One of the more astonishing notions being expressed by certain people these days is that President Bush has only recently "gotten out in front" of the idea to create a Department of Homeland Security. It's hard to suppress a heavy, Al Gore-sized sigh in response. Talk about short memories...
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Let's try to straighten this silliness out.
Bush proposed this idea in the first place. Then he appointed Tom Ridge to a vague and undefined position as "Director" of Homeland Security, because he could not, obviously, be Secretary of a department that did not yet exist. Since Ridge is not Secretary of anything right now, he's been treated like an advisor.
Last week, Bush finally unveiled an enormous, detailed plan that he, Ridge, Card, and others in the administration had been working on for months: a sweeping government reform package that would create the department he had proposed creating in the wake of 9/11.
Until the unveiling, the White House had expressed bland, lukewarm responses to proposals for creating the department. Democrat-leaning pundits viewed the lack of enthusiasm to these proposals as an opportunity to bash the President as vacillating--and, frequently, to elevate Democrats like Joe Lieberman who were floating plans of their own.
But it should be obvious now why the White House had been so lukewarm: it wanted a chance to build a plan quietly, without the petty politicking and turf wars that might sabotage it before it was even finished. Anyone who understands much about Washington knows this makes perfect sense.
Meanwhile, various pundits who had been criticizing the administration for not getting anything done on the issue are now sniffing at the result as if it's stupid or irrelevent--even though they never gave any hint that very similar but far less specific plans by members of congress were pointless.
Ara Rubyan over at Postmodern Politics seems to find comments by such shallow pundits relevant, and to only want to give the President "partial credit" for "backing" his own idea. Apparently, Bush is only just now getting in front of the parade--the parade he started, you mean?
One thing's pretty clear to me: no matter who is President, there will always be some people who will never give him fair credit for almost anything. That's politics for you, whether it's pre, post, or in-between.
Dean:
Below is a brief recap of a longer piece from Jonathan Alter of MSNBC.com
http://www.msnbc.com/news/763432.asp?0dm=C17RO
It seems to refute your points.
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[Bush's new plan] resembles the plan recommended in early 2001 by the Hart-Rudman Commission on Homeland Security, co-chaired by former Sens. Gary Hart, a Colorado Democrat, and Warren Rudman, a New Hampshire Republican.
But don’t expect the White House to admit that.
According to Hart, it took Hart and Rudman five
long months after September 11 even to get a
meeting with Tom Ridge. How pathetic.
In 95: Hart approached Clinton with the idea of a commission. No response.
In 98, Gingrich was receptive so Clinton appointed
the commission.
99: preliminary conclusion warning of terrorist
attacks on USA. Result? Ho-hum.
Jan 2001: Final report: http://www.nssg.gov./
recommends a cabinet level department
Rove hates Rudman. Result: report ignored.
May 2001: Rep. Mac Thornberry, Republican of Texas, took Hart-Rudman seriously. He offered legislation proposing a Cabinet-level department of homeland security. But Bush said that reorganization was “premature” and asked Vice President Cheney to report back to him on the matter. Translation? Don't call us, we'll call you.
No calls came. Cheney says today that he was just about to act when the terrorists struck on September 11. The best evidence that this is untrue is that the administration barely even acted afterward.
Homeland Security was NOT a cabinet level department; it was powerless from the start to control money or knock heads together. Ridge had no executive level power of his own.
Not hard to understand why ... conservatives ("Rove") hate big government.
Bush said repeatedly that he opposed a Cabinet-level agency, and he opted for a tepid homeland security plan recommended by Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, a GOP loyalist. The results were predictable. While the war in Afghanistan went well, the effort to secure American borders fell short.
The White House says that it has been planning its announcement for weeks, and simply moved it up from July.
Perhaps so, but it looks more like old-fashioned damage control.
If this had been in the works so long, why was FBI Director Robert Mueller allowed to step out with an FBI reform plan? Normally, the president speaks first when it comes to sweeping reorganization of this kind.
More likely, Bush finally recognized that he made a mistake, and moved this week to correct it.
In the end, Bush gets credit for the effort. But let's not say he did it willingly.
Let's be clear about something: Alter isn't a reporter. He is a columnist who makes his living delivering opinions from a left-wing perspective. Note that this is not my opinion, it's how his employer, the Washington Post, describes him.
Not that being a lefty columnist makes him a liar. But let's be clear that he's sharing little here but his opinions and speculation, from a perspective that is admittedly anti-Bush from the git-go. That doesn't make him wrong, of course.
Whatever his merits as a human being, he's apparently never gotten much training in critical thinking. That entire (very silly) piece could be a classroom study project in logical fallacies: non-sequitur, amphiboly, ad hominem, and denying the antecedent just to name a few. And all in just a few short paragraphs. A masterful job, indeed.
I especially liked the whole business of talking about Bush's pre-9/11 attitude as if it explains his post-9/11 actions. Best example of amphiboly and the good old-fashioned sidestep I've seen in months.
Once again, let's try to cut through the silliness:
Prior to 9/11, the Bush Administration (like the Clinton administration before it) was lukewarm on the idea of a homeland security department. Only a certan breed of conservative, a small group of Republicans and a very few Democrats, thought it was a good idea. After 9/11, just about everyone's views changed. Bush proposed creating a cabinet-level officer in charge of homeland security. He appointed an initial person to start the process, spent months quietly working on a plan with Ridge and others out of the public eye, and finally released it.
Bush is, of course, not the originator of ideas like this; Presidents very rarely are. What Bush gets credit for is putting the idea on the map post-9/11, and for working hard to make it happen since making the proposal. His quiet work on it, and his team's highly disciplined focus on keeping that work out of the public eye (even out of the eyes of many members of the administration), was a political masterstroke. It's also yet another (among many) pieces of proof that Bush is far more interested in getting things done than glorifying himself.
Alter is a very silly man, as are most of Bush's critics these days. Does it say more about them, or about Bush? Hard to say, hard to say.
All the silly people, where do they all come from?
There are a tremendous flow of great ideas out there. It is the person who takes the time & energy to ponder the idea and put it into action that makes all the difference.
Truely tremendous blog!