Suellentrop on the Bush gaffe

It will dominate the airwaves tomorrow, says Suellentrop, and it illuminates Bush’s flawed thinking about terrorism.

The newspaper fact-checkers aren’t giving any special prominence to GWB’s flat denial that he had ever said what we all well remember him saying: that he wasn’t concerned about ObL’s whereabouts. But Chris Suellentrop predicts that both the importance of the misstatement and the existence of a videotape contradicting it will lead it to dominate the airwaves tomorrow. (From his keypad to God’s monitor.)

Suellentrop also provides what seems to me a persuasive interpretation of Bush’s thought process. Bush, says Suellentrop, lives in a world where only states matter; once ObL no longer controlled Afghanistan, he was nothing to Bush, who then moved on to Iraq. Kerry, by contrast, understands that terrorist networks matter.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com