Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine"

Ron Suskind (2006), The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies since 9/11 (New York: Simon and Schuster: 0743271092).

The opening of Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine:

Ron Suskind: The "what ifs" can kill you.... [I]n terms of the tragedy of 9/11, a particular regret lingers for those who might have made a difference. The alarming August 6, 2001, memo from the CIA to [Bush]--"Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US"--has been widely noted in the past few years. But also in August CIA analysts flew to Crawford to personally brief the President--to intrude on his vacation with face-to-face alerts.

The analytical arm of CIA was in a kind of panic mode.... They didn't know place or time... but something was coming. The President needed to know.

Verbal briefings of George W. Bush are acts of almost inestimable import... more so than... for other recent presidents. He's not much of a reader... never has been... not a President who sees much value in hearing from a wide array of voices.... But he's a very good listener and an extremely visual listener. He sizes people up swiftly and aptly... and trusts his eyes. It is a gift, this nonverbal acuity.... What does George W. Bush do? He makes it personal.... The expert... has done the hard work... [Bush] tries to gauge how "certain" they are of what they say....

The trap, of course, is that while these tactile, visceral markers can be crucial... they sometimes are not. The thing to focus on, at certain moments, is what someone says, not who is saying it, or how they're saying it.

And, at an eyeball-to-eyeball intelligence briefing during this urgent summer, George W. Bush seems to have made the wrong choice.

He looked hard at the panicked CIA briefer.

"All right," he said. "You've covered your ass, now."

One thing in Suskind's picture is very different from what I hear. Suskind says that Bush has "a gift, this nonverbal acuity." That's not what my sources who have dealt with Bush say. They say, by contrast, that Bush is quite bad at sizing people up--unable to distinguish who is telling him pleasing lies from who is telling him the truth. In fact, uniquely bad. Vastly worse than any previous president in living memory. And stubborn too: once Bush has made a bad decision, he will not even think of reversing it.

What is The One Percent Doctrine about? It is the CIA-view account of the first three years after 9/11. It tells the story of the War on Terror fought by the CIA. It tells the story of the War on Iraq that Cheney and Rumsfeld convinced Bush had to be fought--although it never explains why they thought it had to be fought, and why they thought it had to be fought with too few and the wrong kind of forces. And it tells the story of the War on the CIA waged by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, and Rice--a war that in the book's view has left us far less able to fight the real War on Terror than we should be today.

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now.

Comments

[Cranky Observer]

From Joel Sporsky, product line manager for Excel in the mid-1990s:

===
Then I sat down to write the Excel Basic spec, a huge document that grew to hundreds of pages. I think it was 500 pages by the time it was done. [...]

In those days we used to have these things called BillG reviews. Basically every major important feature got reviewed by Bill Gates. I was told to send a copy of my spec to his office in preparation for the review. It was basically one ream of laser-printed paper.

I rushed to get the spec printed and sent it over to his office.
[...]
In my BillG review meeting, the whole reporting hierarchy was there, along with their cousins, sisters, and aunts, and a person who came along from my team whose whole job during the meeting was to keep an accurate count of how many times Bill said the F word. The lower the f***-count, the better.

Bill came in.

I thought about how strange it was that he had two legs, two arms, one head, etc., almost exactly like a regular human being.

He had my spec in his hand.

He had my spec in his hand!

He sat down and exchanged witty banter with an executive I did not know that made no sense to me. A few people laughed.

Bill turned to me.

I noticed that there were comments in the margins of my spec. He had read the first page!

He had read the first page of my spec and written little notes in the margin!

Considering that we only got him the spec about 24 hours earlier, he must have read it the night before.

He was asking questions. I was answering them. They were pretty easy, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were, because I couldn't stop noticing that he was flipping through the spec...

He was flipping through the spec! [Calm down, what are you a little girl?]

... and THERE WERE NOTES IN ALL THE MARGINS. ON EVERY PAGE OF THE SPEC. HE HAD READ THE WHOLE GODDAMNED THING AND WRITTEN NOTES IN THE MARGINS.

He Read The Whole Thing! [OMG SQUEEE!]

The questions got harder and more detailed.

They seemed a little bit random. By now I was used to thinking of Bill as my buddy. He's a nice guy! He read my spec! He probably just wants to ask me a few questions about the comments in the margins! I'll open a bug in the bug tracker for each of his comments and makes sure it gets addressed, pronto!

