As part of my ongoing fascination with the oddly anti-Bush articles appearing in Insight magazine, an off-shoot of Sun Myung Moon’s far-right Washington Times, the latest issue suggests the hands-off president has reached a point in which he’s delegating almost everything.
President Bush has decided to stay out of the lion’s share of decisions made by his administration.
Sources close to the administration said that over the last year, Mr. Bush has chosen to focus on two issues, leaving the rest to be decided by Cabinet members and senior aides. They said the issues are Iraq and the Republican congressional campaign in the 2006 elections.
“Lots of important issues that deal with national security are never brought to the president because he doesn’t want to deal with them,” a source familiar with the White House said. “In some cases, this has resulted in chaos.” […] The sources said Mr. Bush’s lack of involvement on most issues has led to numerous errors in judgment.
On the substantive issue, this article suggests the president is unengaged on a variety of key issues, and his lack of “leadership” has undercut White House effectiveness. Given what we’ve seen of Bush, this is hardly persuasive. Hasn’t our CEO President always delegated the details? Is there any evidence that the Bush gang’s judgment is better when the president is making key decisions on his own?
As my friend Michael J.W. Stickings noted, the country very well may be better off with in dealing with crises such as the war in Iraq if Bush “were to disengage and delegate.”
Nevertheless, the Insight article’s general tone is one of criticism. The piece describes a dysfunctional White House process and a president who can’t be bothered to deal with the details of governing.
For those keeping score at home, this is the sixth Insight article in just the past few months that casts the Bush gang in an unflattering light. Two weeks ago, it was a piece on Cheney becoming a political liability who will be thrown overboard after the midterm elections. Two weeks before that, it was “the largest crackdown in decades against whistleblowers in government.” The week before, it was an item on Karl Rove threatening to “blacklist” any Republican who goes against the president on warrantless-wiretaps. In January, Insight quoted “administration sources” talking about internal turmoil at the Bush White House. In November, Insight ran an item explaining that Bush has become melancholy and paranoid.
I know I’ve been on this for a while, but this seems like a terrific idea for an expose for anyone with contacts in Moonie circles. We are, after all, talking about the far-right Washington Times’ “sister publication,” which keeps publishing pieces that make Bush look bad.
I’m glad, but I can’t figure it out.