Bush Takes
Responsibility --- About Time!
August 8, 2003
In late July, Bush finally took "personal responsibility" for using bad
intelligence in his State of the Union address in January when he said those
infamous "16 words":
"The British government has learned
that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from
Africa."
The British may have believed it, so his
statement was technically correct, much like some of Clinton's "technically
correct" and hair-splitting statements during the Lewinski affair. But many
in the U.S. intelligence community doubted this was true and some of Bush's
advisors knew that, even if he didn't.
Bush now says: "I take personal responsibility for everything I say,
absolutely"
Well, it's about time! What took so long?
Before this, he let CIA Director George Tenet and a national security aide,
Stephen Hadley take blame for the controversy. This caused political sniping
and benefited his political enemies.
Not smart.
Bush should have accepted responsibility from the start. After all, he DID
say those words and he is supposed to be "The Boss" and therefore
responsible. There is no shame in in this. Most Americans would have found
this a "good thing". They also know he cannot verify everything in a speech
and must rely on others.
After that, he should have called Tenant, Rice and others into his office
and asked what the hell was going on and settled it then and there.
Morally and politically, this kind of thing must never happen again.
