Really, even W should have seen this coming. Matthew Dowd, a former top Texas Democrat who jumped onto the Bush bandwagon in 1999 after being disillusioned by the Clinton administration has become, erm disillusioned by the Bush administration. Dowd had been a member of Bushs inner circle since he was elected in 2000. He was famously one of the primary architects of the campaign to paint Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper. However, Dowd has decided to wake up and throw Georgie under the bus in an interview with the New York Times. (login: sgnews, pass: sgnews)
Christ, Matthew! First the Dems and then Bush? Make up your fucking mind already!
In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bushs leadership.
He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a my way or the highway mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.
I really like him, which is probably why Im so disappointed in things, he said. He added, I think hes become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.
Hes become secluded and bubbled in? BECOME!? Where the fuck have you been the last seven years, dude? How could it have possibly taken you so long to piece this together?
Its almost like you fall in love, he said. I was frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides. And this guys personality he cared about education and taking a different stand on immigration.
When you fall in love like that, he said, and then you notice some things that dont exactly go the way you thought, what do you do? Like in a relationship, you say No no, no, itll be different.
How romantic. OK, so now that youve woken up from your insane delusion, why come out now? What are you hoping to achieve?
In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowds premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.
Mr. Dowd, 45, said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated. But, he said, he holds out no great hope. He acknowledges that he has not had a conversation with the president.
On a more serious note, what Dowd is doing is admirable, if a bit tardy for my tastes. If nothing else, it takes guts to speak your mind knowing that it will not only mean your job but it will also cement yourself as completely unemployable by either party. And heres to hoping he does get a chance to have that conversation with the president, though we all know it wont help. More broadly, Dowds defection and subsequent back-stabbing of Captain Mission Accomplished is evidence of a wider trend: even the rats are abandoning ship.
Take heart, kids. We might make it out of this in one piece.
I wonder how much he can fit in his mouth and whether he has anything resembling a gag reflex anymore?
We get his type up here too. In fact one of the more prominent, Belinda Stronach, ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Of course I do have to doff my cap to Dowd for doing the double flip. That's showing some real guts.
Mr. Dowd said he decided to become a Republican in 1999 and joined Mr. Bush after watching him work closely with Bob Bullock, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas, who was a political client of Mr. Dowd
He's now primed to become someone's very valuable campaign strategist. He won't need to worry about party affiliation; that's for idealists and demagogues. He's turning pro.
I really, really don't think so and it seems to me he's already a pro. I think he's pretty much committed political suicide. You don't do a double-double cross without pissing off both sides of the aisle. Unless he goes independent, but that's kind of like committing political suicide too.
Oh, kudos nothing. The "flip-flopper" bit was his little piece of genius? Fine, then. Do an opinion switch on the war four years into it if you'd like to, Mr. Dowd, but kindly go fuck yourself while you're at it. *grumbles*
He's now primed to become someone's very valuable campaign strategist. He won't need to worry about party affiliation; that's for idealists and demagogues. He's turning pro.
I really, really don't think so and it seems to me he's already a pro. I think he's pretty much committed political suicide. You don't do a double-double cross without pissing off both sides of the aisle. Unless he goes independent, but that's kind of like committing political suicide too.
It's only poilitical suicide if he runs for office. There are big bucks to be made by someone with the savvy this guy has shown. According to The Center for Public Integrity
About 600 professional consultants were paid $1.78 billion for 2003-2004 political campaign work.
That works out to just under $3 mil each, if my math's right. I admittedly know little about the source, but the figures wouldn't be impossible to roughly verify by other sources.
Why would someone hire him as a consultant when there's a 100% chance he's just going to turn on you?
So he fell in love with Dubya partly because Dubya promised to do more to improve the American education system? I wonder, which appropriation bill that siphoned valuable dollars from all sectors of government, including education, for a pre-emptive war effort ended his honeymoon with Shrub?
So the rats are all starting to jumping ship now, eh? Dowd must feel like he's spinning in circles with all the disillusionment he's suffered. If he stopped drinking all the electric kool-aide, maybe he'd have a moment of clarity: get out of the political boot licking business and into hardcore gay biker porn instead. He'd probably feel right at home.
Subrosa said:
Why would someone hire him as a consultant when there's a 100% chance he's just going to turn on you?
i'm not sure you're using math right. twice in, what, twelve years? that doesn't indicate a 100% chance to me.
There were two available options. He played both of them. That's 100%.
past behavior tends to be a good indicator of future behavior, yes, but that's still not a 100% guarantee. in this case, especially, it's not a guarantee or even a good indicator--the sample size is way too small. show where he's worked for ten guys and turned on all ten of them, and you'll have a good case (still not 100%, because there is no 100% guarantee when it comes to human behavior). but as reported here, he's turned on two guys in twelve years.
Subrosa said:
Incidentally, that's why I went to law school.
remind me to never ask a lawyer to do my math homework!
Subrosa said:
Why would someone hire him as a consultant when there's a 100% chance he's just going to turn on you?
i'm not sure you're using math right. twice in, what, twelve years? that doesn't indicate a 100% chance to me.
There were two available options. He played both of them. That's 100%.
past behavior tends to be a good indicator of future behavior, yes, but that's still not a 100% guarantee. in this case, especially, it's not a guarantee or even a good indicator--the sample size is way too small. show where he's worked for ten guys and turned on all ten of them, and you'll have a good case (still not 100%, because there is no 100% guarantee when it comes to human behavior). but as reported here, he's turned on two guys in twelve year!
Guy goes into a drugstore. Robs it. Goes into another drug store. Robs it. Heads toward a third. Now, quick! What's he going to do in that drugstore?
Point is this guy gets "disillusioned" when complex political processes do not match his rather simplistic expectations. This is an indicator of a rather shallow thinker with a possible personality disorder, which means he will get hooked up with someone else and get "disillusioned" (disillusionment apparently takes a while in this guy.) But, if it will make you feel better, let's lower the odds to 95%.
Subrosa said:
Why would someone hire him as a consultant when there's a 100% chance he's just going to turn on you?
i'm not sure you're using math right. twice in, what, twelve years? that doesn't indicate a 100% chance to me.
There were two available options. He played both of them. That's 100%.
past behavior tends to be a good indicator of future behavior, yes, but that's still not a 100% guarantee. in this case, especially, it's not a guarantee or even a good indicator--the sample size is way too small. show where he's worked for ten guys and turned on all ten of them, and you'll have a good case (still not 100%, because there is no 100% guarantee when it comes to human behavior). but as reported here, he's turned on two guys in twelve years.
I was exaggerating on the 100% figure. The point is he's not trustworthy from a political perspective because he not only changes his mind all the time, but does so very publicly.
Subrosa
San Francisco, CA
July 2004
APR 03, 2007 10:21 AM