I've watched the punditry for the past day about GWB's last press conference and no one seems to have noticed what he chose to call his great mistakes. No one has mentioned the quality of those mistakes so I'm writing it here.
These are the mistakes GWB mentions in the video below.
- The "mission Accomplished" banner. He described as one of the great mistakes of his presidency.
- Some of the rhetoric he used talking about the fight with Al Qaeda (The comments like, "bring em on") he says was a mistake.
- He waffled on whether not landing Air Force one in New Orleans was a mistake.
- He says thetime at which he presented the idea of the privatization of Social Security was a problem - not the idea itself. (That was a stunning thing to say considering the present condition of the stock market.)
The quality that these things all have in common is none of them are about real actions. They are all public relations issues.
Bush doesn't feel he handled Katrina poorly, he feels that he handled his public image poorly. He feels either his timing was bad or he mishandled the stage-craft.
He doesn't think not having an exit strategy going into Iraq was a mistake, he feels the banner on the aircraft carrier was a bad move.
He feels that in "the war on terror" his biggest mistake was his use of language.
He apparently still thinks privatizing social security is a good move. He thinks he couldn't convince others because of bad timing.
Did he believe the job of POTUS was like the Queen of England and only ceremonial?
For anyone who hasn't viewed the press conference in it's entirety, it's worth seeing.
Below is just the part about his mistakes.
Here is the link to the You tube site
Does he really think the substance of everything he did was fine - but that there were just a few PR failures along the way?
I'm sure someone is going to ask why I care about this and point out we're all just thrilled that he's on his way out.
True, but I think this odd man is worth a last look to help insure, we as country, never make this kind of mistake again.