One thing I learned yesterday while taking the LSAT was that no matter how much you practice or study, you just can't ever fully simulate the real thing. Anxiety played a much bigger role than I would have thought. I also experienced a very rare bout of insomnia the night before (at times I thought I just wouldn't sleep the whole night). Anyways, its finally over, and now my future weighs on the kindness of some unknown scantron reader.
Getting back to reality, Friedman is back!!!! After what I think was a 3 month hiatus, he's finally returned to writing his NYT column just in time for the election. In his first column today, he writes a scathing attack on the Bush administration for its handling of Iraq (in his typical Friedmanesque way, he also refuses to portray Kerry as much of a better option).
"What I resent so much is that some of us actually put our personal politics aside in thinking about this war and about why it is so important to produce a different Iraq. This administration never did."
Man, Bush's report card on Iraq continues to decline. Overall, a newsweek poll shows Kerry now up 47% to Bush's 45%. It looks like this year's election could remain "too close to call" for quite a while...but hopefully not as long as 2000's.
I think Friedman's column basically makes the same point I've been making all along: in every area, be it foreign or domestic policy, the Bush administration has a set plan that it follows to a T and that plan in no way, shape or form changes based on current conditions or needs.
In foreign policy, that plan from the first day the administration took office has been to invade Iraq and take out Saddam. Sept. 11 only made it much easier to sell that plan to the American people. But even in selling their plan, the administration has been inconsistent. First it was because Saddam was involved in 9/11. Then that turned out not to be true. Next it was to protect us from WMDs. That also turned out not to be true, so we got a third reason. Now they say they went in to remove an evil dictator. Well, they may have done that, but my question is will the end result be even worse than what the Iraqi's had before? The point is that the Bush administration knew what they would do from the start. All that changes is their reasoning.
On domestic policy it is the same thing. They new they wanted to cut taxes on the rich from their first day, they just needed to figure out how to sell that plan. First they said it was because we had a surplus and needed to give that money back to the people (rather than pay down the debt). Then it was because we had a recession and we needed to jumpstart the economy. I'm not an economist but it seems to me that it would make sense to at least slightly change your economic policy depending on the conditions of the economy. But that's not what Bush did. He had his plan, and whatever else was going on he was determined to find a way to sell it.
The point is that while Bush's ability to convince the American people of his plans regardless of what else is going on in the world or in the economy probably makes Bush among the greatest politicians in modern times, it makes him a horrific leader. No good leader refuses to even consider changing policy based on new conditions.
While Kerry may not be the greatest politician, and while he may waffle a bit, there is no doubt that be will be far better than Bush since he will be willing to look at an issue and adjust his policies to current conditions rather than letting conditions determine how he will sell his already prescibed policies.
Posted by: Dave | Sunday, October 03, 2004 at 10:34 AM