Finally the killer question.
[...]
"Four," announced the f*** counter, and everyone said, "wow, that's the lowest I can remember. Bill is getting mellow in his old age." He was, you know, 36.

Later I had it explained to me. "Bill doesn't really want to review your spec, he just wants to make sure you've got it under control. His standard M.O. is to ask harder and harder questions until you admit that you don't know, and then he can yell at you for being unprepared. Nobody was really sure what happens if you answer the hardest question he can come up with because it's never happened before."

"Can you imagine if Jim Manzi had been in that meeting?" someone asked. "'What's a date function?' Manzi would have asked."

Jim Manzi was the MBA-type running Lotus into the ground.

It was a good point. Bill Gates was amazingly technical. He understood Variants, and COM objects, and IDispatch and why Automation is different than vtables and why this might lead to dual interfaces. He worried about date functions. He didn't meddle in software if he trusted the people who were working on it, but you couldn't bullshit him for a minute because he was a programmer. A real, actual, programmer.

Watching non-programmers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn't know how to surf trying to surf.
[...]
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html

====
There is more, but it gets a bit technical ;-)

Let's see: as a businessman, Bill Gates earned himself about $40 billion and his stockholders ... a trillion perhaps? While George W squandered $20 million of OPM and had to be rescued by daddy.

Wonder if there is a connection there somewhat? Too much beer tonight to suss it out.

Cranky

[Steve]

I once had a boss who didn't think you were being sincere, or truely believed what you were telling him unless you were shouting it at him. For some reason he thought vocal volume implied truth.

Now most engineers don't really get into doing status reports this way. In general they are very reserved and expect you to listen and quickly understand the implications. So most of the other engineers in my department couldn't figure out how to get their point across. (This manager was trained as a manager, rather than an engineer)

After learning how this guys mind worked I found it quite fun to yell at him. But it really was not a good decision process for him.

Anyway I understand how that "ass coverer" felt.

[howard]

a good friend of mine was a mckinsey consultant in the '80s and '90s, and he has told me about the training session he was sent to whose whole point was to make sure the mckinseyites understood that no matter how good you may think you are at sussing people out, you can and will be fooled.

[John Emerson]

The August 6 memo has been known about almost from the beginning, and the trip to Texas too. Nobody seemed to care then except me and Bartcop. I doubt that anyone will care now, either.

[christo]

Luckily we have made progress with Star Wars II which was and is a priority. We haven't made progress with getting the thing to work; the advances have been in the areas of spending money, starting construction, and keeping the latest or continuous failures off the front page. The Egyptians had their pyramids, I say we should made the missile defense system after Reagan, the Reagan Defense Shield. So far the North Koreans and the Chinese haven't bombed us, so, in a way, it has been effective.

[christo]

The Suskind's book sounds like a real eye-opener. And, except for my comments, this is the start of a good discussion about our mismanager in chief. I'm just worried that Rove will carry the field again with his natural abilities to succeed in selling a failure.

[andres]

christo, George W. Bush has definitely not been a failure. In terms of his real job, which is to be a glorified press spokesman for the people really in charge, he has been a brilliant success. Rove's loyalty is not to Bush but to the people who manipulate Bush: Cheney, Rumsfeld, maybe Rice as well. The Bush presidency has been a brilliant success for Cheney and co. even as it has been an utter disaster for this nation.

[Faisal N. Jawdat]

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/images/pipeline.gif

[Linkmeister]

christo, it may interest you to know that the place where missile defense tests occur, formerly Kwajalein Missile Range, is now named the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site.

It may be the only government installation named after the man which truly makes sense.

[vt codger]

***But he's a very good listener and an extremely visual listener. He sizes people up swiftly and aptly... and trusts his eyes. It is a gift, this nonverbal acuity....***

George -- You're doing a helluva job Brownie -- W Bush is a great judge of people? Another trip through right wing fantasy land if you ask me. Look at the people he has selected and stood by. Some are quality -- Powell, Rice, Bernanke at the Federal Reserve, Griffin at NASA. Most are mediocre at best. Some are disasters. Rumsfeld was a lousy Secretary of Defense in the 1970s and he's carried on in the same vein today.

I have no idea what causes the wingnuts and too much of the press to maintain that George W Bush is an intelligent man, and that he is qualified to be president of the US (or anything else). The evidence strongly suggests that his intellect is marginal and his management skills virtually nonexistent.

