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DON'T TELL CHENEY. It's something less than revelatory to suggest the Bush White House doesn't exhibit the level of harmoniousness and constructive self-criticism one might hope. Still, I found this bit on the genesis of the Baker-Hamilton Commission depressing:
To bring Bush aboard, Solomon, Hamre and Abshire approached the one person in Bushland who still had a reputation for realism and who could command the President's ear, alone: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Would she propose the commission to the President? After some hesitation, Rice agreed, but she made one request: the commission had to look forward, not backward, in part because she knew the dysfunctional Bush foreign policy operation, tilted as it was so heavily along the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis, would not permit, much less sustain, scrutiny. As the trio departed, a Rice aide asked one of her suitors not to inform anyone at the Pentagon that chairmen had been chosen and the study group was moving forward. If Rumsfeld was alerted to the study group's potential impact, the aide said, he would quickly tell Cheney, who could, with a few words, scuttle the whole thing. Rice got through to Bush the next day, arguing that the thing was going to happen anyway, so he might as well get on board. To his credit, the President agreed.It's not just that the crew is dysfunctional and backstabbing: It's that there are multiple possible points of veto and, if one gets to Bush before another, an entire initiative can be strangled in the crib. Here you have the Secretary of State begging her high-powered friends to keep mum, lest other cabinet secretaries or the Vice-President hear of the plan and veto its implementation. Bizarre.--Ezra Klein
