{"id":866,"date":"2004-04-19T03:22:31","date_gmt":"2004-04-19T07:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/04\/seeking_counsel\/"},"modified":"2004-04-19T03:22:31","modified_gmt":"2004-04-19T07:22:31","slug":"seeking_counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/04\/seeking_counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeking Counsel"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn’t catch the Woodward piece on 60 Minutes<\/i> last night, but here’s<\/a> an interesting nugget from the web site:<\/p>\n

Having given the order, the president walked alone around the circle behind the White House. Months later, he told Woodward: “As I walked around the circle, I prayed that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty. Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord’s will. I’m surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of his will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for forgiveness.”
\nDid Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, “He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There’s a higher Father that I appeal to.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s a weird statement. Bush says he isn’t justifying the war based on God. Yet he implies that he’s God’s messenger.
\nI have my doubts that God approves of elective wars, but that may just be me. Putting that aside, isn’t it strange Bush says he didn’t seek any advice from his father? Who as I recall just happened to be president the last time America was involved in a war with Iraq. Bush the elder might have useful experience.
\nThat’s not all:<\/p>\n

Beyond not asking his father about going to war, Woodward was startled to learn that the president did not ask key cabinet members either.
\n“The president, in making the decision to go to war, did not ask his secretary of defense for an overall recommendation, did not ask his secretary of state, Colin Powell, for his recommendation,” says Woodward.
\nBut the president did ask Rice, his national security adviser, and Karen Hughes, his political communications adviser. Woodward says both supported going to war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Bush asked his political communications adviser about the propriety of war, but not the secretary of defense or the secretary of state?
\nThat’s a weird decision tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn’t catch the Woodward piece on 60 Minutes last night, but here’s an interesting nugget from the web site: Having given the order, the president walked alone around the circle behind the White House. Months later, he told Woodward: “As I walked around the circle, I prayed that our troops be safe, be protected […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}