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Curious about President George W. Bush's veto of a bill to continue funding for military operations in Iraq, I called my favorite inside source: Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
I think our President made it perfectly clear,
Quillen,
he said after the usual pleasantries. The
Decider promised he would veto any funding bill that set a
withdrawal timeline, and that's what those cut-and-run
Defeatocrats in Congress gave him. He's a man of his word,
and he sticks to his guns.
Nothing in that surprised me. So I quoted from President
Bush's veto message: Members of the House and the Senate
passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians
for the judgment of our military commanders.... American
commanders in a combat zone would have to take fighting
directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington,
D.C.
Sounds like good old plain common horse sense to
me,
Ziegler said in an avuncular drawl that made me
suspect he was secretly working for Fred Thompson's
unannounced presidential campaign. What's your problem
with it?
But isn't the military supposed to take directions
from politicians in Washington, D.C.?
I asked. Isn't
that what civilian control of the military means? And isn't
the President a politician in Washington, D.C., one who is
supposed to be the commander-in-chief of our
military?
Ziegler harrumphed. How dare you call our President a
politician in Washington? Don't you know how hard the
Committee has worked, over many long years, to convince
America and the world that he is no mere politician, but a
shining exemplar placed here by divine favor when America
most needed such a leader?
I conceded that somebody had worked hard to peddle that line, but pointed out that if Providence truly were guiding the President, Bush presumably wouldn't have messed up quite so often.
Then I shifted the subject. In early 2003, just
before the invasion of Iraq, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki told the
Senate Armed Services Committee that 'something on the
order of several hundred thousand soldiers' would be needed
to maintain stability in Iraq after an invasion. He was the
Army's chief of staff, and that was his judgment. So why
didn't the administration ask for a force big enough to do
the job? Why did the President substitute his opinion for
Shinseki's?
Ziegler explained that You're forgetting the expert
guidance we had from Paul
Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, who said then that Shinseki's estimate was 'wildly off the mark,' and that Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, agreed that the estimate was 'far off the mark.'
I protested. Here you have two political appointees
in Washington substituting their judgment for that of a
military commander back in 2003, and now in 2007 the
President is telling us that's wrong? Why didn't he say so
then?
Ziegler tried to mollify me. You have to realize
there's a big difference. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz weren't
really politicians, since they weren't elected to their
positions. The House and Senate are elected, so they are
politicians. See the difference?
But isn't the President a politician too?
I keep telling you that the President is not a
politician.
He paused. Let me put it this way. If
the Decider were in fact a politician, wouldn't he know how
to earn an approval rating higher than 29 percent?
Ziegler concluded with I rest my case.
He hung up, which was just as well, because I had no answer for that one.
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