D'oh!

Being president means never having to mean you're sorry.

by Jonathan McGoran

George W. Bush has finally said, "I'm sorry." Not for anything he was personally involved in, of course, but for the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. Still, this is quite an achievement for the president, who as recently as his press conference a month ago was unable to apologize for anything, or even think of a single mistake he had made.

Now, to be fair, the president was answering those questions without Dick Cheney by his side, and we now know how important Cheney is to the question-answering process. Without Dick Cheney by his side, Bush couldnít even answer questions about why he couldnít answer questions without Dick Cheney by his side. If Cheney had been with him, the president would have replied, ìWe need to testify together because weíre a coalition, like Scalia and Thomas. Why, if I went before the 9/11 Commission without Dick Cheney by my side, it would be like the U.S. going into Iraq without Bulgaria. Or rather, them going in without us. You get the idea.î

But the vice president wasnít there to help him, and when Bush was asked if he had made any mistakes before or after 9/11, he struggled so badly, I felt compelled to help him myself. I had to restrain the urge to raise my hand and say, ìOoh! Ooh!î like a third-grader, lips bursting with answers. But thatís how it is when youíre watching at home; the questions all seem so easy.

The reporters tried to help, too, asking if maybe one mistake had been to ignore that President's Daily Briefing from August 6, 2001, the one titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US" (One wonders if Bin Laden ever received a briefing entitled "Bush Determined to Ignore Warnings"). But there was nothing to apologize for there; Bush once again labeled the briefing as "historical" in nature. "Frankly," he said, "I didn't think that was anything new." In other words, it contained information they were already not acting on.

As the president has already said, if his administration had known exactly what was going to happen and at the precise time and place, they might have acted to prevent the 9/11 tragedy. For that matter, if we had known the exact time and place of his last tax cut we might have avoided this big deficit, too. If only we had spent all that missile defense shield money on something more feasible, like a time machine. Then we could go back in time and give him the information he needed.

But, in the real world, you don't get such precise information, and as the president says, "I can't make good decisions unless I get valid information." He deserves credit for going ahead and making them anyway.

I guess it's hard to admit your mistakes when you're getting your orders from the almighty. Or maybe the president just hasn't been able to put his apologies into words; they never have been his favorite medium. Come to think of it, after failing to verbalize a single mistake, the president is now reversing himself all over the place: just three weeks later, and now the United Nations, the Baathists and the remnants of the Iraqi Army are preparing to accept the transfer of power. Next thing you know, he'll be inviting the French and Germans to take over the oil fields. And actions have always spoken louder than words for George W. Bush. In the wake of 9/11, when devastated and demoralized Americans wondered aloud about the rest of the world, "Why do they hate us?" George W. Bush -- a man of bold actions, not ineffectual words -- responded, "Maybe it would be easier if I just showed you."

One mistake for which the president will no longer have to apologize is the fake connection between Iraq and terrorism. As we've watched the unraveling of tenuous justification to invade Iraq number three -- protecting the Iraqi's human rights -- justification number two has gained new credence. In a case of life imitating artifice, the fictional Iraqi/WMD/terrorist connection has been replaced by the real-life foreign terrorists streaming into the Iraqi ruins/Uncle Sadr Wants You connection.

Unfortunately, while the president seems to be finally recognizing his mistakes, he still doesn't appear to have learned from them. When asked if his unpopular decisions would be worth losing his job over, he once again ignored the warnings and failed to plan for the future, replying, "I don't plan on losing my job."

Jonathn McGoran is ditor of the Weavers Way Shuttle If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (800 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper editor in chief, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there