For D.C. Process is King
For being the seat of power in the Western world Washington, D.C. is a company town. With all the liberals and Leftists infesting the place the city has a strong conservative temperment. Things have to be done in a certain way and process trumps results.
That’s the view you should take while reading the Washington Post series on Vice President Dick Cheney’s powerful role in the Bush administration. All the gripes lifelong bureaurcrats and wheeler-dealers come out: Cheney’s office didn’t talk to certain people; he went straight to the President; opponents were locked out of the process; etc.
Sunday’s enstallment deals with Cheney instantly getting to work in a post-Sep. 11 world. Both Secretary of State Powell’s and National Security Advisor Rice’s feathers were ruffled. They forgot they were dealing with Cheney, a former White House Chief of Staff who knew back channels as well as anyone.
Today’s installment covers terrorist interrogation. This is sure to make Andrew Sullivan return to his Jerimiah, woe-are-conservatives mode. (Mona Charen posts on the WaPo’s choice of a headline in its print edition.)
What is completely missed is the fact al Qaeda hasn’t stuck the U.S. in over five years. Taxes have been cut helping improve economic growth. Now, could policy development have gone better? Were mistakes made? Absolutely. But when examining how Cheney has changed the role of the Vice President we need to at least acknowledge what has been accomplished.
Even if events in Iraq had gone better for the U.S. the Post and D.C. critics would still complain of Cheney going around, under, and through other members of the administration. To those living in the insular world of our nation’s capital process reigns surpreme. It’s the results that get second fiddle.
[Added to OTB's Beltway Traffic Jam]
al Qaeda hasn’t stuck the U.S. in over five years
And before that, it was eight years. And before that . . .
Look, Sean, you are absolutely smarter than to use an inane argument like that. There is no evidence that anything the administration has done has stopped a single planned al Qaeda attack. This is no better than Lisa Simpson’s tiger-repelling rock.