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Second-guessing is just how it works
© St. Petersburg Times WASHINGTON -- President Bush said something genuinely funny last week, and it had nothing to do with the way he pronounces big words. "You know what's interesting about Washington?" Bush said in disgust. "It's a town, unfortunately, it's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature." This comes from a man who was elected president of the United States by second-guessing everything Bill Clinton and the Democrats had done for the previous eight years. Bush did not mean it as a joke, of course. He was responding to questions about why he did not react more forcefully to intelligence reports he received before Sept. 11, warning of a terrorist hijacking in the making. I hope Bush was just indulging in a little self-pity when he uttered those words. Every president is entitled to do that from time to time. I certainly hope he does not honestly think he should be exempt from second-guessing. After all, second-guessing is an important element of the political process. It is something our founding fathers were counting on us to do to make our government work better. In fact, I think it's fair to say that second-guessing is the reason why this democracy has survived for more than 200 years. Without second-guessers, we'd probably still have slavery, prohibition, the UnAmerican Activities Committee and the Alien and Sedition Act, just to name a few of the country's biggest mistakes. And come to think of it, we might even be living under English rule. No politician or corporate executive can succeed for long if he or she chooses to ignore the second-guessers. I don't know very many people who naturally appreciate criticism, of course. It takes practice to hear what your critics are saying and consider it seriously. Up until now, Bush -- unlike his father and mother, who were very testy under fire -- seemed to be the kind of person with enough equanimity to handle second-guessing. His penchant for secrecy, however, tends to invite second-guessing. As any first-rate political consultant will tell you, the best way to avoid second-guessing is never to keep the people in the dark on important matters. The real reason Bush is being criticized today is not because he failed to act on the information he received last fall, but because he kept it secret. What Bush should have done immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, was to tell the American people that he had received some vague information beforehand about an impending disaster. In the emotion of the moment, no one would have found fault with him. But because he kept it secret, he made certain that whenever the truth came out, people would look upon it as something he was trying to cover up. The second mistake Bush is making is to insist his second-guessers are entirely wrong. In fact, this is an extremely surprising reaction, coming from a man who spent the last few years criticizing the Washington decision-making process. If he were still back in Texas, he likely would be doing the second-guessing himself. What Bush doesn't seem to understand is that he is Washington now. He's an important part of the process. He has to begin to accept responsibility for whatever happens here. (Why does this always come as such a big shock to presidents who campaigned as Washington outsiders?) As Bush himself knows, there's never any risk of being wrong when you point a finger at our unwieldy federal bureaucracy, and say: "They could have done a better job." Furthermore, it's no secret that our government collects more intelligence than it can reasonably analyze. Instead of lashing out at his critics, Bush ought to pledge to make the synthesizing of American intelligence, well, more intelligent. Bush has taken some steps in this direction, but he needs to do much more. I, for one, am tired of having presidents who seem to understand the weaknesses of the federal government while they are on the campaign trail, then become defensive about those same weaknesses when they reach the White House. Bush was elected to fix these problems. -- Sara Fritz can be reached by e-mail at fritz@sptimes.com and by telephone at (202) 463-0576.
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Times columns today Howard Troxler John Romano Sara Fritz |