[em]

Just finished watching the latest episode of "Frontline" (the PBS investigative news program) titled "The Dark Side". This outstanding report explored some of the issues central to Mr. Suskind's book...facinating and terrifying to believe the awesome poweer of the USA could be twisted in such perverse directions. Truely we are teetering on the brink of a major breakdown. Maybe we have a chance, but we better learn some lessons fast.

[christo]

Movie Guy is right. There is some wilful blindness going on. While Rice often says who could imagine, Clinton was king in an earlier era when his actions really fell into the category of who could imagine a bunch of unemployed whiskey swilling Arabians with a chip on their shoulder would do this to us. Clinton did try to strike back against O B L but was struck back domestically by the vast rightwing conspiracy. The conclusion to the point that Movie Guy raises is we as Americans are idiots.

Billmon on his site today makes the point but on another topic:

I have to admit, even I didn't think the political pimps in control of our national whorehouse would have the gall to sneak through a pay raise for themselves, then turn around a week later and kill the first increase in the minimum wage in almost ten years. Even I wouldn't have imagined they would think they could get away with it. Not in an election year. I guess it's their way of showing Tom DeLay they don't need him around to act like a pen full of swine with a taste for eating their own feces. The Bug Man may be gone, but his pestilence remains.

But what it really indicates, I think, is the complete confidence the GOP majority now places in the chronic amnesia of the American voter -- and the willingness of the corporate media complex (particularly its broadcast arm) to avoid doing or saying anything that would jog the patient's memory, at least when doing so might directly damage the interests of a powerful business constituency.

The piglets must assume that no matter how bad the juxtaposition of the two items above may look in June, by November it will just be another half-remembered trivia question -- like the infamous Dubai ports deal, which is being quietly resurrected now that all the fuss has died down.

They're probably right: There no longer seems to be any limit on what the devious and the dishonest can get away with in this country, as long as they're willing to be patient about it.
http://www.billmon.org/

Still the republicans are the ones who advertised themselves as the laser eyed realists who could suss out the dangers in the world, the buck stops here type of guys.

[The Armaniac]

It's just frightening.

I hope all his advisors are similar minded white texans because cultural studies show vast differences in the facial signals given by people and associations with truth, integrity etc.

[Motts McGregor]

George W. "Judge of Character" Bush. My oh my where to begin. How about here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1392791.stm

-Motts

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/washington/21kerry.html?ex=1308542400&en=7345d06f8da1cc1d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

June 21, 2006

On Iraq, Kerry Again Leaves Democrats Fuming
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON — When Senator John Kerry was their presidential nominee in 2004, Democrats fervently wished he would express himself firmly about the Iraq war.

Mr. Kerry has found his resolve. But it has not made his fellow Democrats any happier. They fear the latest evolution of Mr. Kerry's views on Iraq may now complicate their hopes of taking back a majority in Congress in 2006.

As the Senate prepared for what promises to be a sharp debate starting on Wednesday about whether to begin pulling troops from Iraq, the Democratic leadership wants its members to rally behind a proposal that calls for some troops to move out by the end of this year but does not set a fixed date for complete withdrawal. Mr. Kerry has insisted on setting a date, for American combat troops to pull out in 12 months, saying anything less is too cautious.

In drawing up a schedule for the Wednesday session, the Democratic leadership has arranged for its plan to be debated first, pushing Mr. Kerry and his proposal into the evening, too late for the nightly television news, to starve it of some attention.

Senate Democrats have been loath to express their opinions publicly, determined to emphasize a united front. But interviews suggest a frustration with Mr. Kerry, never popular among the caucus, and still unpopular among many Democrats for failing to defeat a president they considered vulnerable. Privately, some of his Democratic peers complain that he is too focused on the next presidential campaign.

Mr. Kerry now describes the war in Iraq as a mistake, even though he once supported it. His critics say they believe the new stand reflects more politics than principle, and ignores other Democrats' concern that setting a fixed date will leave those in tough re-election fights open to Republican taunts that they are "cutting and running" in Iraq.

The Democrats' exasperation has increased in the last week, as they postponed a vote on Mr. Kerry's amendment to try to fashion a broader consensus among themselves. Democrats up for re-election asked him not to propose a fixed date. But Mr. Kerry, several Democrats said, was unwilling to budge from that idea, even though his co-sponsor, Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, seemed willing to compromise for the sake of consensus. In the end, Mr. Kerry agreed only to extend his deadline, from Dec. 31 of this year to July 2007.

