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Bush-bashing, or -explaining?
I’m not sure how best to describe this essay. It’s called “Secrecy and Manhood,” and it’s at Commonplace, a magazine of American history. Joseph S. Bonica, a history professor, writes about the political romance of secrets, from the Revolutionary-era Society of the Cincinnati to the present-day Bush administration. The essay suggests that Bush team, known for keeping information off the table, may be doing it out of a traditional, privileged, Republican virility and not to hide bad deeds. And it seems to be pretty politically nuetral.
Perhaps it should not surprise us that [Bush's] official reticence has aroused intense suspicion. After all, as Walter Cronkite observed, “you keep secrets from people when you don’t want them to know the truth.” Yet the persistence of the secret as the Bush administration’s central organizational strategy, despite constant threats of investigation by Congress and the press, might suggest something more at work than the practical logistics of hiding embarrassing facts.
Nobody likes secrets except the people who can be hurt from their telling, but this guy’s essay is a real trip and suggests more complex readings of the Bush ethos.
back to top23 Comments to “Bush-bashing, or -explaining?”
Republican virility? Oh, please!
The media wanted to have whatever access it could get in order to rip Bush and got bent out of shape when he told them his administration had better things to do — like the work — than give them access they aren’t legally entitled to. Sorry, but they had the right to say “no comment.”
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Seems like the liberals just have it in for Bush, and are campaigning against him never mind that he’s not running again this year. And if that wasn’t enough, then they gotta waste taxpayer money on something stupid like voting on whether they’ll arrest him if he steps into their town:
http://tinyurl.com/3xd37t
And then you got this whack job who says this:
Seems like our politicians would have better things to do, like figure out where my social security money is going come from, or beefing up security on the borders or something important, like legitimate work….
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Points well taken NJL and MIM; however, there are conservatives and republicans who tried the same thing with Clinton. They tried to get access to everything Clinton did while President and cried foul whenever executive priviledge was used. They also fought to have him arrested once he left office, and still do to this day.
However, you miss the point of the article. I agree with the writer, in a sense. I think too much of what our government does is cloaked in secrecy. Why? They don’t want the public to know how much of what the government does is influenced by monied interests.
Is this symptomatic of republicans alone? Of course not. It’s a problem that spans the political spectrum. However, those in power snicker, knowing that whenever the topic is broached, half the populace will agree with their secrecy. In other words, they are safe.
MIM, you want our politicians to do those things? Great, take away the frivolous use of priviledge and secrecy and hold them accountable. Until you do that, you’ll get nothing.
As an aside, I find the whole lot of fraternal orders to be quite silly, especially when they cloud themselves in secrecy. Secret clubs were all the rage in elementary school. Seems like some otherwise smart adults think differently.
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The best part is the accounting for “condi” and “harriet”:
. . . for men to associate their own virtuous patriotism with secrecy, women’s own secrets had to be stripped of their unnerving sensuality.
Condi, the Virgin “Unsex Me Now” Secretary of State, strips her aesthetic self of sensuality by playing Brahms. She limits physical access by choosing prospective suitors from the NFL. Harriet? Nobody wants to know.
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Jacob Weisberg has the best explanation so far of what Bush has to hide:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/002-2625237-2864047?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=jacob+weisberg&x=0&y=0
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Lester: What is executive privilege? Why does it exist? When you learn the answer to those questions, you will see that it is very necessary. But I guess you want to weigh down, strip down, the executive branch of the government by setting up a camera and watching everything minute by minute. Just think about that for a few minutes. I’m glad you won’t prevail.
I have said this before, but having spent some considerable time working for the government, I don’t believe the government is filled with all the intrigue and conspiracies some of you believe in. People do a lot of stupid things, there are lazy people, too, but there’s always someone around to kick them. I don’t hate my government the way you do, no matter who is in power. I’m not that cynical.
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NJL – you make me chuckle. You’ve spent considerable time working for the government? Me too – . In fact, I’ve got over a decade of service and still counting. I don’t think the government is fileld with all the intrigue and conspiracies that you say I believe in, but I do know that government isn’t all sunshine and daisies. I’ve seen, read and heard what goes on in the back channels of K Street.
Please read my post again and tell me where I wanted executive privilege stripped. There is a time and place for it to be sure, but when it is over-used, then there is a problem. Bush using executive privlege for our nation’s energy policy? Are you kidding me?
Why don’t we just privilege the whole government. I mean, our enemies probably read about our defense expenditures – that weakens our nation and aids the enemy. Classify it! Don’t want to let our enemies know how much we spend on food subsidies? Classify it or else they will know where our weaknesses are!
Seriously – you tell me where you should draw the line. Is everything the President does Confidential? Secret? Top Secret? Remember, one can make the case that our enemies would benefit from even the most banal government info.
Things like energy policy and what interest groups are funding which congressman to vote for which bill are not confidential. Rather, they are vital data for the voting public. I for one would like to know how the President is using my tax dollars to ensure the safety of the energy supply. I should know who is bending the President’s ear.
