Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 by Dr.Art Pitz
Yesterday while I was waiting
for an appointment, I caught a
bit of President Bush's press
conference regarding the recent
National Intelligence Estimate
which indicated that Iran
responded to international
pressure by shutting down its
nuclear weapons program in 2003
and has kept it shut down.In his
statements and responses to
questions, President Bush did
not in any way indicate that his
policy towards Iran had been
based on an incorrect
assumption.
He dodged all questions about
that and emphasized instead that
Iran had had a nuclear weapons
program and could start it up
again at any time. That's true,
but he didn't admit that his
administration's drumbeat for
war with Iran might well have
been in error.
The record of Presidents failing
to admit error and accept
responsibility is not
encouraging. Would the republic
not have been better off if
Presidents such as Bill Clinton,
Richard Nixon, and Eisenhower
(the U-2 episode comes to mind)
had promptly faced up to their
mistakes publicly? Weren't we
better off because President JFK
did that with the Bay of Pigs
episode?
What do you think? Can you come
up with examples both good and
bad in the line of Presidents
failing to "fess up" and of
those who did? In the next few
days, we'll take a look at some
lessons from the historical
record.
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