Reading notes

David Broder’s Sunday WaPo piece has already been much discussed, but I’m noting it here anyway for my own reference as much as anyone else’s.

The factors that make President Bush a vulnerable incumbent have almost nothing to do with his opponent, John F. Kerry. They stem directly from two closely linked, high-stakes policy gambles that Bush chose on his own. Neither has worked out as he hoped.

As Josh notes, this is a milestone because of Broder’s influence, and I think it’s also one because Broder has been no particular cheerleader for Kerry, so this column speaks well of Broder’s journalistic forthrightness and integrity.

The two gambles aka albatrosses:

The first gamble was the decision to attack Iraq; the second, to avoid paying for the war. The rationale for the first decision was to remove the threat of a hostile dictator armed with weapons of mass destruction. The weapons were never found. The rationale for the second decision — the determination to keep cutting taxes in the face of far higher spending for Iraq and the war on terrorism — was to stimulate the American economy and end the drought of jobs. The deficits have accumulated, but the jobs have still not come back. …

This is IMO presidential incompetence no matter how you slice it:

Why call these decisions radical? From World War I right through the Persian Gulf War, the United States had never initiated hostilities or invaded a major country without the provocation of an attack from that country on this nation or its allies. Bush changed that by announcing a new doctrine of “preemptive war” and applying it first to Iraq. …

Long after Hussein was defeated and captured, the American forces occupying Iraq have found no evidence of the supposed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. The rationale for a war that has taken nearly 1,000 American lives, caused several thousand American casualties and cost well over $100 billion does not exist.

It is also my opinion that this foreign policy is not only incompetent, its architects are guilty of Sin with a capital S. I’m not sure that forgiveness — for its architects or its supporters — will even be possible in this generation of world inhabitants: The sin is just too big. (Of course, with God all things are possible, but then only in the presence of repentance.)

Linked to the decision to go to war was the decision not to do what every other wartime American president has done — raise taxes to pay for the cost of hostilities. Instead, in the face of growing annual deficits, Bush continued to press a compliant Republican Congress for more and bigger tax cuts. In 2003, when he asked Congress for $87 billion for Iraq, Bush said, “I heard somebody say, ‘Well, what we need to do is have a tax increase to pay for this.’ That’s an absurd notion. You don’t raise taxes when an economy is recovering. Matter of fact, lower taxes will help enhance economic recovery.

IANE but IMO this isn’t just incompetent, it’s monumentally butt-st*pid when applied to any definition of fiscal responsibility. I care a lot about fiscal responsibility.

Well, now, I see I’ve exhibited evidence as to why Mr. Broder is a national columnist and I’m not: I’m just a wee bit opinionated. Hence I appreciate him all the more.

[also archived at truthout]