He works for me.
Not vice versa.
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I take more of an Occam’s Razor approach: while I think that Bush is more complex than the popular left imagination, I still go with the simpler models.
The secrecy ethos does not seem to be part of the Bush personna — that is, it was not particularly present in Texas. So then, this twist of secrecy and all seems to be something relatively new. Does it arise in him or some one else. I would cast my vote for the latter.
What is striking about Bush is both his certainty and his relative lack of curiosity. His words often feel flat, as if there were little substance behind them. This is quite different from others in high office, from both sides of the aisle. And how different this is from his father.
In Occam Razor-ish fashion, I would suggest that maybe there is something about the family dynamic that accounts for this. It’s a lot easier (at least) to grasp than appeals to Free Masonry. But then again, we do live in a therapeutic age.
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This fellow’s prose is ludicrously prolix. He tries to make a sophisticated case that Bush’s “secrecy” is based on some sort of effeminate tendency connected with Skull and Bones and the Masons.
Presidents going back to Washington have been accused by resentful congressman of being secretive, when in fact it is most important that the deliberations of any administration are properly held close. Were it otherwise president would not get unvarnished advice.
Professor Bonica needs to find some real work.
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There is a huge hypocrisy among conservatives on the secrecy issue. When Clinton was President they raised a huge stink over secrecy and Executive Privilege. Now that Bush is President, they’re completely in favor of it.
Hide and watch – if the next President is a Democrat the conservatives will again be completely opposed to it.
Bush vastly expanded the powers of his office. If the next President is a Democrat and the conservatives start bleating about how much power he or she has, I hope the President tells them to take a flying leap.
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Lester, perhaps the judiciary is filled with better people; of course, they aren’t producing a product (opinions) that is secret, they don’t make deals the way legislators make. I am not so naive that I don’t know that Washington is NOT a place for me. I would not survive there. I’d be calling everyone dishonest.
In the judiciary, versions of opinions go back and forth via email because a consensus has to be reached, the other judges either join or don’t join the writer, and sometimes they want this or that changed to be able to join an opinion. No one needs to see how these guys put it all together or how they argue about things between a majority and a dissent. What matters is what is ultimately filed. Likewise, you can’t operate day to day as a president without being able to talk things out with advisors. You complained about executive privilege, and Peter Leavitt hit the nail on the head: this has been going on for 200+ years. That’s normal. Whichever side is not in power always resents it, and in my lifetime, has sued over it — which is also a ploy. We have a system of checks and balances, because it is human nature, something the Founders understood, to covet power. Our system works.
What Harris calls a relative lack of curiosity may just be a difference in the way Bush approaches a problem. Some people (lawyers, especially) can become so bogged down with “curiosity” that instead of a one-page memo, they write fifteen. I have worked for banks and have seen the mortgage modifications they use: one to two pages tops. A few months ago, I met a general counsel of a bank whose version was nine pages long! What a waste! Bush also has an amazing ability to just do his job and not worry about what it looks like. He has pointed out that they’re still writing books on Washington. I give him credit for that perspective.
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Here’s a thought…secrets by the gov’t are kept because liberal weasels get their hands on information and post it all over the world to people who want to kill us.
Ya see, if you’re too stupid to realize that most of the people out there can’t be trusted with what goes on behind the scenes, then you don’t NEED to know.
I often receive security briefings that folks aren’t privy to, because they can’t handle what’s in them. If that info got out, certain folks who despise America and all of us in it would use it to further their murderous plans.
Now how hard is that to understand?
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I guess they “can’t handle the truth,” right Dav? Glad you feel you’re important wiht all those security briefs. I guess having a TS/SCI/TK/G/HCS clearance means you’re so much better than all those rubes without one.
Please.
National security is one thing. Classifying everything you do is another.
I’m sure you’re a regular Jack Bauer. Heh.
What matters is what is ultimately filed. Likewise, you can’t operate day to day as a president without being able to talk things out with advisors
NJL – no one is saying Bush can’t get untarnished advice from this advisors. It would be nice to know what went on afterwards and what was the result. Not to beat a dead horse, but take our energy policy. What’s so secret about it? Why should Bush care if he listened to advisors from Exxon/Mobil but not from Shell? And it’s not even the advice that’s classified, it’s the nuts and bolts of the policy as well.
It’s ridiculous that the people who pay for the government, who pay the politicians’ salaries can’t get a simple answer. You want to privlege our energy policy? Great – give us a reason why. Let another another branch OK your reason.
That’s check and balances.
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Is there any other kind of prolix? To my ear, the man’s prose is densely packed.
Contrary to Peter’s misreading, Bonica mildly mocks the case for “satan worship” and credits it to “creative critics,” but he doesn’t make it himself.
In defending what is “properly held close” by Bush, Peter offers himself to the satire. What propriety holds close is property and propaganda. Just as near and dear, is propagation–the ludicrous breeding– of male “succor and sociability,” fraternal intimacy’s “open” secret.
