Sunday, April 01, 2007
Cry Me A River.
How do you like this guy?
But now my kid has to go to Iraq, so I'm suddenly granting interviews saying, really, I was opposed to the President's policies all along -- I just never, you know, said so, or "submitted" any of my strongly-worded criticisms, or actually protested in any way whatsoever.
But seriously, all along I was on the, uh, other winning side -- the one that will bring my kid back from Iraq.
Your kids -- I couldn't care less about.
Weasel. Just like all the rest.
- Ex-Aide Says He's Lost Faith in Bush
By JIM RUTENBERG
April 1, 2007
AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 -- In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush's early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.
A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush's political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president's chief campaign strategist.
Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.
In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush's inner circle to break so publicly with him.
He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush's presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.
Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled "Kerry Was Right," arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.
In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd's premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.
During the interview with Mr. Dowd on a slightly overcast afternoon in downtown Austin, he was a far quieter man than the cigar-chomping general that he was during Mr. Bush's 2004 campaign.
Mr. Dowd said he decided to become a Republican in 1999 and joined Mr. Bush after watching him work closely with Bob Bullock, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas, who was a political client of Mr. Dowd and a mentor to Mr. Bush.
Mr. Dowd established himself as an expert at interpreting polls, giving Karl Rove, the president's closest political adviser, and the rest of the Bush team guidance as they set out to woo voters, slash opponents and exploit divisions between Democratic-leaning states and Republican-leaning ones.
In television interviews in 2004, Mr. Dowd said that Mr. Kerry's campaign was proposing "a weak defense," and that the voters "trust this president more than they trust Senator Kerry on Iraq."
But he was starting to have his own doubts by then, he said.
His views against the war began to harden last spring when, in a personal exercise, he wrote a draft opinion article and found himself agreeing with Mr. Kerry's call for withdrawal from Iraq. He acknowledged that the expected deployment of his son Daniel was an important factor.
"If the American public says they're done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want," Mr. Dowd said. "They're saying, 'Get out of Iraq.' "
But now my kid has to go to Iraq, so I'm suddenly granting interviews saying, really, I was opposed to the President's policies all along -- I just never, you know, said so, or "submitted" any of my strongly-worded criticisms, or actually protested in any way whatsoever.
But seriously, all along I was on the, uh, other winning side -- the one that will bring my kid back from Iraq.
Your kids -- I couldn't care less about.
Weasel. Just like all the rest.
