Preachin' to the converted

The other big article in the Post is just as amusing as the "Rise and Fall Of Jack Abramoff." It concerns the White House's admission that they need to find a new strategy for '06.

Despite the gain in polls, some advisers see trouble ahead. Bush's top aides are telling friends they are burned out. Andrew H. Card Jr., already the longest-serving White House chief of staff in a half-century, is among those thought to be looking to leave. Rove's fate is uncertain, as he appears likely to remain under investigation in the CIA leak case, people close to the inquiry said.

Some are concerned that although Bush has changed his approach, he has not changed himself. He has been reluctant to look outside his inner circle for advice, and even some closest to Bush call that a mistake because aides have given up trying to get him to do things they know he would reject.

That last paragraph came to me as I read Digby this morning. I, too, did not realize that John Yoo, the mastermind behind the "if preznit authorizes torture than it can't be torture" legal memos, was a fairly low-level staffer in the Justice Dept.

This NSA spying scandal is the tipping point, in my opinion. It's not the worst of the legal atrocities (I would argue that the sickening finding on torture remains the gold standard) but the culmination of all these revelations show that this president understood 9/11 to be a threat so dire that his vow to preserve and protect the constitution had been superceded by a new vow to protect the American people by any means necessary.

I know that the fevered warbloggers agree that the 9/11 attacks were the opening salvo in a war in which civilization itself is under attack by an unimaginable, all powerful evil. Others, not so much. To many of us who spent our childhoods diving under our desks in nuclear drills, the idea that the oceans had always protected us and this was the most frightening threat the world has ever known is ridiculous.

Frightened people overreacted to 9/11 and sought out people who would justify their actions. (All you have to do is look at the My Pet Goat footage of a paralyzed leader in a time of crisis to know it's true.) John Yoo, with his radical, untested theories was there to provide them. The question now is whether there are any lawyers in the Justice department at the time who presented opposing views. If there were, perhaps these hearings won't be the bust we are all expecting them to be.

Truth is, as the more seasoned lawyers in the DOJ realized that presenting dissenting views to Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Cheney, and Bush was a career killer, young Turks like John Yoo were there to fill the void with soothing love songs pleasing to his masters' ears.

Further, I find articles like the VandeHei and Baker piece mentioned above interesting. It is all some spectator sport to them -- a rethinking of the game plan at halftime, with the home team trailing by 13 points (and worse, if you're gambling on the spread, with Bush so heavily favored going into the game). Bush's syle and "leadership" has implications beyond mere "strategy" and polling numbers. It doesn't occur to these reporters to suggest that Bush's habit of listening to only those who agree to agree with his demented world view may result in actions and policies that are unconstitutional, illegal, and disastrous to the state of the Union.