The article is a hoot and Peter has no sense of humor (unlike my luncheon hosts at the Bohemian Club, a place where no spider supposedly is allowed to weave her web).
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“Let another another branch OK your reason.”
Separation of powers; see ya in court.
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“There is a huge hypocrisy among conservatives on the secrecy issue. When Clinton was President they raised a huge stink over secrecy and Executive Privilege. Now that Bush is President, they’re completely in favor of it.”
And, by the same token, friend Anlir, when Clinton was in office, liberals had no problem with ‘executive privilege’ and ’secrecy’ (especially when it involved cute interns) and now that Bush is in office, they’re ‘raising a huge stink’ about it.
You just wait. When a Democrat is in office again, liberals will be completely fine with it.
Hypocrisy is a two-edged sword, compadre.
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Bush has a lot of explaining to do.
You can go to Youtube and watch the lies pour out of the mouth of Bush. About everything from 9/11 to Katrina. Bush makes Nixon look like a saint.
The Bush followers are the most credible. They can go watch Bush in his own words say he watched the FIRST plane crash into the WTC, that HE NEVER EVER made a connection between Sadam and 9/11, that he doesn’t think about Bin Laden anymore. Right out of his own lying mouth, and yet they complain he is being bashed. Truly pathetic.
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INTELLECTUAL GORGON; Hypocrisy is a two-edged sword, compadre.
You must be a newbie. This is not the sophisticated line on this issue. Liberals are immoralists who are immune to charges of hypocrisy, since they don’t pretend to uphold absolute standards. Conservatives are sometimes hypocrites, but that’s only because they are devoted to morality. Hypocrisy is therefore a virtue, absense of hypocrisy is evidence of total moral darkness.
If you have any questions, check out Marvin Olasky’s posts about Sen. Vitter, among others.
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First of all, my friend Scroop, I’m one of those rarely-seen beasts known as a lurker. I’ve been here since the blog got started, back in the day when Olasky ran the show and it looked like Dresden post-firebombing nearly every day.
(This is a less nose-thumbing way of saying, “I’ve been here longer than you! Nyah, nyah, nyah!”
)
Otherwise, I see your point completely, and I am humbled by its inchoate wisdom. I will remember it well, along with other wonderful bits, like, “ignorance is strength,” “freedom is slavery,” and “black is white.”
The argument could be made that since you have no moral absolutes, then you’re inherently a void of moral darkness. So more darkness, like hypocrisy for instance, just wouldn’t make much of a difference in the final shade of inky blackness, now, would it?
(And besides, I think it was Vincent who did the Vitter posts, wasn’t it?)
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Wow, Lester…if you put lifts in your shoes, you’ll be able to ride the big boy rides!
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And, by the same token, friend Anlir, when Clinton was in office, liberals had no problem with ‘executive privilege’ and ’secrecy’ (especially when it involved cute interns) and now that Bush is in office, they’re ‘raising a huge stink’ about it.
Not to defend Clinton, who I wish had had the good sense to keep his pants zipped and/or been more discrete and selective with his conquests if he could not.
But there is a world of difference between keeping a sexual tryst secret, and keeping both the crafting (to say nothing of the actual nuts and bolts) of government policy secret.
The one is, in the end, a mere tittilation of a tabloid sort. The other cuts to the core of how we are governed, how the people that we elect are doing the job for which we have hired them.
Big difference, that.
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Actually, they both have a direct effect, Thomas. Just in different ways, and in different spectrums.
The type of secrets that Clinton kept showed that he was a lecher who spent more time thinking about whose pants he could get into than he did thinking about how the country could be benefited. He was distracted by the whole Lewinsky/Tripp/Flowers business, and his sexual irresponsibility interfered with his work, as immaturely titillating as that may be.
The type of secrets Bush keeps show that he is seriously concerned with this nation’s national security and our interests abroad. Now, you might not agree with his policies, but he got elected, so he runs the show for now, national security secrets and all – as immaturely titillating as that may be.
Bottom line: Bush’s secrets show a man who is serious and intense about his job. Some folks disagree with the way he’s doing his job, and think that he ought to be gotten rid of. OK, that’s fair, and that’s your right. I’m cool with that.
Clinton’s secrets show a man who’s serious and intense about women. Which, incidentally, isn’t in the job description.
Now, I think that a man who can’t keep his pants on probably can’t keep his head on straight, either. I was glad when we finally got rid of him. What’s done is done, so what does it matter in the end?
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#22: The type of secrets Bush keeps show that he is seriously concerned with this nation’s national security and our interests abroad.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha
Ho ho ho ha ha ha
’scuse me, I almost threw up a little.
A couple of nights ago, on the news, it was pointed out that Bush has spent 432 days on vacation out of 7 years.
That equals two months out of every 12.
How come I only get two weeks?
Yea, he really cares.
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