Our perfect president does he honestly believe he hasn't made any mistake

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Ellen Goodman
Washington Post Writers Group
04.16.04




Our perfect president
Political bluster? Or does he honestly believe he hasn't made any mistakes?
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16779



Of course, if he needs a little help, I'm happy to share a few of the greatest hits from his bloopers reel. Mistakes? Howsabout them weapons of mass destruction? Howsabout the persistent links to nuclear weapons? Howsabout the connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11? Howsabout the "Mission Accomplished" speech or the idea that Iraqis would see us as liberators not occupiers? Anyone hear an "oops"?


In the aftermath, many called the president's refusal to admit mistakes a savvy political strategy: strong men never say they're sorry. But I think there's something much more chilling going on. He truly doesn't believe he made any mistakes.


Last year, we launched a pre-emptive, unilateral war (OK, there are 60 New Zealanders, 230 Nicaraguans and 27 soldiers from Kazakhstan, etc.) on the explicit grounds that Saddam was an imminent threat to our nation. Now the moral justification for this war has simply, seamlessly and without explanation morphed from defending ourselves to "changing the world."


The president said that even if he'd known then what he knows today, he would still have invaded Iraq. In an honest, passionate moment he proclaimed, "Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom. ...That is what we have been called to do, as far as I'm concerned."



When another reporter asked the president how he got "it" -- the WMDs, our welcome as liberators -- so wrong, Bush stumbled again. Wrong isn't on his answer sheet because he's conflated two definitions of the same word: the wrong that's "incorrect" and the wrong that's "immoral." And if what he's done is moral it cannot be a mistake.