Our 13 year-old President

I keep seeing it in the headlines, so let’s quell the myth that Bush has taken responsibility for the disaster in Iraq.  As best I can tell, there were two statements in Wednesday night’s speech which came close, charitably speaking, to assuming responsibility, and they are these:

"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me." §4

"Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons:" §8

The casual reader will notice that, in the second statement, Bush references the failure of "our" –and not "my"— past efforts. Failure to take responsibility for one's failure is a sign of bad character; pretending to do so and implicating others is even less worthy of respect.

Acknowledging the failings of a group of which one is a member is clearly not a case of one man taking responsibility, and that for two reasons. First, "we" can fail despite "my" best efforts to the contrary. That is, I can simultaneously affirm that "the group failed" and "but it wasn't because of anything I did". And, second, acknowledging failure is altogether different from assuming responsibility (e.g. "Sure, I failed miserably, but it wasn't my fault!").  

And as for the first statement? The claim that "the responsibility rests with me" is qualified by the antecedent clause "Where mistakes have been made..."  It’s equivalent to saying, "If some mistakes have been made, then the responsibility rests with me."  And that’s equivalent to not taking responsibility. Rather, it merely stipulates a condition under which one would be willing to take responsibility.

Of course, some will say, if he goes on to list some mistakes, shouldn’t we infer he’s taking responsibility for them?  Perhaps.  But look at it this way.  If you have a 13 year-old son who’s caused harm to the family on account of some mistake he’s made, and the best he can do is mumble a few statements that allow you to infer some kind of vague apology, --are you going to be satisfied with that?  Would you, concerned as you are with the moral development of your child, take that as comforting evidence of your son’s moral maturity?  I know from my own experience that would not have been acceptable to my own parents.  It’s a shame we can’t expect more from the man who delivered a speech Wednesday night from the White House.