Schwarzenegger/Bush Strategist Matthew Dowd Disillusioned with the President

Tomorrow's New York Times will feature a surprisingly frank interview with former Schwarzenegger/Bush strategist Matthew Dowd. The revealing portrait describes Dowd as "the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him," though I suppose that would depend on your definition of "inner circle" and "break". There's lots in the piece worth reading, but the discussion on Iraq is especially interesting:

"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. ...

[H]e watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central."

When Dowd was asked about his role in enabling a continued escalation of the Iraq War during the UC Berkeley Institute for Government Studies conference on the 2006 election in California, he was visibly uncomfortable with the question, and we now see why. Dowd's disillusionment with the war follows other high-profile Republicans, including senators Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) and Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Further in the piece, Dowd explains his frustration with the president's handling of Hurricane Katrina, criticizes the appointment of John Bolton as UN Ambassador, lampoons the president's failure to fire former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and passes on some love for Governor Schwarzenegger's bipartisan transformation. But for perhaps the greatest surprise, guess whom Dowd likes in the 2008 presidential:

"Mr. Dowd does not seem prepared to put his views to work in 2008. The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity."

Now I don't wish to shortchange Obama's unity message, but in all fairness to the president and his ex-strategist, the country has been fairly unified in opposition to his leadership for quite some time. Nevertheless, later is better than never, and Dowd will make a welcome addition to our two-thirds of America.

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