Ex-Aide Says He’s Lost Faith in Bush

Matthew Dowd who helped orchestrate the 2004 re-election campaign of George Bush has come out speaking against him. He said that the President has not acted the way he expected on several issues and events including the Iraq war and says he now agrees with Senator John Kerry that we should have pulled out.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

NY Times Article

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

NY Times Article

Apparently he has suffered personal loss and his son is about to be deployed in Iraq, which would be enough to give anyone pause, but I don’t know what to think about him. Should he be treated as a prodigal son and listen to what he says, or should he be blamed for his mistakes? How does someone go from being a Democrat to helping put Bush in the Whitehouse and now speaks out against him?

I know what the Republicans will calling him.