The Admissions Not Heard, The Steps Not Taken

Some in the mainstream media consider Bush's recent admissions to be of the character of Lincoln. Admitting mistakes requires a little fortitude, but doesn't justify a comparison to Lincoln's character, even if that person is a US President. Lincoln is not characterized by confessions but by his leadership, integrity, respect of individual and minority rights, and holding people accountable, most notably his generals that prosecuted the war.

Bush who faces extremely low poll ratings due to his handling of Iraq has admitted that his poor war rhetoric and the Abu Ghraib scandal has harmed the credibility of the USA in foreign diplomacy. This 'frankness' comes rather late and again without a response as to how he plans to rectify the situation.

Saying things like "bring it on" or "wanted dead or alive" were reckless with the USA's image, but nothing did more harm then the Abu Ghraib tortures. They were not only morally reprehensible, but a foreign policy fiasco that the USA will take decades to recover from. Despite these prison tortures being quickly forgotten in the US political scene, this travesty continues to be a major inhibitor to our credibility in the Arab region, and even in the world at large. Not only the event itself but also the lack of follow-up has led others to assess that the USA is hypocritical. If a major international corporation had its highly regarded brand and image tarnished to the degree that Abu Ghraib did for the USA, do you think that there would be a corporate executive somewhere within the company that would be held accountable? Bush's long delayed realization with what are still unmitigated disasters is not accompanied with any actions that authenticates his confession. High ranking DoD administrators like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz remain in power. The rest of the world long ago recognized Bush as not being a man of his word, now only right actions along with right words will lead to some healing and hope in America again.

This leads to the admission that hasn't yet been heard and the steps that have yet to be taken. Bush has not yet admitted to overstressing loyalty within his administration at the cost of accountability, truth and justice (making things right).

George Bush, a former alcoholic, needs to recall that he can't stay on "Step 1" of the 12 Step Program with these recent admissions, but needs to get to Step 8 and 9 and amends and restitutions need to be made:

Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever
possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

There is an outside chance that George W. Bush could still be positively compared to Abraham Lincoln someday, but this won't happen until he reaches Step 12: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps with alcoholism, we [try] to practice these principles in all our affairs."