Bush "Chastened" by Albright & Co. Over Iraq

Since 01-06-06

Friday, January 6, 2006

NY Times Intelligence reporter David Sanger covers President Bush's unusual White House conclave of 13 present and former secretaries of state and secretaries of defense in his Friday story, "Visited by a Host of Administrations Past, Bush Hears Some Chastening Words.? (Bush invited them over, of course, they didn?t just drop by for a "visit.")

The text box sets the tone, with Bush portrayed as on the defensive: "Colin Powell held his peace. Madeleine Albright, though, gave a piece of her mind."

Sanger leads off with this ominous anti-administration slant: "Colin L. Powell said nothing -- a silence that spoke volumes to many in the White House on Thursday morning. His predecessor, Madeleine K. Albright, a bit stirred up after hearing an exceedingly upbeat 40-minute briefing to 13 former secretaries of state and defense about how well things are going in Iraq, asked President Bush whether, with the war "taking up all the energy" of his foreign policy team, he had let the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea spin out of control and allowed Latin America and China policy suffer by neglect.

"I can't let this comment stand," Mr. Bush shot back, telling Ms. Albright and the rare assembly of her colleagues, who reached back to the Kennedy White House, that his administration "can do more than one thing at a time." The Bush administration, he insisted, had "the best relations of any country with Japan, China and Korea," and had active programs to make alliances around the world."

Sanger has long lambasted Bush for being in a bubble and unwilling to hear opposing points of view. Yet when he does so, as he did yesterday, Sanger gives him no credit, just veiled criticism for brevity. Sanger termed Bush's address an "exceedingly upbeat 40-minute briefing."

Later he again emphasizes the alleged briefness of the brief: "But if it was a bipartisan consultation, as advertised by the White House, it was a brief one. Mr. Bush allowed 5 to 10 minutes for interchange with the group -- which included three veterans of the Vietnam era: Robert S. McNamara, Melvin R. Laird and James R. Schlesinger -- before herding the whole group into the Oval Office for what he called a "family picture.""

Sanger opines that "many mistakes had been made" in Iraq: "But a lot of bitterness remains, and several of the former cabinet members invited on Thursday observed that Mr. Bush had waited more than 1,000 days into the war in Iraq -- and after many mistakes had been made -- to gather together the men and one woman who once held their own skull sessions in that room, and who once used the West Wing as a backdrop for arguments over Vietnam and Somalia, the Balkans and the 1991 Gulf war."

And this being Sanger, there's a linkage of the Iraq War with Vietnam, and makes yet another crack at the alleged brevity: "In the few minutes that he engaged with his guests, Mr. Bush seemed to call on the oldest officials present [including] Mr. McNamara, whose own second-guessing about his decisions on Vietnam have now become legendary"."

MRC's Brent Baker caught Sanger's snide attitude at NewsBusters, pointing out how other media outlets managed to keep their eyes off the clock.