I’ve noted on several recent occasions that the [tag]Bush[/tag] [tag]White House[/tag] seems to be quickly losing [tag]conservative[/tag] columnist [tag]George Will[/tag], but I think it’s safe to say Will has officially been driven over the edge.
In today’s column, Will emphasized a point I raised last week: John Kerry’s mocked approach to combating terrorism — emphasizing intelligence gathering and law enforcement — was right, and Bush’s notion is wrong. But what seems to annoy Will most is the administration’s response to the problem, which he said “denied the obvious.”
A senior [tag]administration[/tag] official told The Weekly Standard, “The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren’t for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It’s like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn’t work.” To which Will responded:
This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the [tag]delusional[/tag]. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike “the law enforcement approach,” does “work.”
The official is correct that it is wrong “to think that somehow we are responsible — that the actions of the jihadists are justified by U.S. policies.” But few outside the fog of paranoia that is the blogosphere think like that. It is more dismaying that someone at the center of government considers it clever to talk like that. It is the language of foreign policy — and domestic politics — unrealism.
The gratuitous shot at blogs notwithstanding, Will argued, in effect, that the Bush administration’s approach to combating terrorism is entirely backwards, and its explanation for failure is incoherent. For a high-profile conservative media figure, who helps shape the conventional wisdom, that’s a pretty significant observation.
As Glenn Greenwald put it:
If George Will can come out and say that John Kerry was right about how best to approach terrorism and the Bush approach does nothing but increases it, then perhaps we can soon reach the point where national journalists will understand that there is nothing “strong” about wanting more and more wars, and nothing “weak” about opposing warmongering and advocating more substantive, rational and responsible methods for combating terrorism.
And I’d just add, as I’m inclined to do, that George Will has quickly become one of the leading conservative Bush critics in the national media. Last month, in a surprisingly hard-hitting column, Will decried the prospect of another war in the Middle East pushed by the neocons and executed by incompetent administration officials.
It was hardly an oddity. In May, Will blasted the whole notion of “values voters.” Last fall, Will was unusually candid in questioning Bush’s competence. Earlier this year, Will took on some of the GOP rhetoric on tax exemptions and misplaced moralizing. Not long after, Will gave a rather scathing assessment of the president’s energy policy. And when it comes to the war in Iraq, Will has described it as “untenable,” compared it to Vietnam, and said the war could “unmake” Bush’s presidency.
It’s almost as if Will is looking at what the Bush gang has done to conservative thought in the 21st century and wants to make clear, “I’m not with these guys.”