The Mensch Gap - New York Times
The New York Times

February 20, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

The Mensch Gap
By
PAUL KRUGMAN

"
Be a mensch," my parents told me. Literally, a mensch is a person. But by
implication, a mensch is an upstanding person who takes responsibility for
his
actions.

The people now running America aren't mensches.

Dick Cheney isn't a mensch. There have been many attempts to turn the
shooting of Harry Whittington into a political metaphor, but the most
characteristic
moment was the final act - the Moscow show-trial moment in which the victim
of Mr. Cheney's recklessness apologized for getting shot. Remember, Mr.
Cheney,
more than anyone else, misled us into the Iraq war. Then, when neither links
to Al Qaeda nor W.M.D. materialized, he shifted the blame to the very
intelligence
agencies he bullied into inflating the threat.

Donald Rumsfeld isn't a mensch. Before the Iraq war Mr. Rumsfeld muzzled
commanders who warned that we were going in with too few troops, and
sidelined
State Department experts who warned that we needed a plan for the invasion's
aftermath. But when the war went wrong, he began talking about "unknown
unknowns"
and going to war with "the army you have," ducking responsibility for the
failures of leadership that have turned the war into a stunning victory -
for
Iran.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, isn't a mensch.
Remember his excuse for failing to respond to the drowning of New Orleans?
"I remember
on Tuesday morning," he said on "Meet the Press," "picking up newspapers and
I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged the Bullet.' " We now know that by
Tuesday
morning, he had received - and ignored - many warnings about the unfolding
disaster.

Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, isn't a mensch.
He insists that the prescription drug plan's catastrophic start doesn't
reflect
poorly on his department, that "no logical person" would have expected "a
transition happening that is so large without some problems." In fact,
Medicare's
1966 startup went very smoothly. That didn't happen this time because his
department ignored outside experts who warned, months in advance, about
exactly
the disaster that has taken place.

I could go on. Officials in this administration never take responsibility
for their actions. When something goes wrong, it's always someone else's
fault.

Was it always like this? I don't want to romanticize our political history,
but I don't think so. Think of Dwight Eisenhower, who wrote a letter before
D-Day accepting the blame if the landings failed. His modern equivalent
would probably insist that the landings were a "catastrophic success," then
try
to lay the blame for their failure on the editorial page of The New York
Times.

Where have all the mensches gone? The character of the administration
reflects the character of the man at its head. President Bush is definitely
not a
mensch; his inability to admit mistakes or take responsibility for failure
approaches the pathological. He surrounds himself with subordinates who
share
his aversion to facing unpleasant realities. And as long as his appointees
remain personally loyal, he defends their performance, no matter how
incompetent.
After all, to do otherwise would be to admit that he made a mistake in
choosing them. Last week he declared that Mr. Leavitt is doing, yes, "a heck
of
a job."

But how did such people attain power in the first place? Maybe it's the
result of our infantilized media culture, in which politicians, like
celebrities,
are judged by the way they look, not the reality of their achievements. Mr.
Bush isn't an effective leader, but he plays one on TV, and that's all that
matters.

Whatever the reason for the woeful content of our leaders' character, it has
horrifying consequences. You can't learn from mistakes if you won't admit
making
any mistakes, an observation that explains a lot about the policy disasters
of recent years - the failed occupation of Iraq, the failed response to
Katrina,
the failed drug plan.

Above all, the anti-mensches now ruling America are destroying our moral
standing. A recent National Journal report finds that we're continuing to
hold
many prisoners at Guantánamo even though the supposed evidence against them
has been discredited. We're even holding at least eight prisoners who are no
longer designated enemy combatants. Why? Well, releasing people you've
imprisoned by mistake means admitting that you made a mistake. And that's
something
the people now running America never do.

Posted by Miriam V