For rarely has a president stood more alone at a moment of high crisis than does our president now as he makes his crucial policy decisions on the Iraq War. His political opponents stand triumphant, yet barren of useful guidance. Many -- if not most -- of his fellow party men and women in Washington are rapidly joining his opponents in a desperate effort to save their political skins in 2008. Commentators who urged the president on in 2002-03, having fallen out of love with their ideas, are quick to quibble with and defame the president.
James Baker, being called out of his business dealings by Congress to advise the president, has delivered a cynical document intended to build a political consensus for "honorable" surrender. Richard Haas (head of the Council on Foreign Relations) spoke approvingly of the Baker report on "Meet the Press," saying: " It's incredibly important ... that the principle lesson [of our intervention in Iraq] not be that the United States is unreliable or we lacked staying power ... to me it is essentially important for the future of this country that Iraq be seen, if you will, as Iraq's failure, not as America's failure."
That such transparent sophism from the leader of the American foreign policy establishment is dignified with the title of realism only further exemplifies the loneliness of the president in his quest for a workable solution to the current danger.
The person that recognizes how little they know is rare. The natural human tendency, independent of ability, temperament, or training is to think think ourselves wiser than those in leadership. Note that we typically don't want to step IN to any of those leadership posts, but we LOVE to point out what we see as flaws in leaders, especially those with whom we have an ideological difference. The harder the problem and the more real the danger, the greater the desire of people to avoid facing and dealing with the situation. We like to feel good. Facing and dealing with hard problems always makes us feel "bad", at least in the short run. Avoidance seems much nicer.
I've commented before on the fecklessness of something like half the people or more, whom at the time we went into Iraq supported the action with something like an 80% approval, which is now down to something below 30%, and in some polls nearing 20%. The veneer of an excuse is "we were lied to", but I happened to hear a part of the Robert Gates Senate confirmation hearings, where he CLEARLY stated that he and all the Senators there were privy to the information on the WMD as was every intelligence agency in the world. Given the information that everyone had at the time, there was no choice but to take the action taken. The Senate voted to confirm a NEW Secretary of Defense that said in his CURRENT judgment, he would DO IT AGAIN by a vote of 95-2, with the only 2 dissenters being Republicans. Teddy KENNEDY voted FOR him! (I know that the vote of a man that kills his secretary and is an embarrassment to drunkards everywhere is meaningless, but the effect after all his bluster on the topic is at least more testament to his complete lack of character)
From Moses to Lincoln, to Reagan, to Bush, leadership is always lonely. Having sex in the oval office with an employee is a lot less lonely. You have the employee with you, and at least 50%+ of the population will defend your right to sex at work and lying under oath, even though they don't share that right. Do what even lefty drunken murderer Senators know is the right thing, and find out that "right" is not identical to "easy", and and 50% or more of even the people that supported you will abandon you and often sanctimoniously claim that "leadership has failed", while not having a wisp of an idea of how to deal with the problem.
Leadership does fail, but the rank and file fails way more often, and usually with a whole lot less understanding of "why", and therefore progress in learning. The "nice" thing about the real world is that if often comes back to bite and show that the costs of "the easy way" are very much higher than it looks at the point where that fork in the road is taken. Those that follow the path that looks easy somehow aways see the world as having WAY more problems than those that face the truth and often take the harder road. At some point, it always becomes "random / hopeless / unfair / rigged against / impossible". After making enough choices that were effectively "cut and run" at one level or another, that really becomes the only choice available.
Sadly, not taking the easy choices never becomes easy. Like working out every day, at best it becomes a "habit". A habit that just means that when you follow the natural tendencies that always remain, you realize it, and with the grace of God and forgiveness, hopefully one can return to the path that is more difficult, but toward improvement of ones self and the step by step, the rest of the world.
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