In a long letter to Esquire magazine, the former head of Bush's Office of Faith-Based Programs blasts the White House as having practically no interest or expertise in making sound social policy: "[O]n social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking." DiIulio may have a bit of an ax to grind here, but it is still a fascinating look inside the Bush policy-making apparatus. (The letter was the basis for an article by Ron Suskind in Esquire which is not available online [press release here]. The saga leading to the publication of the letter is recounted in today's Tapped)
posted by boltman on Dec 3, 2002 - 22 comments

President Bush is in fact doing just about everything his critics demand: If the administration really had contempt for the UN, it could withdraw its support and let that organization complete its collapse into a Third World debating society. If Bush wanted to lash out at every threat in the world, America's near-$400 billion defense budget could provide the soldiers, tanks, airplanes, and missiles to wage several small wars at a time, from Libya to North Korea (and most places in between). If America were trying to seize the world's oil reserves, we could have swept aside the Saudi sheiks long ago. If we were indifferent to the casualties of enemy civilians—and the only alternative is to be indifferent to the deaths of our own soldiers and civilians—then anti-war academics would have to give up tallying those casualties one-by-one. But none of this is actually happening.
posted by dagny on Oct 23, 2002 - 100 comments

The US reserves the right to turn your weak country to glass.
The Bush administration is no longer standing by a 24-year-old U.S. pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, a senior administration official said yesterday. I fear this news will go unnoticed amidst the terrorism furor.
Why doesn't our nuclear policy get much press these days?
posted by norm on Feb 25, 2002 - 63 comments

That didn't take long. Thanks to Paul Krugman; it's high time someone disagreed with Bush's wrongheaded fiscal ideas. Bush is going back to fuzzy math to justify another tax cut.
posted by Yelling At Nothing on Oct 7, 2001 - 8 comments

Revealing look at Bush's policy and cabinet. Scary.
posted by skallas on Feb 11, 2001 - 14 comments