{"id":10889,"date":"2007-05-23T13:20:45","date_gmt":"2007-05-23T17:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10889.html"},"modified":"2007-05-23T13:20:45","modified_gmt":"2007-05-23T17:20:45","slug":"the-white-house-is-not-above-the-fray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-white-house-is-not-above-the-fray\/","title":{"rendered":"The White House is not above the fray"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Bartlett, a top Bush aide (Counselor to the President), sat down with the WaPo’s Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza, and the video of their interview is online<\/a> and worth watching, if for no other reason that to marvel at Bartlett’s hackish spinning.<\/p>\n

There were a handful of interesting comments, but here’s one about the war in Iraq that stood out for me.<\/p>\n

“The president understands that this has been a very difficult time for our country, and it makes it even particularly harder when the country is divided — mostly down partisan lines over something that should be a national project, a national endeavor, when you send men and women to war.<\/p>\n

“But that is the situation we’re in today. The president has responsibilities to pursue this in a way that he thinks will best protect the American people. Obviously, there’s going to fundamental disagreements about that. He’s tried to conduct this debate in a more uplifting, forthright way. He’s not attacking people personally through this debate.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s unfold this a bit. Bartlett argues that this is a “difficult time” in the United States, which is exasperated by disagreements over the war. Iraq, he says, should be a “national endeavor.” I had to listen to the clip a few times to make sure I understood him correctly.<\/p>\n

To hear Bartlett tell it, the real<\/i> problem is that Americans don’t all agree on war policy. If only Democrats would have the good sense to agree with everything the president decides, we won’t have so much tension in the country. The argument has a certain child-like quality to it: if we weren’t so divided, we’d be more unified. I can’t argue with logic like that, can you?<\/p>\n

Given this, the White House communications director seems to suggest that Dems should just shut up for the sake of national unity. Wars should be “national endeavors,” which apparently means blindly following along with a tragic policy, no matter how wrong it is.
\n
\nI also loved the notion that the White House is above the fray, engaged in an “uplifting” debate over national security. Please.<\/p>\n

This is, after all, the president who said in 2002 that Senate [tag]Democrats[\/tag] are “not interested in the security of the American people<\/a>” because they disagreed with him on a labor issue, and then refused to apologize. When Dick Durbin questioned the administration’s gulags, Team Bush accused Democrats of being [tag]traitors[\/tag]<\/a>. When [tag]Jack Murtha[\/tag] unveiled a redeployment plan for [tag]Iraq[\/tag], Team Bush said Murtha has endorsed “the policy positions of Michael Moore” and suggested Murtha wants to “surrender to the [tag]terrorists[\/tag]<\/a>.” When [tag]Patrick Leahy[\/tag] questioned no-bid contracts for [tag]Halliburton[\/tag] in Iraq, Bush’s VP told him to go f*** himself<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Who feels “uplifted”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Bartlett, a top Bush aide (Counselor to the President), sat down with the WaPo’s Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza, and the video of their interview is online and worth watching, if for no other reason that to marvel at Bartlett’s hackish spinning. There were a handful of interesting comments, but here’s one about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}