Politics: President expresses regret
Clinton expresses regret in Rwanda:"I express regret for my personal failure," he said before touring the museum. "I think it faithfully, honestly, painfully presents the truth of the Rwandan genocide," he told reporters after seeing the museum which his Clinton Foundation partially funded.
I just can't see Bush doing this in 8 years, touring Iraq and apologizing for personal failures. I'm not saying Iraq is Rwanda or genocide, but I think it's sad that I live in a world where it is truly shocking to hear a president admit a mistake. Anyway, if anyone wants to put money on the whole Bush regret thing just let me know. I'll even give you 10 years and 2 to 1 odds.
6 comments:
I think I would take you up on it. The reason the President doesn't apologize is that he knows the Democrats will attempt to expand any of his mistakes into an impeachment or damaging scandal.
Ten years from now, there will be no Democrats to try to bring down his long-past Presidency. They'll have someone else to try to destroy (as for having their own platform and positive agenda, we'll see :P).
Under those circumstances, I think he'll feel more comfortable expressing regret -- although not necessarily for Iraq. Bush's reluctance to admit mistake is part a) a reflection that he doesn't have regret on the big issues of his Presidency, and b) how he's dealing with the politically-needy, scandal-hungry, opportunistic opposition party.
I'm not sure why Bush would express regret for anything in his presidency, as most of his policies are based on expectations of the future and basically ignore current problems. How good or bad the Iraq war goes in the short term is absolutely irrelevant, since presumably twenty years from now they'll have a stable democratic government. How the economy does in the short term doesn't matter at all, because twenty years from, lower tax rates will have created sufficient growth to make the problems of today the problems of the past.
It's not a particulary dishonorable approach to a presidency, it's almost commendable. The problem is of course that the cost of being wrong could be incredibly severe if, speculatively, many lives are lost trying to stabilize an untameable region, or if years of budget cuts lead to forced cuts in public programs which leads to poverty of wealth, education, and health care.
The Clinton presidency focused on tweaking rather than upheaving, which makes an apology make sense. If I would have done A, B would not have happened. I'm not sure that could ever be said for Bush's presidency. If I did not invade Iraq, then Mars wouldn't have nuked Jupiter. Just doesn't work as well as the Rwanda analogy.
and also, clinton has made this apology several times before, on larry king, and in his biography. and probably sometime when don cheadle showed up on his doorstep.
Amazing! A former president's admission of failure is spun into a criticism of the current president.
This is so beyond blind bias, my head is spinning.
I guess all of these responses have demonstrated that my post is not based on a well reasoned justifiable criticism of Bush, except to say that he isn't Clinton. I think most Dem's in my generation idealize and idolize Clinton and miss the time he was in the Whitehouse. I've had Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush while I'm alive. And I guess I'd rather have a middle-of-the-road, wishy-washy, fuck-an-intern-in-the-oval-office-and
-then-lie-about-it President then a "fuck the rest of the world", "kill anyone I perceive as a possible terrorist or related to a possible terrorist", and "I'll never admit I'm wrong because then the terrorists win" President. I want a human being in the Whitehouse.
I love anonymous posters. Yes, dickhead, we're biased. I hope when your head stops spinning that you don't puke up that last remaining brain cell that prompted your comment.
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