Laura Kipnis, who I think I have some kind of literary crush on (or is it: on whom I may have a literary crush?) writes about Condi Rice's Freudian slip in referring to the president as her husband. (The president's national security advisor isn't married.)
Although I'm not a psychologist, I am an introspective guy, and when I misspeak I try to find out why I did. What was it in my brain that caused one word to slip out of my mouth when I really wanted to use another one? Sometimes, I don't know or don't want to know - confusing my wife for my mother evokes a grimace, for example. But usually it's because my brain is free-associating a little too fast, leaving my mouth to finish the business my mind should stay with for just a little longer.
My tendency is therefore not to overanalyze Freudian slips too much. But Laura's point is that reporters embedded with the Bush administration are acting like spectators of a trapeze show or car race: they're there to see if some horrible mistake happens. Because when a mistake occurs, the truth may come out.
I am amused and just a little outraged that after trying to condemn Clinton for being elusive and untruthful about his personal life, the Republicans have so few reservations about being so secretive about the affairs of the United States of America. I'm all for restricting information on the basis of national security or even executive privilege, but this doesn't completely trump public accountability. There has to be some explicit trade-off here, and it's not at all clear that Cheney and his hangers-on (including the president) are inclined to discuss what goes into trading off.
There's something very unsettling about this: September 11th, 2001 has become a mantra for the Bush administration to act as if democracy and accountability in America is suspended for the time being. It's not that I think Bush is all wrong in his foreign policies - some of his decisions are outright refreshing - but I think that he at least has a moral responsibility to candidly explain what he's been up to in the last 3-4 years.
In a sense, he's taking advantage of people's decency. Reasonable people know that it's too early to tell whether invading Iraq was a good idea; it's also too early to tell whether Al Qaeda and the other terrorist groupings are losing or gaining ground. We don't know if the absence of terrorist attacks is a consequence of American activism or the terrorists' strategy.
We're willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt because we don't want to distract him too much from the job of fighting terrorism. What we should expect in return is that he gives as candid an account as possible from time to time, rather than the spin and elusiveness that has become a standing joke in the Washington press corps.
One can't help but wonder whether Bush, Cheney, and Rove think that public accountability is of second order importance to their agenda. This was an administration that came into office with rather less than a mandate, were confronted with a challenge that required unifying the country (and allies), and are instead acting in very partisan ways.
You can't help but wonder if they don't feel more accountable to their closest political allies than the American people.
I don't understand this ridiculus "secrecy" charge that keeps popping up. You've had two Woodward books (does Woodward have an office at the White House?), the Clarke book, the O'Neal (sic) book, etc. What should the administration do, publish pages from their diaries each morning! Is it possible that there are state secrets e.g. the date and location of D-Day, that should not be published. Although I must say that realease of information does generate such a madly spinning, Kerry obscuring liberal firestorm that maybe it should be encouraged.
Posted by: Trygve Lerwick | May 09, 2004 at 01:12 AM