During one of the myriad press briefings (read “propaganda
sessions), NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Donald Trump whether he took responsibility for
the testing lag, which one member of his own task force called “a
failing.”
Trump’s answer, predictably? “No, I don’t take responsibility at all.
Because we were given a — a set of circumstances, and we were given rules,
regulations and specifications from a different time. It wasn’t meant for this
kind of — an event with the kind of numbers that we’re talking about,” Trump
responded. President Trump doesn’t take responsibility. For anything.
He didn't take responsibility for the death of Sgt. La David
Johnson, a Green Beret killed during a counter-terror operation on the border
between Niger and Mali earlier in his administration. Two weeks elapsed without calling Johnson's
loved ones, and then Trump told his pregnant widow, Myeshia Johnson, that her
late husband "knew what he signed up for" — placing responsibility
for his death not on Trump, his commander in chief, or the rest of the
government, but on Sgt. Johnson himself, for choosing to serve.
He is far from being the first US President to deny culpability
for failures, but he’s the most consistent in recent years.
Admittedly, his previous Republican successor was also prone
to “Not me” when confronted with unsuccessful policy results. Whereas Trump usually gets angry and blatantly lies when
confronted, “W” got confused and almost apologetic.
Here, verbatim, is the stumbling series of semi-answers he attempted
to express to Journalist John Dickerson when he was asked, during a press
conference, to name his biggest mistake since 9/11 and what he’d learned from
it:
Here's what he said:
"Hmmm... I wish you'd have given me this written
question ahead of time so I could plan for it. Uhhh... (six-second pause)
"John, I'm sure historians will look back and say,
gosh, he could've done it better this way or that way. Uhhh... (five second
pause). You know, I just -- uhhh - I'm sure something will pop into my head
here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to
come up with answer, but it hasn't yet. ..."
Bush then babbled and generally rambled on that he would have
done nothing differently in Afghanistan, how Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and
how he was confident the truth would come out about weapons of mass destruction
(Well, he was right about that, in retrospect, the real problem was that there
were none!!). After filling dead air and generally, killing time with that
nonsense, he tried to return to Dickerson's original question. But Bush's eyes
looked like a slot machine that had just hit BAR-APPLE-LEMON. He said:
"I hope -- I don't want to sound like I have made no
mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- heh, heh -- you just put me
under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in
coming up with one."
Sadly, this is about as good as it got with George W. Bush,
a man woefully outclassed by his job requirements, and perhaps better suited to
doing Charmin commercials. (sorry, Mr. Whipple)
Of course, the ultimate in lying through the teeth was the
barrage of denials from Richard Nixon in the wake of Watergate, these are legion
and far too numerous to mention.
Sadly, there have been relatively few Presidents who have
publicly acknowledged responsibility for events under their direction. There
have been notable recent exceptions.
Barack Obama was one. He said, addressing the nation, "The
system has failed in a potentially disastrous way. ... The intelligence
community failed to connect those dots." He later amplified on the events
thus: "Ultimately, the buck stops with me. As president, I have a solemn
responsibility to protect our nation and our people, and when the system fails,
it is my responsibility."
Somewhat similarly, in 1987, US President Ronald Reagan said
in a speech about the Iran-Contra affair: “Certainly it was not wrong to try to
secure freedom for our citizens held in barbaric captivity. But we did not
achieve what we wished, and serious mistakes were made in trying to do so.”
Admittedly, this is a passive admission. Somehow, we like “Mistakes were made”
more than “I fucked up,” but it’s a start. Footnote” Reagan VP George H.W. Bush who multiple
sources cite as being completely “read in” on the whole mess, later claimed
having been “Out of the loop.”
In 1961, following the terribly botched Bay of Pigs invasion,
The White House released the following statement: “President Kennedy bears sole
responsibility for the events of the past few days.”
All these at least approach, if not completely achieve, the
acceptance of personal responsibility for failures of their leadership or
administration’s efforts, unlike Trump.
For me, the iconic
example of accepting responsibility for events under an individual’s supervision
was offered by a man who would be, but was not yet, president. Dwight D.
Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander in the European Theater of World War II.
On the eve of the Normandy Invasion, which was under his overall control he
wrote this:
"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed
to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to
attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available.
The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty
could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine
alone."
This was the “just in case of failure” letter. Rarely has
any high echelon official ever been so candid and frank in accepting
responsibility. Mercifully, the letter was unnecessary.
Sadly, when Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane was shot down
in May of 1960, Ike’s first response was denial of its spy mission. It was only
later, when the Soviets showed photos of the plane’s wreckage, that he admitted
approving the flights as surveillance missions. Of course, had it been Trump,
he’d just have said “Plane? What plane?”
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