A couple of years ago my good friend Maggie half-suggested that we let our friendship go, because she was unhappy with how our conversations were going. I had a bad habit of jumping into all the things that I'd been doing, without letting her get a word in edgewise about herself. She felt that she couldn't tell me about her feelings, but when she finally said something, I was very sorry (of course) and resolved to change my behavior. I told her, My real friends are the ones who tell me when I'm full of crap.
Maggie has always been one of those.
This is something that George W. Bush doesn't understand. The more powerful you are, the more you need honest people around you, real friends who will call bullshit before everyone else gets a chance to rip into you.
But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.
A president whose staff is afraid to tell him the truth? How can he believe that this is the right kind of loyalty?
It appears that the mask of silence is cracking, but not in a good way. Rather than standing up to Bush, White House staff are starting to complain to the media. Oops.
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