The Pre-Blame Game
By TIMOTHY EGAN
NYT
In the icy last days of a year that can’t pass fast enough, the departing president is looking for shelter from the storm of his hubris, while the incoming one is trying to keep that same load from burying him.
Soon enough, the mess will be all Barack Obama’s. But in the holiday interregnum, the winter air is thick with excuses at the White House no-regret fest. The president has given 10 exit interviews, spinning an unnecessary war, the shredding of the Bill of Rights and an epic run of economic negligence as bold action taken with Churchillian fortitude.
No doubt the Weather Channel is waiting in the wings for his revision of Hurricane Katrina.
A little polishing of history is natural for a valedictory. And if President Bush had just gone off to quiet moral smugness at Crawford, where he has spent 485 days during his presidency, we could be done with him. But nooooo!
The ineptitude-by-design that led to war in Iraq? He blamed it on bad intelligence, much of it from “prior to my arrival in Washington.”
(More here.)
NYT
In the icy last days of a year that can’t pass fast enough, the departing president is looking for shelter from the storm of his hubris, while the incoming one is trying to keep that same load from burying him.
Soon enough, the mess will be all Barack Obama’s. But in the holiday interregnum, the winter air is thick with excuses at the White House no-regret fest. The president has given 10 exit interviews, spinning an unnecessary war, the shredding of the Bill of Rights and an epic run of economic negligence as bold action taken with Churchillian fortitude.
No doubt the Weather Channel is waiting in the wings for his revision of Hurricane Katrina.
A little polishing of history is natural for a valedictory. And if President Bush had just gone off to quiet moral smugness at Crawford, where he has spent 485 days during his presidency, we could be done with him. But nooooo!
The ineptitude-by-design that led to war in Iraq? He blamed it on bad intelligence, much of it from “prior to my arrival in Washington.”
(More here.)
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