Mr. Kerry's insistence on pushing ahead with his own plan has left the Democrats divided, and open to renewed Republican accusations that they are indecisive and weak — the same ridicule that Republicans heaped on Mr. Kerry in 2004, when his "I was for it before I was against it" statement about a vote on money for the war became a punch line....

[kharris]

In the grand tradition of saying politicians actually are what they themselves think they are, Suskind has transmitted Bush's own belief about his ability to size people up. Why he would do that, I don't know.

[anne]

KHarris

"In the grand tradition of saying politicians actually are what they themselves think they are, Suskind has transmitted Bush's own belief about his ability to size people up."

Nicely incisive :)

[Neal]

He is a front man, a fool manipulated by an industry assembled to stroke his ego and keep him in the bubble. Find out who arranges his schedule and vistors and you find the trail of the true power in the administration. I doubt if he has ever called in anyone who diagrees with him and had a discussion where he was open to change. A good judge of people, ha! What about his fine supreme court nominee, his secretary?

[baileyman]

The 00 election was one where SEC docs were particularly useful. One could peruse the Rep & Dem management teams records in cold hard numbers, evaluating how well they managed for shorholder or for themselves. Two things showed pretty well: 1) they were particularly poor managers/businessmen/investors and 2) they managed to capture much more share of firm value than they deserved. I don't think I see any change yet in their public performance. The Suskind account seems to say otherwise. Brad seems right on top of it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

If Bush were really that good at sizing people up, it's hard to believe that he would want to let a few close advisors shield him from everyone else. People with good people skills usually want to engage with other people. Bush doesn't.

[anne]

"The Democrats' exasperation has increased in the last week, as they postponed a vote on Mr. Kerry's amendment to try to fashion a broader consensus among themselves. Democrats up for re-election asked him not to propose a fixed date. But Mr. Kerry, several Democrats said, was unwilling to budge from that idea, even though his co-sponsor, Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, seemed willing to compromise for the sake of consensus. In the end, Mr. Kerry agreed only to extend his deadline, from Dec. 31 of this year to July 2007."

Remember that the war in and occupation of a violent Iraq is approaching the length of American involvement in World War II, but John Murtha suggested we leave Iraq by June 2006. John Kerry suggested we leave by December 2006. Now, the proposal is to leave by June 2007 and even Democrats in the Senate are afraid to support the proposal.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/opinion/l20iraq.html

In Iraq, a Few Things Are Clear

To the Editor:

In "House Rejects Timetable for Withdrawal From Iraq," we learn that the resolution passed by the House "argues that the American action in Iraq is central to the 'global war on terror.' "

Thus the Republicans continue to paint over the facts that Iraq (a) was not a source of terrorist strikes against the United States before our invasion; and (b) was invaded not because it was thought to be such a source, but rather on the pretext that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

This consciously dishonest argument is essential if the Republicans are to keep their beloved, politically crucial "global war on terror" alive at least until the coming midterm elections.

It is striking that transparent dishonesty of this kind, played out over and over again, seems to have little effect on the American people. I conclude that the only folks who are seriously concerned about the war in Iraq are those who have loved ones in it. The rest don't seem to care, and so are not paying attention.

James K. Knowles
Sierra Madre, Calif., June 17, 2006

[Anderson]

I think Suskind's being misunderstood here re: the "nonverbal acuity."

Bush is described as having the trait, common to narcissists & some others (I'm not diagnosing here), of quickly sizing someone up in terms of "what does this person want from me? what's his angle?"

Not the content of the briefer's message, but the "personal," CYA aspect is what Bush picked up on.

He's a rich kid from a rich family, used to wheedling for what he wants, and interpreting everyone else as like himself.

[Doctor Jay]

This reminds me of when Bush said that he had "looked into Putin's eyes and found someone he can deal with"?

[editor]

"Why he would do that, I don't know."

kharris--I think it's excusable on Suskind's part. It's a rhetorical set-up: Bush's slavish worshipers believe all this stuff about his infallible gut, but the anecdote gives the lie to it.

He can't read. He can't process complex information verbally, either. All he can do, according to his worshipers, is "read visual cues", i.e. look at people and take ill-informed guesses on the basis of stunted experience. And here is an anecdote that shows that he cannot even do that.

