For seven years, our lame-duck President has rejected the idea that mere civilians – historians, armchair experts, American voters – have any right to criticize his foreign policy maneuvers. Not only is he the “decider,” but his decisions are based on criteria conveniently beyond our scrutiny, and thus unavailable for second-guessing. We may study the news reports and policy papers he doesn’t read, we may scrutinize the leaked and perhaps faulty CIA intelligence he ignores – but we can’t do the one thing that, according to President Bush, really matters: we can’t look foreign leaders in the eye.
