George W. Bush began his presidency promising to be an heir to the glimmering world (thanks, Cynthia Ozick). Instead, whatever Bush touches, turns into base metal and dust. This reverse Midas touch of G.W.B. points not only to his incompetence but also a peculiarly insular regime where the leader of the free world is often kept out of the loop in important matters by his overprotective handlers. I wonder why. Is it because they don't want to burden him with adverse or complicated news or could it be that they know the President is unlikely to have any answers?
From his first bewildered "My Pet Goat" moment on 9/11/2001, we have seen instances of presidential cluelessness again and again in matters large and small. The boastful "shock and awe" of the Iraq war has turned into a quagmire with a steady downward pull. The brain behind the neo-cons' vision of spreading democracy, Francis Fukuyama has questioned the means and methods of the Iraqi misadventure. Now the conservative patrician William F. Buckley is asking Bush to acknowledge defeat in Iraq . Then there were Katrina, Brownie, crumbling levees and trapped citizens in New Orleans while the president vacationed in Crawford. Cheney shot a hunting partner in the face and did not inform his boss for more than 24 hours. We have now learnt that the proposed ports contract with the UAE which has raised a bipartisan hue and cry, was finalized without Bush's knowledge. And he is the self described "national security president". As Bush leaves for a high profile and strategically important visit to India, he is mired in a useless controversy over a minor commercial deal about which he knew little but over which he threatened to exercise his first presidential veto - once more proving to the nation that our man at the top is shallow, impetuous, brash and mostly uninformed. Jim Hoagland of Washington Post asks, "Once again we turn from weighty matters to ask: What did this president not know and when did he not know it?"
"The president embarks this week on a journey to India that should be a foreign policy high point for his second term. The visit has been meticulously and imaginatively prepared. Instead, it may well be eclipsed in national attention by the guffaws, sneers and blatant disrespect this White House has both allowed and encouraged to flourish with its bumbling responses to controversies big and small.
This should be a week of foreign policy high fives or even hosannas for Bush. Instead he is likely to be slipping and sliding on the banana peels his chief White House aides leave strewn in his path. That's reason enough to cry over Dubai."
Last week I was in New Delhi at the same time that Bill Clinton was visiting India. Clinton attended a lavish Indian wedding, lunched with the Indian Prime Minister and met with doctors and scientists of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to talk about HIV - AIDS research. In India where Bill Clinton is still far more popular, George Bush will be under heavy security and isolated. His Indian sojourn will last three days, the longest of all his foreign visits so far. He will NOT go to see the Taj Mahal (did he consult with Laura on this one?) and will give a speech at dusk from the ramparts of the magnificent 17th century Red Fort in Old Delhi. But he will not address the Indian parliament where some members of the leftist political groups plan to protest his policies. Given the recent bird flu scare in India, I wonder if he will be served tandoori chicken at the state banquet. With G.W.B's propensity for chit chat, perhaps during his meeting with the intelligent and mild mannered Indian PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the subject of children might come up (both are fathers of daughters). I don't know if Bush will regale Manmohan Singh with the latest antics of Barbara and Jenna Bush, but I am sure Dr. Singh will be reluctant to discuss the activities of his own youngest daughter Amrit Singh (sorry, subscription link to Wall Street Journal) with the US President. Perhaps Mr. Bush will stay away from the topic of first daughters after all. This time his handlers may have warned him about the embarrassment such cozy family talk may engender.
"Last month, American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Amrit Singh fired one of her trademark zingers at the Bush administration: New documents obtained from the Pentagon suggested senior U.S. officials are to blame for the systemic abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, she said.
"These documents confirm that the torture of detainees and its subsequent cover-up was part of a larger clandestine operation, in all likelihood, authorized by senior government officials," Ms. Singh charged in an ACLU news release. "Despite mounting evidence...not a single high level official has thus far been brought to justice."
Ms. Singh's dogged pursuit of U.S. government information has subjected the Bush administration to withering criticism of its treatment of suspected terrorists.
But among the ironies of the post-Sept. 11 world is the fact that this particular critic of the Bush administration is also the relative of one of its newest friends. Amrit, 36 years old, is the youngest daughter of Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India. Mr. Singh, 73 years old, will host President Bush at a summit in New Delhi early next month."
Note: Thanks to Menesh Patel for the WSJ link about Ms Singh which opened for me but will not on the blog post.
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