Realism Vs Bushism

I got a kick out of Joe Scarborough's "Is Bush an Idiot" segment last week on MSNBC. Since I've mostly given up Pundit TV in order to preserve what remains of my dignity and sanity, I didn't catch it until a day or so later when I found the clip and transcript posted over on Crooks and Liars. I can only surmise that the people who believe this man is intellectually qualified to be president have incredibly low expectations for their elected officials. But I digress...

Today, David Weigel, who is filling in for a vacationing Andrew Sullivan, picked up on a WaPo feature that mentions the Scarborough country segment in the context of pundits abandoning Bush over Iraq. Like David, what really caught my eye from the article is the White House response about realism:

Bush aides were bothered by a George F. Will column last week mocking neoconservative desires to transform the Middle East: "Foreign policy 'realists' considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists' critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved."

The White House responded with a 2,432-word rebuttal -- three times as long as the column -- e-mailed to supporters and journalists. "Mr. Will's kind of 'stability' and 'realism' -- a kind of world-weary belief that nothing can be done and so nothing should be tried -- would eventually lead to death and destruction on a scale that is almost unimaginable," wrote White House strategic initiatives director Peter H. Wehner.

It seems to me that three schools of thought prevailed after 9/11. One group of folks began hyperventilating in recognition of their own vulnerability and demanded that the government do something, anything, to make them feel safer. I know a lot of really smart people who fall into this category and while I empathize with their fear, I've always sort of thought of them as Wilma and Betty types screaming for a clueless Fred and Barney to DON'T JUST STAND THERE, DO SOMETHING! in the face of some situational danger. This is the neocon base -- willing to chuck the constitution on a whim, support the twisting logic of a foreign policy based on shifting objectives, and engage in a war they hope will make them feel strong and victorious again.

The second school ranges from ridiculously cavalier about 9/11 to harboring an insane belief that it was all just a government conspiracy.

The third school are the realists who acknowledge that evil people exist and have always existed, that terrorism is as old as asymmetrical warfare itself, that every action has consequences and unintended consequences, that risks need to be identified, analyzed, and mitigated, that small actions do not equate to weakness, and that sound strategy means outplaying your opponent 10 moves ahead. The idea that only big, bold moves will achieve an objective is dangerous. Big, bold moves are not inherently bad but they do tend to carry big, bold risks and if those risks aren't well understood then you're likely going to create a situation worse than the one you're trying to resolve in the first place.

Which brings us back to Scarborough's original question -- is Bush an idiot? I'm sure Bush is a great guy to have a beer with and share funny, embellished stories about characters with nicknames like "Brownie", "Turdblossom", and "Pootie Poot". I'm sure he loves his family, his God, and his country. But Bush isn't just a guy to have a beer with... he is the leader of the free world and he has applied some neocon theories that, judging by the outcomes, have been tempered with very little critical thought. This makes him worse than an idiot in my book... this makes him dangerous.