Michelle Cottle on Bush administration relativism

More on the conservative movement's slide toward relativism from TNR's Michelle Cottle:

[Karl] Rove is just the latest, most egregious example we've seen. Before that, America watched as the CIA head who screwed up the Iraq WMD intelligence was given a pass--and then a medal. Ditto the geniuses who botched--or rather failed to do any--postwar planning. Meanwhile, the man who helped build the legal foundation for the scandalous abuses at Abu Ghraib got himself bumped up to Attorney General and may soon be on his way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Then there's Thomas Scully, the former Medicare chief who reportedly threatened to fire his top actuary if the man dared admit to Congress that the White House was low-balling its cost estimates for the Medicare drug bill. Later asked to investigate the matter, the Government Accountability Office, citing federal law that bars the government from paying the salary of any official who prevents another employee's communication with Congress, ruled that the administration should require Scully (who had since decamped for a private-sector post) to repay half of his previous year's salary. The administration refused, insisting that, in its view, Scully had done nothing improper.

Of course not. Because, in Bushworld, the definitions of such terms as "proper" and "right" and "good" depend entirely upon whether the act in question serves the goals of, and the version of truth propounded by, the administration. At the end of the day, despite all its moral posturing, this White House has a highly fluid, relativistic approach to right and wrong that one typically associates with fuzzy-headed lefties. The main difference seems to be that, for Bushies, the defining philosophy isn't "I'm OK. You're OK," but rather "I'm OK, and if you agree with me then pretty much anything you do is OK too."

Whatever obvious charms this approach may hold for members of Bushworld, this is no way to run a nation. An administration serious about personal accountability and moral absolutes and "doing the right thing" would--as promised--kick Rove's butt. This one is more likely to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Comments

[Dianne Hackborn]

You seem to be implicitly linking their behavior with moral relativism, but it seems to me it would be better called amorality. That is, you are rewarded if you go along with the administration and punished if you don't, and morals don't enter the picture.

It is fun to turn the dreaded "moral relativism" term back on them, though. :)

[Michael Koplow]

Uh-oh. She got me started.

Dianne Hackborn is absolutely correct about the Bush administration's amorality. An extremely trivial incident that took place a year or so ago--I'm surprised it wasn't pursued more by the media--convinced me of this. Some Republican senator was going against the party line on some issue. Cheney used some impermissible word when rebuking the senator. (I told you this was trivial, but stay with me.) Cheney was asked about this, and his reply was to smile and say "I enjoyed it" or "It felt good" or the like.

Now, using this word seems to have been something Cheney either considered wrong or thought that others would consider wrong. Other politicians, when caught doing something wrong, make denials, or excuses, or quibbles about whether the rule applies in their case, or apologies. Any or all of these may be lies, but at least they're paying lip service to the idea of right and wrong and admitting that at least in theory it applies to them. As far as I know, only Cheney has publicly used the pleasure principle as justification.

And Bush's reaction to Cheney's utterance? "Stuff happens" (this one I remember verbatim). *_Stuff happens_*? Well I'll be forked. "Stuff happens," or some shit like that, is what people say when something bad has happened to them--when they're pawns of forces beyond their control--or when they want to act like that's the case.

Trivial, as I said. But it speaks many volumes about their attitude toward morality.