Marble Composition

Always Remember...

Check out this post from Josh Marshall:

New York Magazine ...

Bush-administration officials privately threatened organizers of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, telling them that any chance there might’ve been for the United States to sign on to the Kyoto global-warming protocol would be scuttled if they allowed Bill Clinton to speak at the gathering today in Montreal, according to a source involved with the negotiations who spoke to New York Magazine on condition of anonymity.

Bush officials informed organizers of their intention to pull out of the new Kyoto deal late Thursday afternoon, soon after news leaked that Clinton was scheduled to speak, the source said.

The threat set in motion a flurry of frantic back-channel negotiations between conference organizers and aides to Bush and Clinton that lasted into the night on Thursday, and at one point Clinton flatly told his advisers that he was going to pull out and not deliver the speech, the source said.

Priorities.

When thinking about what the Bush administration does, and why it does it, the overriding principle, the one that has the biggest influence over everything they do, you have to cite one thing: Politics. Maybe it's better described by a popular word with political consultants of any stripe: Optics. Whatever they do, it's not about whether a policy helps people, or makes things better for average Americans, or fixing some problem, it's all about making sure Republicans stay in power. The story above is just one example of the only way they know how to operate. Everything they do is politically motivated. Always and forever. Josh nicely ties it up with one word.

(As an aside, this reminds me of an article I read in the Washington Monthly a while back, here. Basically, Wonks are policy eggheads, Hacks are political operatives, and you can be sure the Bush administration doesn't welcome wonks at all; good policy isn't on their agenda.)

posted by FuzzFinger @ 12/09/2005 07:30:00 PM