Politics & Power Quote by Paul Begala

“Again and again” is doing prosecutorial work here: Begala isn’t arguing a single scandal, he’s trying to establish a pattern so ingrained it feels like a habit. The repetition turns accusation into rhythm, the kind that plays well on cable news because it sounds like accumulated proof even before the evidence arrives. As a political journalist and operative-adjacent commentator, Begala’s intent is less to litigate a discrete incident than to frame a presidency as morally responsible for a culture of retaliation.

The diction is deliberately medieval. “Turn a blind eye” paints Bush as willfully incurious, a leader who benefits from the ugliness without getting his hands dirty. “Henchmen” is the heavier punch: it recasts staffers, allies, or party attack-dogs as thugs in a hierarchy, not professionals in a political system. That choice matters because it collapses the distance between official governance and unofficial smear, suggesting a single chain of command. “Leveled zealous attacks” implies not just aggression but fanaticism, as if the apparatus is animated by ideology rather than mere strategy.

The subtext is culpable deniability. Begala is arguing that Bush’s power lies precisely in the fog: he can appear above the fray while his team prosecutes it, and he can occasionally “directly encourage” the attacks to remind everyone who sets the tone. In the early-2000s context of hardball politics and message discipline, the line aims to brand Bush not as a unifier but as the quiet beneficiary of political cruelty dressed up as loyalty.