ground and the spouting of the Orwellian gem that the insurgent attacks have grown in number and intensity because we are winning prove that consistency is indeed the hobgoblin of little minds.

I really believe that admitting mistakes and looking for new solutions is an essential part of achieving one’s goals. If Bush cannot even critically examine his own past choices, how can we be sure that he will learn from those mistakes and do better in the future?

E.J. Dionne writes in today’s Washington Post:

When this campaign is over, Linda Grabel may become famous.

Grabel was the citizen-questioner at Friday’s debate who asked
President Bush an interesting question that may well set the tone for the rest
of this campaign.

Noting that the president had made “thousands of decisions that have
affected millions of lives,” Grabel sensibly wanted this piece of information:
“Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong
decision, and what you did to correct it.”

The president’s answer was notable in two ways. First, he spent many
words not answering at all. He spoke vaguely about how historians might
second-guess some of his decisions and that he’d take responsibility for them.
He also asserted: “I’m human.”

Second, when Bush finally did admit something, he said this: “I made
some mistakes in appointing people, but I’m not going to name them. I don’t want
to hurt their feelings on national TV.”

There, in brief, are the core reasons why polls suggest that undecided
and independent voters are having a problem with this president. His tactic of
never admitting mistakes is backfiring in light of events. And when asked to
take responsibility, his first instinct was to direct attention to others by
speaking of his supposedly mistaken appointments.

Here is the actual transcript of the President’s response:

QUESTIONER: President Bush, during the last four years, you have made
thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three
instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what
you did to correct it. Thank you.

BUSH: I have made a lot of decisions, and some of them little, like
appointments to boards you never heard of, and some of them big.

And in a war, there’s a lot of — there’s a lot of tactical decisions
that historians will look back and say: He shouldn’t have done that. He
shouldn’t have made that decision. And I’ll take responsibility for them. I’m
human.

But on the big questions, about whether or not we should have gone into
Afghanistan, the big question about whether we should have removed somebody in
Iraq, I’ll stand by those decisions, because I think they’re
right.

That’s really what you’re — when they ask about the mistakes, that’s
what they’re talking about. They’re trying to say, “Did you make a mistake going
into Iraq?” And the answer is, “Absolutely not.” It was the right
decision.

The Duelfer report confirmed that decision today, because what Saddam
Hussein was doing was trying to get rid of sanctions so he could reconstitute a
weapons program. And the biggest threat facing America is terrorists with
weapons of mass destruction.

We knew he hated us. We knew he’d been — invaded other countries. We
knew he tortured his own people.

On the tax cut, it’s a big decision. I did the right decision. Our
recession was one of the shallowest in modern history.

Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing
people, but I’m not going to name them. I don’t want to hurt their feelings on
national TV.

(LAUGHTER)

But history will look back, and I’m fully prpared to accept any
mistakes that history judges to my administration, because the president makes
the decisions, the president has to take the responsibility.

The President is following Annika’s advice in this transcript. But I think Dionne is correct that Bush’s lack of reflection is harming him with the undecideds.

The question was a perfect chance for Presdident Bush to address the recent Bremer comments. Bremer’s comments, which unlike so many of the other criticisms leveled by former Bush staffers cannot be obscured by heaping calumny on the messanger, should given even die-hard republicans like Annika and the Maximum Leader pause. Skippy and I wrote about the criminal negligence of the post-war SNAFU awhile ago. But we are little blogger nothings. Bush’s chief Iraq lieutenant has essentially said Bush’s monomaniacal belief about the ease of setting up a democracy flew in the face of advice he was getting from his own people and allowed the insurgency to gather steam. And the President still refuses to face reality.

Does this scare anyone else?

“Staying the course” is not resonating with the American electorate. The longevity of the stupid internet rumor that Bush was conspiring to bring back the draft (aided by his political lackey Rangell of New York) testifies to the deep unease voters feel about the Iraqi war. The American people realize that the Iraqi policy is failing and want to know how we are going to win.

Kerry doesn’t have a coherant plan, other than a fanciful idea that the “allies” will help.

But Bush is pushing voters into Kerry’s arms.

If Bush continues to pretend he is infallible, Americans are going to elect Kerry. And we may be in an even worse mess if our leader is naive enough to believe that his personal magnetism and his quality of not-being-Bush is going to convince France to change policy and act against her own perceived self-interest.

As my father says: a pox on both their houses!

dsfd