The news today is that Condoleeza Rice informed a German news magazine that the Bush Administration will no longer work with German President Gerhard Schroeder.

This is Schroeder's punishment for dragging Germany's feet on Iraq War 2.
This is reported as if it were the way the world has always worked — that whenever another country has disagreed with U.S. policy, the sensible action was to stop talking to that country.

In the Bush administration, this reflexive action is considered bold and no-nonsense.

If you or I were to do it in the conduct of our affairs, however — stop working with people who disagree with us — how would other people regard it?

We would be told we were being babies, that we were "taking our ball and going home."

We would be told that we could not brook differing opinions, that we were too insecure in our own point of view to hear anyone else's.

"And anyway, you're not my best friend anymore!"

We would be accused of being the worst kind of leader, the kind who wants only to be surrounded by yes-men, toadies who only say what they think the boss wants to hear.

Now consider that we indulge in this behavior in a serious matter involving an invasion of another country. In all likelihood, thousands of people would lose their lives in the fighting, however brief and "targeted."

Considerable damage would be done to the invaded country's infrastructure. The outcome of the invasion might include political turmoil, looting and rioting, the destruction of national treasures, epidemic and civil war.

And you still want only to hear one opinion.

And when all these things come to pass, and all the ill-effects of the invasion take place as warned, who is to be punished — the leader who gave reasonable warnings of the dangers, or the leader who closed his ears to them?

In perhaps the most dangerous moment in our history, when a single suitcase, with the wrong contents, in the wrong location, can decide the nation's fate, do we have a leader who wants to hear all the options available to him?

Or do we have a master of yes-men, a vain man who cannot admit even to the possibility of error. A spoiler who reaches across national boundaries to have officials fired (in Germany, and again in Canada) who utter a word against him.

But do we hear about this conundrum? No. Because we have a press corps eager to be the very yes-men the president requires.

What would reporters say if any other president had behaved so singularly, taking such an egotistical chance with the security of the people?

What a bully. What a coward. What a fool.