Bush's Top Ten Mistakes - from a conservative perspective

Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, has a list of George Bush's Top Ten Mistakes. I found it at the Washington Times Website, so you know it's conservative squared. One of his points is that Bush had "An ineffective management style." Wow. Some reality from a conservative talking about Bush. Maybe there is some hope. He also believes that Bush made a mistake by "[n]ot taking charge during Katrina." Guess all those millions of Americans expressing horror at Bush's disastrous handling of that disaster penetrated Lowry's ideological armor.

And there's more:
"Not reading enough history." So maybe there is something to this desire for a well-educated, articulate, intellectually curious president.

"Underestimating the power of explanation." Whoa! Again with the yearning for an intellectually engaging leader.

"Ignoring health-care reform too long." This is icing on the cake. An actual disappointment about a key policy initiative.

Lowry's conclusion reveals his own delusions:

Oddly enough for a president denounced as an executive monster by his perfervid critics, many of Mr. Bush's mistakes involve not being active enough or taking a stronger hand. How that came to be so with a president who believed so deeply in strong leadership should long occupy Mr. Bush, and fair-minded historians.

Lowry has apparently missed the bazillion blog posts and essays and Op-Ed pieces and books and TV shows and movies by liberals criticizing Bush precisely for not being engaged in the details of actually governing the United States of America. That was why so many people were so critical of how he handled Katrina. How many examples could we find? How many days were there in this spectacularly awful Administration?

But I have to give Lowry credit for being willing to criticize Bush, even at this absurdly late date. I'm sure he's going to get his share of vituperative emails from the remaining true believers. Maybe there is some hope for conservatives to start an honest examination of their failures.

Or maybe the circular firing squad is just getting started.