In answer to Shapiro's question "Is there something that you could say to them so they could look back in, say, five years and say, 'You know, Joe Lieberman may have had a point'?", Lieberman said, in part:

Here's what I would say to people who are opposed to the war. Acknowledging all the mistakes that were made. . .

Well, that's the problem right there, isn't it, Senator? President Bush won't acknowledge "all the mistakes that were made." Neither will Rumsfeld. (He probably "can't recall.") When asked if he has any regrets, Cheney replied with a simple, heart-felt, "No." How on Earth can they "begin to reevaluate" if they can't even face the reality of their own errors?

We will draw a veil over Lieberman's Bush-like conflation of the insurgency and al-Qaida, how profoundly silly it is to worry about how a pullout "will be a very damaging loss of credibility for us" (do we have any credibility left, Senator?), and why it's idiotic for a man who had to wear a flak jacket and have a military escort on his visit to still think that "there is still hope to stabilize the country" when we can't even stabilize the Green Zone (doesn't he read his briefings?).

But aside from Iraq, what struck me was his absurd dance around the whole Alberto Gonzales issue. If anyone has any doubts about which side of the aisle Lieberman stands on, his non-answers on that topic should erase them all. "I should look that up," "It was earlier in the year" (wow, way back in June!), "It was a political vote," "That's the question I don't answer," "He serves at the pleasure of the President." He may caucus with the Democrats, but he's obviously been getting the RNC talking point memos.

Thank you so much, people of Connecticut; I'm so pleased to be stuck with this guy for another five years.

To be perfectly frank, I doubt if Bush does know there's a credit crunch, that the mortgage industry is melting down, or that the housing market is stalling. Why would he? (And I ask that not flippantly, but Socratically.) As Al Smith might have said, "Let's look at the facts":

Bush is deeply involved in two main areas right now: Iraq, and (charitably) fighting the war on terror or (uncharitably) an unprecedented Executive Branch power grab. Whatever attention he pays to other issues is probably minimal at best, and I am willing to bet that goes for his advisors as well. Even those not under threat of subpoena.

Bush's circle is fairly distant, both economically and business-wise, from the current mortgage and housing situation. He's surrounded by oil bidness cronies and other folks from Tejas; what do those ol' boys know about Sally Mae and such? Say what you want about Bush Sr., at least connected Yalies had friends in the finance industry. (Hell, has Bush even had a mortgage in his life? Has he even lived with someone who did?)

Bush is so deeply in a bubble that he doesn't even know there is a bubble. He's in denial there is a bubble. For him, inviting Hugh Hewitt and Neal Bortz over to breakfast provides him with "frank, opposing views." Something like mortgage interest rates, which impact people not even remotely close to Bush's circle, hasn't a hope of penetrating.

As we have seen for the last 6.5 years, Bush much prefers to look at things in simple, black and white, good vs. evil terms. "Dead or alive!"; "Axis of evil!"; "Bring it on!" "Tax cuts are good!" The cut-rate mortgage crises is the text-book definition of a murky, difficult, complex, shades-of-gray problem that Bush despises grappling with. Who is the Bad Guy (tm)? Who is the Good Guy? How can he appear to be the Strong President up on the rubble with the megaphone? Not with this kind of stuff; no chance. Best just leave it alone.

So anyway, with this President, I am utterly unsurprised that this whole thing is unaddressed. Hell, they took forever to address dying and starving people hip-deep (or more) in the Big Muddy in the middle of a national disaster after Hurricane Katrina when it was on world-wide television; I certainly don't expect an intellectually-incurious man like this President to talk about something as complex and difficult as this.

Or maybe I'm just bitter.

The danger of a Dick Cheney is the danger of the ideologue: he will do anything, anything, for his principles. The ends justify the means. And the horror becomes all the worse when not only are the means horrific--torture, lies, secrecy, the trampling of laws and the Constitution itself--but the goal itself is awful: the endless expansion of Executive power.

But in a way, Karl Rove represents a scarier vein of danger. Dick Cheney, now that his goal is unmasked, is predictable. We know what drives him. We know what his goal is. We know towards what he works. Although they are awful, he does have principles.

Karl Rove has no principles. He believes in nothing. He has no moral guideposts, he has no overarching philosophy. He believes only in "winning" for "his side," no matter who "his side" is. He is morally bankrupt. He feels no guilt, for he is not a hypocrite; he takes no moral stances, and lives by none. He gives the benefit of his abilities, his intellect, and his cunning to whomever it seems expedient to do so for no reason other than his desire "to win." And thus he attacks decorated veterans for being cowards, equates criticism with treason, and denies the immorality of whisper campaigns of lies against opponents. Winning is not just everything; it truly is "the only thing."

So which is the more frightening type of man? It is to our nation's sorrow that both types have been running our country for the last six and a half years.