Dionne gets it.

E.J. discusses Bush's non answer to a question we would all like answered. Name 3, just 3 mistakes that you have made over the course of your administration. What we got was a re-framing of the question, followed by a non answer smothered in Snootitude.

Noting that the president had made "thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives," Grabel sensibly wanted this piece of information: "Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct it."

The president's answer was notable in two ways. First, he spent many words not answering at all. He spoke vaguely about how historians might second-guess some of his decisions and that he'd take responsibility for them. He also asserted: "I'm human."

Second, when Bush finally did admit something, he said this: "I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV."

There, in brief, are the core reasons why polls suggest that undecided and independent voters are having a problem with this president. His tactic of never admitting mistakes is backfiring in light of events. And when asked to take responsibility, his first instinct was to direct attention to others by speaking of his supposedly mistaken appointments.

When you are born with a silver platter in your mouth, never worked an honest day in your life, made it through life soley on the powerful connections of your father, and never have taken responsibility for anything, are a congenital idiot and liar, well, can you really expect anything else.

But a president who pushed the country so hard to go to war on the basis of supposedly imminent threats owes his fellow citizens more than a desultory "oops." That's why Bush's refusal to admit mistakes matters. It suggests his belief that voters, even at election time, have no right to a clear and candid explanation of what went wrong, and why.

And when in doubt, the president blames somebody else. Almost all of the war's supporters believe that the United States put too few troops on the ground to keep order after Hussein's fall. What did Bush say about this in the debate? He recalled "sitting in the White House looking at those generals, saying, 'Do you have what you need in this war?' " and going to the White House basement and "asking them, 'Do we have the right plan with the right troop level?' And they looked me in the eye and said, 'Yes, sir, Mr. President.' "

Ahh yes, insulation from contrary opinion. Sure the Generals told you what you wanted to hear, I mean the ones that wanted to keep their jobs anyway. They saw what happened when one of them crossed you Mr. President, he got his ass canned. A manager who surrounds himself with yes men is always going to lead to disaster. Dubbya, is your head so far up your ass that we need to install a window in your abdominal cavity so you can see where you are going?