As though his glimpses into Putin's soul didn't tell us that already.

[Njorl]

I can't help but remember the remark about looking Putin in the eye and getting a sense of his soul. I swear I saw Putin suppressing a laugh when Bush said that.

That Bush thinks he can do this is not in doubt. That some others believe Bush can do this is also the case. However, he, and they, are mistaken. Unfortunately, if someone were to inform Bush of this, he'd be able to size them up with one look and know they were wrong.

[Jon Gallagher]

"He sizes people up swiftly and aptly... and trusts his eyes. It is a gift, this nonverbal acuity.... What does George W. Bush do? He makes it personal.... "

Although agreeing with one's host is not exactly breathtakingly brave, Brad has nailed why we are in this hopelessly fouled up situation. Someone like Bush, who develops no independent ideas or research, is easily swayed by the conviction of his briefer. In other words, the closer to a stone sociopath you are, the more the President of the United States of America trusts you.

Having unfortunately encountered quite a few (easy tip, when they are looking at you, and you feel the overwhelming urge to blink, it's because *they* haven't blinked for a really long time. IOW they are stone f******* crazy) in the software industry I am scared. Really scared.

[Jonathan Goldberg]

"I hope all his advisors are similar minded white texans because cultural studies show vast differences in the facial signals given by people and associations with truth, integrity etc."

No, cultural studies do not show this. Paul Eckman pioneered this area in the 70s, over fierce opposition from the cultural types. You can check here:

http://www.paulekman.com/

or google something like facial emotion recognition.

[Emma Anne]

If Bush sizes people up with a glance, and then never ever changes his mind, then he is always right, by definition. It's only we in the reality based community who feel that outside evidence has anything to do with anything.

[km4]

How Bush chose stupidity
http://www.slate.com/id/2100064/

Ezcertps:

,,,if "numskull" is an imprecise description of the president, it is not altogether inaccurate. Bush may not have been born stupid, but he has achieved stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of honor. What makes mocking this president fair as well as funny is that Bush is, or at least once was, capable of learning, reading, and thinking. We know he has discipline and can work hard (at least when the goal is reducing his time for a three-mile run). Instead he chose to coast, for most of his life, on name, charm, good looks, and the easy access to capital afforded by family connections.

...The most obvious expression of Bush's choice of ignorance is that, at the age of 57 ( this piece was written in 2004 ), he knows nothing about policy or history.

A fourth and final quality of Bush's mind is that it does not think. The president can't tolerate debate about issues. Offered an option, he makes up his mind quickly and never reconsiders.

As the president says, we misunderestimate him. He was not born stupid. He chose stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he's something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool.

[johnchx]

howard wrote: "a good friend of mine was a mckinsey consultant in the '80s and '90s, and he has told me about the training session he was sent to whose whole point was to make sure the mckinseyites understood that no matter how good you may think you are at sussing people out, you can and will be fooled."

What an excellent idea! We should reproduce this in the public schools as quickly as possible. Seriously.

GWB is a particularly egregious example of the unfortunately common tendency of people to place undue faith in their own E.S.P. We'd all be safer if people learned to interpret that warm, trusting feeling they get about certain people as a warning sign, not a green light to hand over their checkbooks (or ballots).

[anatol]

vt codger:

“Look at the people [Bush] has selected and stood by. Some are quality -- Powell, Rice,...”

I beg to differ – with a little personal tidbit: circa 1995 I met socially with a fellow emigrant from the former Soviet Union, who was a Stanford insider. Rice has just been appointed the Stanford provost, so I asked for his opinion of her. He said that academically she was an abject mediocrity incapable of any scientific achievements, but extremely good at promoting her career. He predicted that the moment a Republican administration would get into DC, Rice would attain a very high government position. I'm afraid that for all his cynicism he hasn't realized just how high the position would be.

Be very afraid...

[Wombat]

Which President is on record as taking the threat of terrorism seriously before 9/11?

[M. Simon]

You cannot get to be a fighter pilot (even in a reseerve wing) without being able to read and understand a lot of technical manuals. And read and understand physics and math at least through beginning calculus. With some electronics, mechanics, hydrolics, thermodynamics, metalurgy, etc thrown in. Your life depends on keeing all that stuff in mind while people are shooting at you.

I was told a story (can't say how true) that Bush lost his first election because people thought he was too smart. If true, I'd say he learned his lesson.

Which could be why so many misunderestimate him.