A sincere address, but too-high a price

Posted By Kori Schake Friday, January 16, 2009 - 4:36 PM Share

By Kori Schake

It was shocking to see how much Bush has aged in office -- a telling sign of how arduous being the president is. His delivery of the address seemed oddly out of tune with the words, which I also attribute to the toll these eight years have taken. I suspect critics will cavil about insincerity, but my limited experience with him persuaded me he deeply believes what he said in the farewell address. My strong reaction to President Bush's words was sorrow that the country unnecessarily paid too-high a price to achieve those worthy objectives.

EXPLORE:BUSH ADMINISTRATION, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

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MARTIN SULLIVAN

9:28 PM ET

January 16, 2009

I concur with your assessment

I concur with your assessment of his delivery of the speech and of his sincerity. Yet, as you know, the President's, and his advisors', intolerance to data prevented us from adapting our Iraq strategy and operations in a timely and acceptable manner. Moreover, that intolerance and an accumulation of untoward actions by senior DOD/DOS leaders in this Adminstration will continue to threaten the US' capability to credibly coerce it's adversaries and will lessen the benefits we once garnered from being the guarantor of security for our allies and potential partners.

Shadow Government is a blog about U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration, written by experienced policy makers from the loyal opposition and curated by Peter D. Feaver and William Inboden.