All summer, Bush has been insisting that we wait for official government reports on Iraq before we judge whether his surge strategy has worked or failed. Well, the GAO is reportedly on track [1] to “conclude that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks set to judge the Iraqi government’s performance in the political and security arenas haven’t been met.” And what is Bush’s response? To acknowledge that his strategy is failing? To admit that his leadership is deficient? To take responsibility for failure? Of course not. According to the Bush Administration, the problem is that the benchmarks are too hard, and that they only measure whether or not requirements are met, not whether “progress” has been made.
No wonder Bush never liked going to school. Teachers might acknowledge progress, but they give grades for success or failure, and that’s just something a perennial failure like Bush doesn’t enjoy.
And have you noticed where else the Bush Administration has been laying blame for the failure to meet benchmarks? On the Iraqi government, of course. Yes, says Bush, the fault lies with the Iraqi government and with the benchmarks themselves, certainly not with the White House imbecile and his Republican cronies who set the whole mess into motion and who have mismanaged the operation every step of the way.
All of which makes me wonder how much closer we and the Iraqi’s might be to meeting the benchmarks if Bush would put the blame where it belongs, and make the sorts of changes that genuine personal responsibility might foster. The worst thing about failure often isn’t the failure itself; it’s the scapegoating by inept leaders who are content to prolong other peoples’ agony to protect their own egos.
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