Don't Bother Me with the Facts

No one likes to hear bad news, but the Bush Administration has raised the shielding of the President from unpleasant truths to something of an art form. It is already well known that President Bush eschews open discussion in favor of sycophantic approval and so all public encounters are carefully staged, from pre-rehearsed chats with the troops to scripted Cabinet meetings. What is now coming out is that the President regularly refuses to listen to anything, even from his closest advisers, with which he disagrees.

In an unnerving New Yorker article, Seymour Hersh writes that "the President remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq... He disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding." It's a classic example of a "don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up" reaction.

Perhaps more disturbing, Hersh reports that Bush claims a divine mandate to fight terrorism, saying that "God put me here." When it comes to feeling that one has God on his side, there is a considerable difference between being a private citizen and being the most powerful man in the world. Bush has repeatedly claimed to have been divinely chosen to be President, and even saw the 2002 midterm election results as a heavenly endorsement.

It was reported back in June 2003 that Bush told Palestinian leaders, "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did." The White House hotly denied the report, but given Bush's frequent expressions of religious fervor, it's not very farfetched at all.

One former Administration official who left after Bush's first term told Hersh that upon returning from a visit to Iraq he reported his findings to Bush at the White House, telling him "we're not winning the war."

Bush asked, "Are we losing?"

"Not yet" was the reply. Bush was visibly displeased with the answer.

"I tried to tell him," the official said. "And he couldn't hear it."

Even military generals, who of all people should be able to give the President honest if unpalatable assessments of the situation on the ground, are afraid to speak up. They remember all too well the example of Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff. Shinseki testified before Congress that the Administration's desired troop requirements for an invasion and occupation of Iraq were considerably smaller than what was actually needed. In retaliation, Shinseki's replacement was announced more than a year early, instantly transforming him into a lame duck and undercutting his authority.

So rather than commit professional suicide, no one at the Pentagon wants to tell Bush or even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld what they have to hear but don't want to hear. Meanwhile, military officials at all levels are all too happy to talk off the record about what is really happening: Iraq is a mess, nothing is working right, the Iraqi people hate us, nobody really believes in the war anymore, the troops are furious at having been deceived, and everyone just wants to get out and go home.

The President of the United States, ostensibly the most powerful man in the world, is delegating more and more authority to Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, preferring to exist "in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway."

And that, more than anything else, bodes ill for the Iraq War and for the nation as a whole. As long as top officials insist on living in a pleasant dream world, hearing only good news and punishing anyone who tells them differently, no improvement is possible. That is seriously scary.