Reading Matthew Dowd's tale of lost faith I'm left curious as to what he could have been thinking during Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. Given what he thinks now, what about the situation in 2004 made him feel so differently that he wanted to quite literally dedicate his life to perpetuating Bush's hold on power. Pretty much all the factors Dowd cites were perfectly clear by the time of the election. One can imagine it taking a while for the message to sink into the head of someone as invested in Bush as Dowd was, but shouldn't there be a momement when you're not exactly ready to jump off the bus but aren't comfortable driving the bus either?
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Now He Tells Us
01 Apr 2007 10:35 am
Comments (21)
yes, there should be such a moment (as well as such a momement), but the bush administration in particular and the contemporary republican party in general have been exceptionally skilled at locating, hiring, and maintaining the loyalty of people with no internal ethical compass whatsoever.
Same thing that motivates him today: cash.
I bet he held his high-tech stocks deep into the 1999-200? recession, too.
He sounds like a buy-and-hold guy in a pump-and-dump business.
Whatever happened to April Fool's Day stories? I've searched the blogosphere high and low. Nothing. I thought the Dowd story might be it, but no. I've got the "if only" blues. If only. The faux news were the real news.
I'm still gobsmacked that people didn't see through Bush back in 2000. I have such a clear memory of going to vote that day, and being asked in an exit poll which "issue" I had voted on more than any other, and responding "education" for the reason that Bush obviously lacked one. Seven years later and much shit under the bridge....
I gotta give Dowd the benefit of the doubt that he's being sincere. I for one, can't believe that people like MY supported the Iraq war in the first place, but I don't doubt he's come to regret it. Similarly, there are folks still drinking the kool aid who believe in Bush but will one day recognize their error. Do we really need to trash Dowd now, or is there some hazing/initiation ritual that no one told me about?
Do we really need to trash Dowd now Yes.
or is there some hazing/initiation ritual that no one told me about? It's the trashing referenced in your first clause.
Give me a break. He's a Southern Republican, and they've done more than simply support the war in Iraq.
I have a friend with whom I argued about Bush two or three times over the years. Recently he said he's so disgusted with Bush that he's thinking about moving to Europe. He also asked me earnestly what I think about Bush. I can't imagine that he really forgot our disagreements, or that he's contradicting himself. Also, he's an intelligent person with at least an average memory.
The only conclusion I can draw is that this is a curious artifact of human nature.
I'm left curious as to what he could have been thinking during Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. Given what he thinks now, what about the situation in 2004 made him feel so differently that he wanted to quite literally dedicate his life to perpetuating Bush's hold on power.
Here is key passage:
... Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.
“I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said. He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”
Perhaps like almost everyone else in Washington, Dowd was seduced by the allure of power and influence. But at some point, it appears, Bush excluded Dowd from his contracting circle of trust - at which point Dowd suddenly discovered Bush was a miserable leader.
Give me a break. He's a Southern Republican, and they've done more than simply support the war in Iraq.
True, but we've got bigger fish to fry, which is why I'm more willing to welcome a potential ally who has admitted error and seeks to repent. At least his apology wasn't laden with qualifications like Andrew Sullivan and his "I was wrong to support the war but Michael Moore hates America" bullshit.
It's got to be pretty embarrassing to admit that your man-crush made you support a war criminal. And the fact is, we've got about 25-30% of the electorate who still support Bush/Cheney and their policies, many of whom are just assholes, but also those who are probably afraid to face the humiliation by admitting they were wrong on so many levels.
Cowardice. It's easier to keep digging than to admit you're stuck in the hole.
I don't think any of us have any way of knowing what Dowd was thinking, and it seems pretty unhealthy (in the manner that hilzoy of obsidian wings describes here) to speculatively imagine scenarios that paint him in the worst possible light. Dowd could very well be a terrible person, but it also might just be the case that he knew Bush on a personal level and had a friendship with him, and his sense of loyalty prevented him from doing the right thing earlier. He wouldn't be the first person this has happened to.
Kervick is right, "contracting" being the key word--$$. I doubt we're talking about some sort of religious conversion here, but rather, someone that got f*****, professionally, at least from their vantage point, and is pissed off.
I mean, c'mon, the guy was making the Kool-Aid 2+ years ago, now he sees the light? Probably not, but if so, he needs medical attention.
Hmmm....
It struck me that having his son being put in harms way in Iraq was likely the thing that put him over the edge in opposing the war. I don't know how I feel about that.
On the one hand, everyone who changed their mind about the war had something that did it for them, and having a close emotional stake in what is happening would certainly do that.
On the other hand, its hard not to have the impression that he was just fine when it was other people's children being put through the meat grinder over there.
