I Have a Finger I’d Like to Point…
May 27th, 2008 by Wil Robinson
It is beyond ironic how politicians (especially neo-cons) avidly promote “personal responsibility” yet accept so little in their own lives.
The mantra of personal responsibility is used as both a method and justification for all sorts of social issues: welfare, employment, health insurance, wages, family planning, education, housing…the list could go on.
This fits neatly with the conservative/neo-conservative plan for bettering America - you know the one - about “pulling oneself up by their bootstraps” and “taking initiative” and “rags to riches” and “you reap what you sow” (unless what you have sown is ill-advised U.S. foreign policy, in which case to suggest you reap anything is un-American and treasonous).
Yet for all their praise of personal responsibility, key members of our government - most recently those with direct involvement in the Iraq War - refuse any personal responsibility.
When something goes wrong, everyone runs for the exit with fingers pointed at whoever is left. When the lights go out on the Bush presidency and everyone has left the dance hall, who will Dubya and Darth Cheney point to as they leave in January? The voters?
It began when Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism adviser in the National Security Council, watched two of the tallest buildings in America crumble. The man charged with figuring out how to stop terrorism…did not. So what did he do? Did he accept responsibility and resign, noting he had failed his president, his agency, and the American people? No, he wrote a book and pointed fingers.
Not my fault, Clarke claimed. It was Bush. It was Cheney. It was Rice. I’m just a loyal American who tried my best to serve my country.
Paul O’Neill, former Treasury secretary, piled on in 2004 when he collaborated with Ron Suskind in the book The Price of Loyalty. Perhaps slighted at being forced to resign in 2002 after he opposed the president’s tax cuts, O’Neill pointed the finger at Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others for a culture of information manipulation.
Not my fault, O’Neill claimed. It was Bush. It was Cheney. It was Rumsfeld. Anyone but me. I’m just a loyal American who tried my best to serve my country.
Paul Bremer, the man perhaps most responsible for the on-the-ground chaos in post-invasion Iraq, tried to shirk responsibility for several colossal blunders. After disbanding the Iraqi army (and throwing 500,000+ soldiers into unemployment and the arms of the growing insurgency), Bremer allegedly saw the light near the end of his rule and requested more troops. According to Bremer’s 2006 book My Year in Iraq, this request - and other suggestions - was denied because it was out of his hands.
Not my fault, Bremer claimed. It was Bush. Rumsfeld. Cheney. The generals. I’m just a loyal American…
The blame game doesn’t end. Ari Fleischer, one of Bush’s top propaganda voices, wrote his own book Taking Heat where he blames the press for making everything seem negative. Fleischer is unable to cope with his own lies as White House press secretary, and tries to spin the truth once more in his memoir. All the mumbo-jumbo about Iraq’s WMDs and nuclear ambition - it was the press’s fault for not being patriotic enough and supporting the war.
Not my fault, Fleischer claimed. It was the press. I’m just a loyal American…
Last year, former CIA Director George Tenet published his memoir At the Center of the Storm. He said Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, and other administration officials cherry-picked the intelligence. Apparently, Tenet had been telling the administration all along that the WMDs probably did not exist. But no one listened to him (of course, he didn’t express these doubts to the media or the American public and instead stood by while a war was waged on that faulty intelligence).
Not my fault, Tenet claimed. No one listened to me. It was Wolfowitz, Pearle, and those neo-con hawks. I’m just a loyal American…
Just a couple months ago, Ret. Gen. Richard Sanchez - the general who was in charge of Iraq when human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib were occurring - released his book Wiser In Battle: A Soldier’s Story. A life-long military service member who watched as low-level peons were jailed for 10+ years for snapping photos of abuses that were widespread and ignored by superiors, Sanchez is clear about where the problem lies.
Not my fault, Sanchez claimed. It was Rumsfeld. It was Cheney. I’m just a loyal American…
Douglas Feith, one of the masterminds of the collection of faulty intelligence in the propaganda campaign that convinced Americans Iraq was going to nuke the world, released a book a few months ago, War and Decision. He ignores the significant role of his own faulty intelligence and says his work was “undercut” by administration officials that failed to plan for a post-war Iraq. Apparently, his role was only to foment a war, not wage it.
Not my fault, Feith claimed. It was Colin Powell. It was Tommy Franks. It was Paul Bremer. I’m just a loyal American…
Which brings us to the latest entry - What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception - by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan. McClellan says Bush relied on propaganda to sell the war and that the press was too easy on the intelligence (well, duh). At least McClellan is original. Rather than point the finger at a person, he blames a noun. His own role as chief propaganda regurgitator seems not to matter. After all, don’t shoot the messenger…
Not my fault, McClellan claimed. It was propaganda. I’m just a loyal American…
For all the American political bluster about accepting personal responsibility and the power of the individual, government officials all seem to be eager to write a memoir and absolve themselves of responsibility when it comes to the war. With so many apparently “dissenting” voices that we are now told existed in the White House from 2001 to 2006, one wonders how the invasion of Iraq was ever allowed to happen. Is the American public going to stand by while everyone who talked us into this war slips out the back door?
Coming in 2009: Why Americans Suck: The True Story of how American Voters Caused World War III, by George W. Bush.
Not my fault, Bush will claim. It was the voters who allowed this all to happen. I’m just a loyal American who tried my best…
Tags: not my fault, sanchez, Bush, War of Misinformation, sell-out
Nice piece, I just saw Douglas Feith peddling his book on CNN.
Amen to that. The codicil to that is, anyone who blams the Administration is immediately written off as a “disgruntled former employee.” Remember when this was supposed to be the administration of “accountability”? What a joke.
i love it …. brilliant….am i a patriat???…
The finger I’ve got is NOT pointing AT them.
BT-
Neither is mine…and it’s a very specific finger.