Mar

25

William Saletan partisan hack

Filed Under Politics 

I rarely agree with Slate’s William Saletan but I often enjoyed what he wrote and respected his opinion. That is quickly changing. Lately he has become a rabid Bush hater. He used to focus on the inconsistent or hypocritical aspects of politicians rhetoric or policy. Lately he has simply been gunning for Bush. There is no nuance or balancing, it is simply Bush is a terrible president or worse an evil liar.

Check out his recent work. Six weeks ago he asserted - using Plato and Aristotle no less -that Bush refuses to change his mind even when reality demands it; in essence that he refuses to acknowledge facts. Again in early March he insisted that Bush is incapable of seeing the details necessary to implement his “big picture” ideas. Saletan makes it clear that he wants Bush gone:

From foreign to economic to social policy, Bush’s record is a lesson in the limits and perils of conviction. He’s too confident to consult a map. He’s too strong to heed warnings and too steady to turn the wheel when the road bends. He’s too certain to admit error, even after plowing through ditches and telephone poles. He’s too preoccupied with principle to understand that principle isn’t enough. Watching the stars instead of the road, he has wrecked the budget and the war on terror. Now he’s heading for the Constitution. It’s time to pull him over and take away the keys.

This week Saletan is using Dick Clarke to bash Bush again. Not content to simply criticize Bush, Saletan blames Bush for not stopping 9/11:

That was why Clarke couldn’t get a hearing. His ideas were too partial, too ad hoc, too Clintonesque. Bush wanted a bigger approach: Comprehensive. Strategy. Eliminate. Different. His “comprehensive strategy” was delivered on Sept. 4, 2001. Is the White House embarrassed that it spent those six months studying the “many complex issues involved in the development of the comprehensive strategy” instead of swatting the “flies” that would kill 3,000 Americans a week later? No. It’s proud.

In case you didn’t catch that, Saletan reinforces it later:

Bush’s approach to al-Qaida was all or nothing. On Sept. 11, 2001, a week after his grand strategy was finished, he got his answer: Nothing.

The ironic thing about Saletan is that he blames Bush for refusing to see the facts and for being in essence an ideologue. But it seems to me that Saletan has become enamored with his own abstract vision of who Bush is and how he thinks. He builds a model and then writes a column that fits that picture. Is he a talented writer? Sure, but he is increasingly a mere polemicist rather than a journalist. There is no shortage of one sided Bush bashing on the web, I don’t need Slate for that. I understand that Slate leans left but its current tone makes it hard to distinguish from Salon. Heck, on the political side if it wasn’t for Kaus Slate would be Salon except profitable. If Saletan insists on writing nothing but one sided Bush attacks I will look elsewhere for political reporting.

Comments

One Response to “William Saletan partisan hack”

  1. Tom on March 25th, 2004 5:42 pm

    “Lately he has become a rabid Bush hater.”

    One of the Left’s greatest problems is that they think that by showing their rage they are injecting value, manipulative emotion into the debate and pulling people to their side. The reality is that the angrier and more hateful they become, the more people flee their cause.

    People like me, who have never considered ourselves members of any party and who genuinely dislike a goodly portion of both parties ideology. I (and we) have been forcibly shoved into the Republican camp, because the Terrocratic camp has made itself so utterly repulsive to us.

    I honestly dislike having to snuggle so tightly into Bush’s corner. But I’ll be damned if I’ll sacrifice the security of my country to a bunch of men and women who have abandoned country for Party and who have expressed time and again their eagerness to subvert American sovereignty and whose foriegn policies are suicidal for America.

Leave a Reply