Loyal Bushies go soul-searching

October 7, 2007

The caricature of the president’s aides suggests a West Wing full of loyal Bushies who believe their boss is always right, embrace an unnerving denial, and who make their own reality. But what about when some of these staffers leave the White House bubble?

The WaPo’s Peter Baker took a lengthy look today at some longtime Bushies who recently joined the exodus out of the White House, and are now in the midst of some painful soul-searching. Not surprisingly, the disaster in Iraq appears to weigh heavily on their minds.

Meghan O’Sullivan, the former deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, and former Bremer aide, admits that she has nightmares about conditions in Iraq. Peter Wehner, who was White House director of strategic initiatives, says his role in shaping Bush’s war policy has led some of his former friends to stop speaking to him.

More dramatically, Baker quotes one former senior official as saying that “nearly everyone who has left the administration is angry in some way or another — at the president for making bad decisions, at his staff for misguiding him, at events that have spiraled out of control.”

And then there’s Karl Rove.

The truth, he said, is that he really did leave to spend more time with his wife and college-age son, even if that has left him feeling guilty about leaving Bush. “I told the boss, ‘I feel like I’m deserting you in a time of war,’ ” he said. “But you know, my wife is right. My wife is a two-time cancer survivor. How much time can I ask her to wait? I don’t feel sorry for myself.”

This was a recurring theme in the course of an hour-long conversation. He is not depressed, he said more than once. “Hey, man, that was my life,” he said. “It’s not my life now. One of the reasons I don’t think I’m depressed is I’m always looking forward.”

Rove probably didn’t mean it as a concession, but it’s interesting that he avoids depression by not reflecting too much on his White House service. If I were in Rove’s shoes, and I shared in the responsibility for shaping this presidency, I suspect I’d feel the same way.

I’m not sure I see much soul-searching in Baker’s piece.

There is that one guy who says of others that “nearly everyone who has left the administration is angry in some way or another”. But as I read the article, none of the people he talked to at length and quotes extensively sounds particularly angry or anguished. None of them sounds like they’re asking themselves: “Have I been an accomplice to unconscionable things?”

  • May the souls of the dead Americans and Iraqis visit the ‘dreams’ of each of these clowns every night for the rest of their lives.

  • I think Rove is just giving us a line. He’s making it sound great, but he has people to tell him how to make it sound great (i.e., ‘Say that a woman convinced you of something, and women will like you for it’- you all know this guy is cynical, right?), and he has an interest in making it sound great. I think he’s just living to take some fuel out of Democrat ire (yeah, I know the saying is ‘fire,’ I’m just being more literal) and thereby keep the grassroots activists from harping on Bush and all his policies so dedicatedly in front of the voters right up until the next presidential election. It’s great stagecraft.

  • Rove:

    “I told the boss, ‘I feel like I’m deserting you in a time of war…

    Here a deferment.
    There a deferment.
    Everywhere a deferment.

  • In a different time and a different reality, all these assholes would be hanged as war criminals.

  • If I’m supposed to feel some kind of pang of sympathy or feel a tug at my heartstrings now that these people have retrieved their consciences from wherever they abandoned them prior to coming to work for Bush, well, I don’t. I will be more impressed if they decide to work to change the things that are now giving them nightmares, if they decide to spill the beans on things they -only now – know were wrong.

    Otherwise, they can marinate in their recriminations and guilt and nightmares until the the flesh falls off their bones.

  • Karl Rove – the man who would be king, the man who single-handedly screwed up our beloved nation. No, there is no doubt as to why he is thinking forward. To think of what he’s done would be too much for his frail ego. -Kevo

  • Why are they bothering to search for their souls? They all know exactly when and where they sold them, and if they look at fine print at the bottom of the receipts they got from Bush, they should still be able to read, “All sales are final”.

