Americans love humility. They love it when great people are humble. Part of what got W. as far as he has is his self-effacing, aw-shucks act.
At tonight’s carefully staged news conference (if I read between the lines correctly, he had a list of reporters, knew the questions they were going to ask, and had answers prepared…like “Hollywood Squares”), one of the last questions he got (and one which I think he didn’t know ahead of time) was that, in 2000, he said the biggest mistake he ever made was trading Sammy Sosa. But now, post 9/11…what would he say was his biggest mistake?
He couldn’t come up with one.
There was so many things he could have said that would have played well, cost him very little politically, and would perhaps have gone a ways to portray him as someone who learns from his miscalculations. Because it’s the lack of learning curve displayed by this administration that is its most alarming tendency.
He could have said, “I made a mistake in underestimating the levels of evil that a bin Laden would sink to. I pledge to my fellow Americans, I will never make that mistake again.”
Or, “I made a mistake in saying that the mission was accomplished. It’s not yet, but we have to finish it.”
Or, “I made a mistake in my estimation as to the intensity of fighting that continued in Iraq, but we have brave soldiers in the field and we will support them.”
Or, “I made a mistake in giving the country the impression for months on end that I was stonewalling the 9/11 commission.”
Something. Anything. In the words of Doctor Evil, throw us a frickin’ bone.
Nothing. Hundreds of Americans, thousands of Iraqis dead, WMDs still MIA, no clean exit strategy, no clear idea who runs Iraq after June 30, intelligence lapses being investigated…
…and he can’t think of anything in three years that falls under the category of, “Ooops. My bad.”
Whatever happened to the buck stopping at the desk where he sits? Or does that buck permanently rest on the Clinton desk, since Clinton continues to be blamed for whatever’s gone wrong in the past few years.
PAD
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