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James Joyner | Friday, April 25, 2008 |
Dana Milbank wins with: “Iraq War Is Everyone Else’s Fault, Feith Explains.”
I haven’t read Feith’s book but that’s pretty much the thesis I’ve gathered from the interviews he’s given about it. Given the superlatives that have been used to describe his lack of intelligence, it’s hardly unexpected that he would try to salvage his reputation. And he’s probably got a point: we tend to place too much blame on a handful of people whose names we know. But the natural vanity of these books is to place all the blame for bad things on others, take too much credit for the good things, and — especially — how much better it would have all turned out if only they’d listened to my advice!
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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Feith is a stunningly unsympathetic figure. He is unrelentingly glib and smug. Some people claim he is smart in a "lawyerly" way. He is apparently methodical about the way he gets information. But there is no real sense that he processes anything he is told. I've seen him speak on several occasions, and respond to audience questions, and yet I've never had the sense he actually understands what people are asking him. He quickly falls back onto strangely formulated set-piece response. He'd have trouble passing a Turing Test.
Another pathetic individual who thinks that he is brilliant and immune to failure despite reality. I have no doubt that Rummy will do the same; it is a good thing that no one believes them.
So what you describe is "balance" then?
Only because there's no headline that says:
"Everything is Bush's Fault, Milbank Explains"
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