In advance of the Republican convention, Bush is raising his media profile, doing some interviews with a few national papers today. A discussion with the New York Times produced several interesting tidbits, but two in particular stood out.
First, Bush came awfully close to admitting that he was sorta, kinda, almost wrong about post-war Iraq. I know; I couldn’t believe it either.
Mr. Bush also acknowledged for the first time that he made a “miscalculation of what the conditions would be” in postwar Iraq.
That’s almost an admission of a mistake, isn’t it? And if by “miscalculation,” Bush meant that he had committed one of the biggest foreign policy debacles in American history, then he’s well on his way to acknowledging reality. It’d be quite a breakthrough for the guy.
Second, Bush not only seems confused about global warming; he’s also confused about his own administration’s position on the environmental catastrophe.
Yesterday, the NYT reported:
In a striking shift in the way the Bush administration has portrayed the science of climate change, a new report to Congress focuses on federal research indicating that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades.
In delivering the report to Congress yesterday, an administration official, Dr. James R Mahoney, said it reflected “the best possible scientific information” on climate change. Previously, President Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of warming as a reason for rejecting binding restrictions on heat-trapping gases.
This was a fairly big story that generated considerable attention from the White House press corps. But when Bush was asked directly about his administration’s shift on global warming, his immediate response was, “Ah, we did?”
Also yesterday, Bush briefly praised Kerry’s debating skills, saying Kerry “obviously knows his subject matters.”
Well, at least one of the candidates does.