At least I know for sure I'm not the only one who seems wowed by the hypocrisy of President Bush, at least in one area. During the 2000 campaign, Bush and his backers repeatedly bashed Clinton for "nation-building" -- using US funds and troops to revitalize war-torn areas so they'd become more stable and less of a security threat. Of course, since the war in Afghanistan, that's exactly what we've been doing, as a Washington Post article today makes clear.

Does the man admit that the Clinton administration had something right? No, his minions allege (without facts, as usual) that Clinton had US soldiers being "social workers," so Bush is still keeping his promise. As Joshua Micah Marshall points out, the article doesn't quite say it plainly:

Now let me decode what Allen is saying ...

Allen: Bush is caught in a transparent flip-flop and I've forced his aides to defend him by treating as facts their earlier demagogic attacks on Clinton policy (i.e., soldiers working as 'social workers.') They look stupid. Please recognize that they look stupid and think of them henceforth as lame. Also, readers, please take this as a sign that I do have a clue despite the fact that the conventions of daily news journalism sometimes require me to appear that I do not.

I could have gained some respect for this administration if it had said, "Well, sometimes nation-building is necessary, and this is why we're doing it here, and this is why what Clinton was doing was wrong." It looks like they tried that, but believed their own press kit (soldiers were never working as "social workers") and don't really know why their policy is good and the old one was bad except that the old one came from Bill Clinton. That's not a good sign