I’ve long assumed that “loyal Bushies” get wrapped up in the inevitable groupthink that happens while working inside the White House bubble, but then get a dose of reality upon re-entering the real world. I’d always hoped that this transition is a helpful one for former presidential aides — they stop drinking the Kool Aid, and start to notice the real world (and why Bush is the least popular president in the modern era).
Alas, that’s not really the case. Bush aides are True Believers before, during, and after their White House service. Take, for example, former Bush counselor Dan Bartlett.
In a bizarre interview with Texas Monthly, Bartlett, a member of Bush’s inner-circle since his gubernatorial days, thinks the media did a fine job before the war in Iraq, and is overcompensating for perceived failures.
TM: Have the media been too tough on him?
DB: I think White House correspondents have been tagged, unfairly, with not being tough enough on the administration and President Bush in the run-up to the war. If you go back and look, they asked all the right questions. The problem is, they’re acting now like they have to be five times more critical, and I think they’ve gone overboard.
TM: You think they’re overcompensating.
DB: Yes, I do. This issue of “Bush lied, people died”? It’s been the mantra for the last four years: “If only the right questions had been asked back then, we would have found out that he was lying to us.” That’s false — it’s patently false.
It’s very hard to say what could have happened if the media had shown some semblance of skepticism in the run up to war in 2002 and 2003, but there was evidence that the White House was cherry-picking the intelligence that reinforced what it wanted to do anyway — launch a war. Reporters didn’t “ask all the right questions,” which most of the media now realizes.
But it’s Bartlett’s affection for far-right blogs that’s most amusing of all.
After exploring whether the White House prefers a Washington Post print reporter or a Washington Post blogger, we got this exchange:
TM: Yeah, or what if [conservative blogger] Hugh Hewitt called?
DB: That’s when you start going, “Hmm . . .” Because they do reach people who are influential.
TM: Well, they reach the president’s base.
DB: That’s what I mean by influential. I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on. (emphasis added)
TM: Dispel the myth that there’s an underground tunnel between the Fox News studios and the White House.
DB: Um, no, quite the contrary. I’ll tell you, I probably got more complaints from various Fox News programs about not getting the type of access they deserved. Now, there are exceptions to that. Vice President Cheney’s done a lot with them. But I think they were treated pretty equally across the board.
That’s actually pretty hilarious. Bartlett’s preferred outlets are online sycophants who don’t think about what they’re told at all.
Better yet, as Kevin Drum noted, “What makes this especially precious is that it comes right before Bartlett argues that the Bush White House didn’t really treat Fox News any better than any other news outlet. So the right-wing blogosphere now has a new motto: Even more credulous and slavish than Fox News. It’s a proud moment for them.”