Bush Administration Strategy

As grossly incompetent as our current administration is, they seem to be really good at getting away with that incompetence. And the last few weeks, I've realized how it is they do that. It's actually really simple, but complex in its simplicity. It seems that the strategy, or strategery, if you will, is to do so many things so badly that it's impossible to focus on just one.

Let's take the last six months or so for example. First, we had The Downing Street Memo, which was obviously pretty bad for Bush, and really gave some independent evidence to something most of us knew all along, which is that he wanted to invade Iraq from the beginning, and didn't care what he had to do to accomplish it. Well, just when that story really starts to take off, it gets derailed by the Plame investigation and Karl Rove. Now obviously these two stories are directly related and really shouldn't be separate at all, but it's still hard for people to concentrate on so much at once. So, just when it looks like Rove is fucked, and Bush McClellan is getting hammered every day about the inconsistencies with the administration's position on the leak, Bush does what incompetent people do when they have a problem, he runs away. And not just for a few days, but for over a month. Of course, the press can't be bothered to continue to pursue the story, since it's hot in Texas and all, and anyway Bush invited them to a barbeque. Anyway, while he's on vacation hiding from his other problems, here comes Cindy Sheehan figuratively knocking on his door. And instead of going out to talk to her, and making the problem go away quickly, he refuses to see her, and therefore creates a big story. Sure, it makes him look bad, but he has his disciples smearing her name to take a little heat off and meanwhile, no one is even thinking about Karl Rove anymore. So, just when this whole mess is really getting some traction, and bringing some much needed focus to the clusterfuck in Iraq, along comes Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans. Now, Bush doesn't control the weather, but he knows how to answer the door when oppurtunity knocks. Obviously, anyone who gave a shit would immeadiately cancel any other plans (including vacationing, playing guitar, and eating cake) and get back to Washington to handle this. However, if he does that, the story may go away too quickly for everyone to forget about Sheehan or Rove (he's already pretty effectively wiped the Downing Street Memo off the board), so he has to drag this one out, to give everyone some new lowlight to focus on. And he really hits the ball out of the park with this one. It's a good thing he had previously put incompetent people in charge of things like this, otherwise they may have been able to handle it properly even without him. So, that's good planning on his part. And of course, he still has his disciples deflecting blame just enough so he can ride this out until another oppurtunity for him to display his gross incompetence comes along, then everyone will move on to that one, and eventually Cindy Sheehan, Valerie Plame, Karl Rove, and even Katrina will be forgotten, at least as they relate to George Bush and any accountability for him personally.

Now, I hope he's wrong, and just maybe with the hurricane he may have overplayed his hand. But all in all, this incompetence thing has worked well for him in the past. Unfortunately, it's the rest of us that have to pay the price for it.