In the L.A. Times, Max Boot picks up on Rush Limbaugh's line that the fissures in the Republican united front aren't really there.
Actually, there is a lot less disagreement than meets the eye. Most of the critiques by the likes of Wilkerson and Scowcroft are procedural. They are upset more about how policy has been formulated and implemented — and especially about their own lack of influence — than about the decisions reached.
At least that's what the title of his op-ed says today, and he supports the assertion with an ancient question that has been asked and answered over and over again:
Wilkerson made some cogent arguments about how Bush has been "courting disaster" because of his inability "to stop the feuding elements" within the administration. Of course, one of those feuding elements was Wilkerson's boss, but point taken — nobody would cite the last few years as a model of disciplined bureaucratic management.
Yet what would the realpolitikers have done differently if they had been in charge? That's not at all clear because so many self-identified realists backed the most controversial decision Bush made: to invade Iraq.
Interestingly, he picks on...the Conservatives that are smacking Harriet Miers around.
Scowcroft was a prominent exception, but Powell, for one, recently told Barbara Walters that he was "right there" with Bush on "the use of force." So were James Baker, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, George F. Will, Fareed Zakaria and the editors of the National Review and the National Interest — all the rajahs of realism.
If that's not an obvious sign of real divisions, then I'm a South African nightclub owner that was stupid enough to turn away business from one of the finest wimmins in Los Angeles.
Now, these pundits can fire back in an interesting way. Just as they are on the receiving end of the nonsense question neocons have lobbed at sane progressives for years, they can easily say they were as mislead by the Bush/Cheney/Rove spin as anyone else. What is the White House going to do, say "Hey, you knew what we were doing..."?
