Bush and the Responsibility of Journalists

The lack of realism that Congressional Republicans bring to the foreign policy failures of the Bush presidency continue to hurt the country; name-calling and blind support are not a policy. Rather than deal with what is a growing foreign policy crisis within the administration, it seems the solution for many Republicans in Congress is to throw more pork barrel at the voters in an effort to buy them off.

If nothing else, it would help the country if more journalists would bring a great deal more realism to our understanding of Bush's failed presidency. Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher has an article on the responsibilities of the press in all this (thanks to Americablog for the link):

So let’s assume, as Nixon might put it, that we do have George Bush to kick around for another almost-three-years. How worried should we be about the possible damage he might inflict -- and what can the press do about it?

Consider Thomas Friedman’s column in The New York Times today, and its implications.

Friedman, who still supports the Iraq war, opens by declaring that given a choice between a nuclear Iran and an attack on that country engineered by the White House, he would choose the former. That’s how little he trusts the diplomatic and military chops of Bush, Rumsfeld, Condi and Co. He cites “the level of incompetence that the Bush team has displayed in Iraq, and its refusal to acknowledge any mistakes or remove those who made them.”

But then he goes on: “I look at the Bush national security officials much the way I look at drunken drivers. I just want to take away their foreign policy driver's licenses for the next three years. Sorry, boys and girls, you have to stay home now -- or take a taxi. ... You will not be driving alone. Not with my car.”

The problem -- the crisis -- is that Bush and Co. likely WILL be driving the “car” for 33 more months.

Friedman knows this: “If ours were a parliamentary democracy, the entire Bush team would be out of office by now, and deservedly so. ... But ours is not a parliamentary system, and while some may feel as if this administration's over, it isn't. So what to do? We can't just take a foreign policy timeout.”

Perfectly said. Again, the crisis, even if he didn’t call it that: “We can’t just take a foreign policy timeout.”

Friedman, however, is very late in doubting the competence of this crew, and he still backs away from the scary wider view. What to do? he asks. He suggests that Rumsfeld depart, of course, and then he gets into specifics of how diplomacy might work re: Iran. That leaves hanging the reality of Bush continuing to serve as Master and Commander of the Iraq war and all other foreign policy into 2009.

Unfortunately, Friedman still has the Jim Reston itch, which is the belief a rational New York Times writer can influence an irrational president; the problem is not Iran or Iraq as enormous as those problems are. The problem is a reckless and incompetent presidency that needs to be reined in. Nothing serious progress in foreign relations can take place until that happens.