“The rabidly nationalistic response of the American media [to whatever - Iraq?] is expected from a media falling over itself to pander to the government and to satisfy the public’s demand for America to be portrayed as a ‘great’ nation.”

Interestingly other than the action itself I see nothing surprising in what this dude was doing in terms of pasting the decision on someone else if it went bad. It’s buck passing and everyone does it. No one gets killed doing it, but buck passing in corporate life makes this guy look like a teenager by comparison.

I have a slightly different interpretation to suggest - though who knows if it’s right in this instance. The public image of almost all senior politicians is that whether or not they’ve got good judgement, they’re decisive. Some are. But many are the very acme of indecisiveness. This is often true of leaders, I suspect more generally than in government. The eco system selects for people who are able to delay decision making until they are forced to make a decision. The option value of delay is very high in this eco system. One can turn on a dime at any time as the sands of opinion shift. It preserves maximum flexibility to respin a story in the light of current conditions.

When you come to such leaders with dilemmas that you thought it was their job to decide - “Minister I think this, but others in the Department think otherwise, your job is to guide us all by making a decision as to which view should prevail” - one is all too often told “can you have one more try at coming to me with an agreed position”.