First Door on the Left

When Dishing Out Blame, Don’t Stop With Bush

Don’t put the blame for Iraq on President Bush alone. Nothing, it would seem, could have stopped the Bush administration from pursuing its long-standing plans against Saddam Hussein. But placing responsibility for the Iraq debacle solely on Bush’s shoulders is too simple and even potentially dangerous. It blurs the responsibilities of others who contributed to an environment in which new, bad ideas were embraced while proven, good ones were shed.

It is important to learn that whatever the threat — terrorism included — no government should be afforded the latitude enjoyed by the Bush administration. The media — both reporters and commentators — are among the prime culprits here. The promise that democracy would spread from a liberated Iraq, for example, was as poorly scrutinized as the notion advanced by the administration that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the war against terror.

Today few doubt that the administration’s performance in postwar Iraq has been inept. This consensus, however, risks eclipsing the reality that many potentially influential players seem to have been stunned into submission or ineffectual opposition to the whims of the White House.

I agree. There is more than enough blame to go around. However, when a car runs over you, you do not blame the car. The fault lies with the driver of that car. The driver of this particular car should never have been granted a license. Actually, legally, he never was.

We should not stop with Mr. Bush while dishing out blame for Iraq and all the other misdeeds of this administration, but we definitely need to start with him.

And we need to finish with him on November 2nd.