Newt Gingrich makes a point

From today's Opinion Journal:

T

he analysis Mr. Bush offers the nation--before the Joint Session on Sept. 20, 2001, in his 2002 State of the Union, in his 2005 Second Inaugural--is consistently correct. On each occasion, he outlines the threat, the moral nature of the conflict and the absolute requirement for victory.

Unfortunately, the great bureaucracies Mr. Bush presides over (but does not run) have either not read his speeches or do not believe in his analysis. The result has been a national security performance gap that we must confront if we are to succeed in winning this rising World War III.

Gingrich's article is very complex and deals with many problems, which I do not want to discuss here. But one thing is very clear: the president has not tamed the bureaucracy, and like a lion tamer who ignores the lion, is attacked and undermined. He must have learned this stuff at Harvard Business School--that's the only place that would be dumb enough to counsel an executive not to control his suboordinates. The timeservers and placemen have undermined him at every turn. This Richard Armitage mess is just the latest example.

Is anyone asking for Armitage's resignation? Of course not. Does anyone control the CIA, which has been wrong about 95 percent of the time in the last 50 years? Heaven forbid. Has anyone kicked ass in the State Department? Ha. Ha. So these folks make a monkey of the president and run rings around him--and get away with it!

I can't imagine Roosevelt or Truman putting up with it. Or Reagan.