I'm glad that he's speaking out, and one more person opposing the war is always a good thing. However...
I dunno, the driver tends to be the one who most clearly sees where the bus is going.
It seems to me that there's something obviously simplistic in the sort of cynicism that sees every politician and political operative (of the opposition parties, natch) as self-serving, opportunistic, and interested mostly in money and power. Certainly it attracts a much larger portion of those types than many other professions, but there's other kinds of people involved, too.
Dowd's words in this interview ring true to me. And they fit my theory of Bush, as well. Bush is a very personable man who very likely intends well but who is very easily influenced by more intelligent and self-assured people around him. I lived in Texas during his reign there and I know well that he wasn't the moderate that some people thought he was. But he also wasn't who he's become as President, either. For whatever reasons, I think he had moderating influences in Texas and he has very strong extremist influences as President.
Bush, Dowd, and many of Bush's supporters and his critics all tend toward simplemindedness with regard to personal character and the decisions that people make. The fallacy is that people of bad character are the ones who do bad things and people of good character are the ones who do good things. And that all people can be divided thus. But Bush may well be someone that almost any of us would describe as a "decent man", even as a "good man" were we to know him personally. But such people can make horrible decisions and do very bad things as a result. It's not necessary to see Bush or Dowd as men with evil characters in order to recognize evil actions. Besides, I think Cheney qualifies as the person in this story with truly an evil character.
Human beings are flawed and that's why we rely upon institutional structures to act as checks against both the acts of the malign and the acts of the incompetent or ignorant. I find that the idea of Bush as a well-meaning relative moron, easily influenced by people who intimidate him, has explanatory power. And in that context, it seems to me that what has failed us are the various institutions that should have acted as a check against his incompetency. We weren't prepared for a VP to become a stealth President with his own intelligence apparatus. Congress failed us, the press failed us. And those well-intentioned people around Bush, like Powell or Dowd or others, they failed us in being too late in removing the scales from their eyes and they failed us in not acting, or acting tepidly.
This will surely be seen historically as one of the worst Presidencies. And, like the others so judged, it will be best understood as systemic.
When I read the article, I kept thinking to myself, "Yeah, yeah, that's a good reason for not supporting Bush, but in why the world did you support him in the first place?" The only answer I spotted, deep in the article, is that Dowd liked the bipartisan approach Bush took as governor of Texas.
Has anyone commented: if this Dowd fellow does not repudiate the conservative Bush agenda, then he is likely to have fewer clients after 2008? The guy is worried about his income, probably nothing more than that.
Dowd himself compares the sitation to a love affair...I think the anaology makes some sense as to why he clung on...it relates to the level of commitment and personal investment you have in a relationship. If some aspects of a job bothered me, that might inspire me to sit down and rationally go over the pros and cons and perhaps begin to seek a way out of my situation. But if some aspects of my beloved's behavior bothered me, yet I still loved them desperately and wanted our relationship to work, I wouldn't simply sit down, weigh the pros and cons, and begin to withdraw from them...instead I'd repress my misgivings and throw everything I have into supporting the relationship. I'd redouble my efforts. Because anything less would be to admit failure and despair, to admit that the happy ending I desired is no longer possible.
Fun Fact from Henry Abbott's True Hoop blog, now at ESPN.com:
"A while ago, the NBA hired political consultant Matthew Dowd, which made some news in part because David Stern is a big donor to the Democratic causes while Dowd was a mastermind of the "flip-flop" campaign that brought down John Kerry. Dowd's talent is to reach those "red state" voters that the NBA has a hard time with, and not too long after his appearance on the scene, the NBA instituted an off-court dress code that is seen as a gesture to more conservative fans, if maybe a little repressing, especially to players with a hip hop vibe. Now Dowd says Kerry was right all along about Iraq. No word yet on whether or not he has reversed his stance on athletes wearing t-shirts to the arena."
Dowd is a real wanker.
Given what Dowd thinks now, what was he thinking six months ago when he ran Kristian hatah Dick DeVos' campaign (and had his ass handed to him)?
The only thing more repulsive than a slimeball fake-Christian operative is a major newspaper that gives him a nice fluffy platform to advertise for a job with the new winning side.
Comments closed April 15, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Given what he thinks now, what about the situation in 2004 made him feel so differently that he wanted to quite literally dedicate his life to perpetuating Bush's hold on power.
Same thing that motivates him today: cash. You've got to prove you can rehabilitate yourself in a world in which the Bush Administration is wildly unpopular before you can ask to be paid to do the same for Republican politicians.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | April 1, 2007 10:55 AM