Reply #23: Yup. This is the training-wheel presidency [View All]

[charlie]

And the only reason for his success in the face of his obvious ineptitude is relentless spin and propaganda through a compliant media.

Look at this, they don't even bother their fucking spin straight, they can be as sloppy as they want to be:

THIS --

President Bush's aides did not forcefully present him with dissenting views from CIA and State and Defense Department officials who warned that U.S.-led forces could face stiff resistance in Iraq, according to three senior administration officials.

Bush embraced the predictions of some top administration hawks, beginning with Vice President Dick Cheney, who predicted in the weeks before the war with Iraq that Saddam Hussein's regime was brittle and that Iraqis would joyously greet coalition troops as liberators, the officials said.

The dissenting views "were not fully or energetically communicated to the president," said one top official, who like the others requested anonymity. "As a result, almost every assumption the plan's based on looks to be wrong."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/warren_p_strobel/5508086.htm

VERSUS -

Given Bush's Harvard MBA and the widespread descriptions that he is far from a detail person, his advisers encourage the image of the confident president as CEO, and yet that masks the way he has operated since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush constantly prodded his advisers to demonstrate results -- as quickly as possible. He wanted details of the hunt for the leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network and the pace of the war in Afghanistan, to the point that his advisers in the White House told him that he should stand back and not try to assume the role of general himself.

He has, aides say, played a similar role in preparing for the war in Iraq, questioning...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39785-2003Mar27.html