Sullivan intimates the "they're tired" mime is another leadership failure

[MazeRat7]

Besides doing a nice job (for a republican) of listing the failures of this administration, he takes the latest talking point about the administration being tired and explains it so that too sounds like another leadership failure on the part of *. Certainly, I don't get that he feels there should be any sympathy for this crowd... more like "why are they so bull headed"... and is using tongue and cheek humor to make that point...

Just my take anyway, I am sure others will differ... here are a few snips from the article - it was a good read.

<snip>

Too tired to think: team Bush loses its way
Andrew Sullivan

There is no shortage of theories to explain the seemingly growing dysfunction in the Bush administration. I don’t mean by this the flawed structural decisions — to invade and occupy Iraq with half the troops needed, to add trillions to the national debt with no way on earth to pay them back, to expend a vast amount of energy on social security reform while Iraq went to hell (and get no social security reform anyway). I mean the daily, tactical decisions that can so easily derail any government.

Here are a few. President George W Bush was given clear warning that Hurricane Katrina could become a national disaster, yet wasted days before he took any real action to jolt his chaotic administration into a meaningful response. He nominated an unqualified indentured servant, Harriet Miers, for the Supreme Court — and infuriated his base before picking someone else.

</snip>

About here in the article he pull's out the "tired" defense....and then later points out the problems with that very defense.

<snip>

There are two problems with this. The first is that people who make mistakes often find it hard to admit them; and so errors are not corrected. It’s hard to put Abu Ghraib behind you when its chief architects — Cheney, Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales, the attorney-general — are still defending their own complicity in sanctioning torture.

In fact, the only significant figures who have left this administration are those who got things right. Paul O’Neill, the Treasury secretary, worried about deficits in the first term. Colin Powell, the secretary of state, worried about the Iraq war and opposed the decision to legalise torture. Both are gone.

The rest are always right, and tell the president he has never made a mistake. And they are exhausted beyond belief. At some point, one surmises, the president will have to make a change, won’t he? He’ll have to reach out at some point. He’ll be forced to bring in people who aren’t half-dead with exhaustion to run the country, won’t he?

And then you remember you’ve been saying the same thing to yourself for three years. And you wake up and smell the coffee the administration now needs just to keep itself from slipping into a coma.

</snip>

Anyway, besides pointing out the flaw in the "they are tired" defense... what I found most encouraging is that Andrew is not the only thinking Republican out there... how many more like him are being silent and wanting this nightmare to end as bad as we do ?

MZr7

[Chevy]

1. Who would they bring in??

These nuts would tell Reagan to piss off if he was alive today and tried to give them advice.

[kenny blankenship]

2. tired mime?

Yes he certainly looks bushed, but maybe if he were given one of those super-duper incentive creating taxcuts he'd perk right up again!
And then again maybe he just needs something to do, like fighting to survive over in Iraq. That would get him motivated.

[MissWaverly]

3. they are not disfunctional

they are very effective at their job as corporate raiders, they have boosted the profits
of their corporations by 200-300%, they have stripped the US treasury to funnel the
money into special interests. They are apolitical, they care nothing about the
welfare of this country, the constitution or the American people. They are only
interested in sucking up power and resources which they do very well and playing
the blame game which they also excel at.

[Hamlette]

4. He gets under my skin on occasion, but he is rational

But he draws the wrong conclusion. They are not tired, their ideas are just wrong and the people with good ideas, as he points out, have left because they were not listened to.

The Bush people believe government is the problem, not the solution (ala Reagan) so when things like Katrina happen it never occurs to them that the government should help. They want to prove to the world/nation that government is bad, by making government bad and incompetent. They have convinced themselves that they are "big picture" people and what they need to do is insure an oil supply for the country and the oil companies. They couldn't be bothered with the the issues that concern us on a daily basis.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

5. Sullivan is a disgrace. He only gets ANY attention because he's that zoo

curiosity, the gay Republican man (and an HIV positive one at that!).

The minute he unequivocally leaves the Republican fold, he will lose all support and interest in anything he has to say.

[Hamlette]

8. he endorsed Kerry in 2004, he is an honest conservative

if you want to know your enemy, no better place to start than by reading Sullivan.

Conservatives used to stand for small government and strong defense. There is room in the debate for both of those ideas. I don't want a government so large it becomes big brother, and face it, we have to protect ourselves. It's what the GOP has become that bugs us, and him.

I read him rarely before he started to see the light. Now I read him everyday. It has been fascinating to watch him change.

I'm not going to defend him on everything. His ego gets in the way and he can't seem to stop the name calling on occasion. But then, neither do we.

[Child_Of_Isis]

6. "they are tired" defense

I have always had a problem with this.

Can you imagine if in the real world you fluke out in 4 years and need to change jobs, because you are "tired" "worn out" or "exhausted"....

Try putting that on your resume for reason of job change and see where it gets you.

Hell, try submitting a resume that shows a job change every 4 years and see where that gets you also!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. I'm sure Kerry is "fresh" and would be happy to take over and "relieve"

the shrub and shrubco of their duties.

[northzax]

9. to be fair

they should be tired. Most of these people have been working 18 hour days, six days a week, for 6 years. it's an incredibly high-stress, high pressure environment. And their friends from school are working fewer hours and making two to three times as much money. I was an intern in the Clinton white house for a semester, and I worked 12 hour days, This is why few people from the first term tend to stay for the second term. This administration is an anomaly there, they kept large numbers of staff on board after the transition.

Yes, I know that people work those hours all the time, but you can't tell me that anyone is at their best after such a stretch.

[napi21]

10. This whole "tired" story is BS in my opinion!

How many CEO's have you seen turn over their staff every few years "because they're TIRED?

They've got more HELP running around in the WH & Congress than ANY LARGE corporation has, so why is the staff so tired?

I can only think of a few reasons for that...if it's even true.

1. Shrub hired the wrong people in the first place!
2. Shrub doesn't want to do ANYTHING himself, and pushes ALL the work off onto everyone else.
3. It's so much harder to do everything in secret and then have to bust you a** to keep it all hidden!