  • If I were a tad less fond of the rule of law, I’d happily recommend the Mussolini retirement model to the lot of them. However, years of legal investigations and trials followed by long jail sentences that they can’t hope to outlive would be satisfactory.

  • How does a dirty trickster without a conscience feel anything. The only way his wife and sone could love him is because he always gave them the line…”Don’t ask me about my business Kate…”. They have no idea what this snake has done and he has a philosophy of lying and manipulation so he certainly isn’t going to tell them anything.
    Who gives a shit if these brown noses suddenly start developing a conscience. She has nightmares about conditions in Iraq…But she isn’t the one who is displaced without a home and whose children aren’t forced into prostitution so they could survive. Whose family and friends have all been murdered. She is not living with 2hrs a day of electricity, with no drinking water. She will never have to live through the real meaning of “shock and awe” where her country is raped by private foreign contractors under the noses of a corrupt government out of control. The Iraqis sleep to escape for a few hrs.their very real nightmare. Unlike those who have had to endure Bush’s policies in Iraq, she can awake from her nightmare.
    If they are ever to relieve this newly developing conscience then let them come forward and expose this administration. Otherwise, there is the torment.

  • In Baker’s article, one of the former Bushies described what the departed are going through is like a 12-step program: they’re going through a series of phases to deal with what they’ve been a part of. I have the feeling it will be more like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ 5 steps of dealing with dying (denial, anger,bargaining,depression and acceptance)

    All of these guys are still in denial (Rove more than others but Rove seems to be using the Tom DeLay tactic of smiling during his mugshot to not let his detractors take satisfaction in his misgivings.) A little anger seems to be coming out as well. As time progresses and it becomes all the more apparent that Iraq is only but the most dramatic failure in an administration packed to the gills with failings, the long knives and mea culpas will begin to come out. There is far too much dirt and mendacity waiting to be exposed for it not to be exposed. The dam will burst one day and Baker’s article shows the waters are beginning to roil already … and Bush isn’t even out of office yet.

  • In most empires, government employees who failed miserably committed suicide. If they aren’t up to years of contrition and work to undo what they have done, this is an easy way to redeem themselves.

    Just a suggestion.

  • ***Loyal Bushies go soul-searching***

    Pod-people usually do. They don’t have souls of their own—so once they’re outside the Bubble, they discover that they cannot function unless they capture a soul or two to sustain them—maybe more, depending on just how cognitively-carnivorous the individual is.

    Rove is a prime example of the ex-Bushylvanian living in the uber-denial realm. He creates his own little mini-Bubble to maintain his sanity and self-guiltlessness. But such a Bubble cannot last forever, because there aren’t enough people inside to keep it propped up. Eventually, every Bubble pops—and with these Bubbles, I think we’ll see a spike in geographic exodae.

    Just like the old Nazis who fled to South America….

  • The WAPO article is interesting with references to some tough opinions about our fearless leader: Bush as “the most-isolated, stupid moron in America today,”

    It must be tough to be one of the men or women that “made” President Bush.

    They cannot successfully cut and run long enough or far enough to get away from this legacy.

    My advice: Get used to it.

  • President Bush’s personnel actions will end up causing the collapse of the Republican Party faster than demographic changes would have cause it. There is not a single former administration staffer or house staffer who can run for federal office as a Republican. The Republicans are left to looking around state governments to find their future candidates.

    Why the pundits should really be writing about is what will politics be like in the U.S. after the Republican Party collapses and there is only one relevant political party.

  • The time to search one’s soul is while making decisions and taking action, not afterward, when it’s too late.

  • Pingback: All Spin Zone » Opening The Files: 10/08/07

  • NOW IS A GOOD TIME FOR ALL TO DO SOME SOUL-SEARCH IN THESE LAST 15 MONTHS BEFORE THE COMING RAPTURE !!!!!

    DON’T BE LEFT BEHIND TO SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIVES…AND ALL OF ETERNITY…WITH PIAPS!!!!

    • Comments are closed.