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Classics of Liberal Thinking

By Rob Kall

OpEdNews.Com

At today's press conference, Bush reported he was "comforted" to hear that 70 CIA investigations were under way. Obviously, in hindsight, that wasn't good enough. The world is filled with failed leaders-- generals with troops dead on the battlefield, CEOs of defunct businesses, former CEO's fired by boards aiming to staunch the bleeding. They all gave similar answers. "I didn't see a problem." "things seemed to be going just fine." "I was comfortable with what was already being done."

True leaders take a situation like the PDB reported and ask questions like:

Is everything being done to protect the nation?

As there an organized effort to coordinate the 70 investigations.

Are there patterns emerging? Who's on top of this?

If this has been going on, why am I getting this report now" What is different now?

What are those 70 investigations investigating?

What are we doing to make sure that all possible intelligence is coming to the attention of the people running the coverage of Al Qaeda?

What's Ashcroft doing?

What actions should we take based on this report? What next steps.

What assessments are being used to determine further developments and further threats?

Those are a good batch, for starters. These are the kinds of questions that effective, dynamic, successful leaders ask. When Bush was answering questions today, he looked like a deer in the headlights, saying he was comfortable, reporting that he was satisfied that things were covered. This is the kind of attitude that a failed leader takes. Then again, Bush was a failed CEO, rescued by a family friend, at Harkin Energy.

Now we have a clueless, incompetent who is clearly NOT a leader, not a person who can put two separate pieces of information together in his head, let alone integrate all the complicated elements that an effective leader will have to digest in making the tough decisions that will be necessary in dealing with the disaster that is Iraq.

It is tragic that we have over 130,000 troops in Iraq, marooned by an incompetent leader who has no idea what to do next, who is advised by neocon fanatics who were obsessed by the desire to take over Iraq then, and who would now like to move on to battling Syria and Iran. And surely, just as they had no competent plans on how to win the peace in Iraq, how to move it from a dictatiorship to a recovering shell-shocked democracy, these neocons have no plans on how to deal with a conquered Syria or Iran.

Back in August, 2001, Bush the non-leader, was depending on counsel from Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, and a host of other members of the Project for A New American Century. And these advisors, we now know, were fanatically interested in one thing only-- attacking Iraq. And this was something that George could resonate with-- an opportunity to finish the job his Dad started, an opportunity to get the guy who tried to kill his father.

Dealing with Al Qaeda was not a primary part of the plan. It did not fit in to the goals of Bush and his obsessed team. Clarke says they weren’t concerned enough, that at least the Clinton people met regularly to deal with it. Right wingers want to blame 911 on CLinton, but 911 didn’t happen on Clinton’s watch. On Clinton’s watch, no successful major terrorist attack within the US was successfully implemented.

On Bush’s watch, the gates that Clinton had kept up, preventing any major terrorist attacks in the US, came down. Distracted by Iraq, by tax cut legislation and efforts to put ultra-right wing judges in place, the Bush team failed America. Bush clearly failed as a leader, as did his team, led by Condoleeza Rice.