I realize Bush’s confidence in his own superiority is obvious, but it’s still amazing to hear that he doesn’t even understand how people could disagree with some of his more controversial positions.
A brief question laden with incredulity foreshadowed George W. Bush’s determination to sell missile defence directly to Canadians and taught Prime Minister Paul Martin that what occurs behind closed doors rarely stays there.
The U.S. president had a pointed question for his host on missile defence: Why would anyone be opposed to this?
Martin, describing the Ottawa discussion a few days later during an impromptu encounter with a handful of reporters, said Canada’s possible participation in the U.S. plan to erect a system aimed at knocking down supersonic missiles was raised during the private meeting Tuesday between the two leaders.
Granted, this is a paraphrase, not an exact quote. Still, as the Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin noted yesterday, Bush’s remarks to Martin “suggest a surprising lack of awareness of American political reality.”
Indeed. Is Bush so out of touch with political debate and discourse that he can imagine missile defense as universally popular? Something that no one should have qualms over? The debate has only been raging in policy circles for 20 years.
And, really, why is it that Bush finds opposition to this boondoggle so hard to understand? His missile defense plan doesn’t work, it’s unnecessary, unworkable, and unsuccessful. It costs far more than Bush said it would and happens to take money away from meaningful counter-terrorism initiatives.
Bush considers this and asks why anyone would be opposed to his plan. The better question, it seems, is why Bush continues to support it.