MB Civic

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/opinion/14brooks.html?pagewanted=print

Assessing Bush’s self-assured “vision” versus the means by which he does or does not help bring that vision to bear, Brooks says, after a meeting Bush had with a few columnists, “Bush was pressured about Iraqi troop levels…His general response was that, during Vietnam, tatical decisions were made in the White House. ‘I thought it was a mistake then, and I think it’s a mistake now.’ So on troop levels and other tactical issues, Bush defers to Gen. George Casey, who is in Iraq. He asks questions, but does not contradict the experts.”

Although I am vehemently opposed to this war, if only Bush had done this at the outset – not “micromanaged” the war, but listened to “the experts” – it is likely that things would not be as bad as they are.

Of Bush, Brooks also says, “There is none of that hunger for approval that is common to [politicians]. This is the most inner-directed man on the globe.”

Which is, of course, exactly the problem: he is so “inner-directed” that it makes him myopic, as well as largely disinterested in external input and advice, except from those he already trusts.