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George W. Bush's Legacy
Submitted by Patrick Ruffini on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 00:35
As a blog titled The Next Right, we have not featured much discussion of George W. Bush. With tonight being the last night President Bush was able to command the nation's attention, it is worth trying to put a few words in on the conclusion of this consequential period. We must candidly assess where we are, because it informs where we need to go.
I am no different than many of you in feeling a sense of disappointment that President Bush -- due many times to forces beyond his control, yet oftentimes by inclination -- did not frequently enough get to govern as a Republican.
But I don't disclaim my strong support for him in the 2000 primaries, and my work for him in the 2004 election. Some Presidents don't get to be popular when all is said and done. They don't get to shirk the tough decisions, as Bill Clinton got to do throughout the '90s. From 9/11 to the unwinding of the 1990s accounting scandals to Iraq (where President Bush will bear full responsibility for better or worse) to Katrina to the unwinding of the housing boom early in the economic cycle to a financial collapse tied to easy mortgages, George W. Bush has not governed in a period conducive to high approval ratings or bouyant public confidence, and an unusually high share of his major decisions were choices between two or more bad alternatives.
The biggest fork in the road was Iraq. Here, I think there is a case to be made that the Administration did not have enough faith in its own doctrine of preemption to make it the centerpiece of the public case for war, instead being forced to go to the U.N. and embarrass itself over WMD in a futile attempt to enlist multilateral support. This embrassment was overshadowed by the failure of the Rumsfeld doctrine of a light military footprint and an insular, stubborn refusal to admit mistakes which led to three lost years -- 2004, 2005, and 2006 -- before we were able to achieve the desired result. Even then, a clear public posture towards Iraq suggested itself: that of talking blood, sweat, toil and tears, of finding a sense of nobility in the struggle, and of not sugarcoating anything (which is what the talk of electricity and schools and elections would up sounding like).
With all this said, I would not have liked to witness a world with Saddam Hussein still in power, his exploding weapons spending in 2000-02 exploding further still, of KSM not given what was coming to him, of Gitmo detainees set free, of a few months of pounding sands in Afghanistan followed by victory parades and false security back home. For perservering and not seeking a soft landing in the war in time for the re-elect that any Democrat would have given us, George W. Bush deserves our profound thanks -- even if we have not lived to know what the alternative of quietly backing down would have been like.
Completing his one "reach" project abroad meant that George W. Bush did not get to be a reformer at home. Many conservatives profess to have been deceived at the President's acquiesence to big spending. But nothing of the sort was ever promised us. George W. Bush the candidate told us he was not going to be the kind of Republican who "balanced the budget on the backs of the poor" and he has lived up to that promise in every way. Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative" and governed as one, overly trusting in the idea that he could "buy" good policy from a system that's built to take the money and run.
No Child Left Behind is not the disaster either side disingenuously claims it to be (after they overwhelmingly voted for it), but the fact that Bush never said a peep about vouchers in the seven years since they were abandoned from the legislation speaks volumes. Medicare Part D was the apotheosis of Bush's inchoate idea of using government dollars to promote conservative ends. And let's not paper over the fact that Bush was in fact in the cheering section for what turned out to be a dangerous expansion of subprime mortgages, though it was the left that did the most to make it happen legislatively, by a long shot, and Bush deserves credit for calling out the Clintonite GSE patronage farms. For all his supposed stubborness, Bush never had a well-formed economic or domestic policy philosophy that would have enabled him to utter uncomfortable things like challenging the public school monopoly, arguing that less can be more in health care if we made a serious attempt to control costs, or admitting that some people were better off renting instead of buying.
On taxes, Bush did everything right. Being a shrewd politician, he tackled the easy part first, but never followed up on the hard part (spending). Lest we be too hard on the man in this case, he is not exactly unlike most politicians in that way, and most of the responsibility for the spending atrocities rests with Congress. Were it not for the war, this would have been an era of tax cuts and fiscal responsibility -- and certainly so in comparison to Obama.
On judges, Bush was better than Reagan -- who set us back on Roe v. Wade. His sterling appointments of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito will be with us for decades to come.
On social issues, not much more can be asked of this President from a conservative perspective. This was the only part of the base he served well and without incident. I only wish he had seen the political value in doing the same with fiscal conservatives, and one can understand the anger they felt when Bush's first veto was of a stem cell bill. It wasn't that conservatives should stand against one another on this issue -- because they shouldn't. It was all the pork-riddled spending bills that passed Bush's desk without incident left fiscal conservatives with the sense that the tripartite conservative movement was being tilted to one side.
In listing some of these successes, it strikes me that Bush was conservative on all the issues conservatives were equipped to enforce conservatism: taxes, national security, judges, life. These are usually very simple, up-or-down issues where conservatism or liberalism is easily identified, and pledges signed and issue groups organized. It is not that Bush wasn't authentically conservative on these things, because he came up in a much more conservative milieu than his father. It's that conservatism failed to articulate clear conservative ideals -- and the means to enforce them -- on a whole swath of other issues that the form the vast majority of government policymaking.
On these issues -- education, health care, housing, and spending writ large -- Bush was consensus-driven at best, seeking to apply conservative rhetoric to an environment where real spending cuts were inconceivable. The lone exception was Social Security, where Bush bravely opted for reform and Congressional Republicans cowardly demurred. They said if we pushed Social Security reform, we would lose the 2006 elections. Well, we pushed Social Security reform and lost the 2006 elections -- for reasons completely unrelated. Had we been more serious, the Republican Congress actually might have accomplished something serious before exiting.
Faint-hearted Republicans were able to get away with this because there was no comparable infrastructure in the Bush years to enforce discipline and reform on everything related to expenditures in the same way that we have on simple issues like taxes and life. This is a major challenge for the conservative movement going forward if we are going to articulate a conservative vision for smaller government, but only have the political muscle to create a half-assed tax-cut-and-spend regime. We need to have defined positive ideas on health care, on Social Security, and on entitlements that we will actually enforce once we return to power. Bush maxed us out on the gamut of conservative litmus test issues, and it still wasn't enough.
In conclusion, I do think we must offer our sincere thanks to the President, despite the very tough and disappointing calls he had to make on issues like the bailout. President Bush did not have the luxury to govern in easy times. But he nonetheless perservered, didn't give up, never shirked the tough decisions, and put us on the road to victory in Iraq -- and historic turnabout we will appreciate more and more in the years to come.
At noon on Tuesday the right will once again be forced to strike out on its own path. Some call this wilderness, but I believe it's an opportunity for self-reflection and redirection. To take stock of the world as it is, and build a movement from the bottom up that isn't only about the usual checklist issues, and can first articulate a full-throated, substantive conservative vision for the country on every issue, and then develop the means to implement it.
(7 votes)
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Comments
Bush's Legacy Is now Clear On WireTapping Also
Now it is official. A Federal Appeals Court has upheld the President's authority to conduct surveillance on foreign subjects calling into U.S. number under the FISA statutes. Bush's Legacy will now be untarnished in this respect..
Incorrect.
The court's decision dealt with the legality of warrantless wiretapping under the authority expressly granted the president by Congress in 2007, not the legality of wiretapping under the president's inherent authority, which remains an open question. It's probably helpful to have read Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer to appreciate the distinction.
To put it another way: the court said that the administration's warrantless wiretapping activities pursuant to an express grant of authority from Congress were peachy. It did not say that the administration's warrantless wiretapping activities in the face of Congressional silence were peachy (though it didn't say they were evil, either).
Also: the court rendering the decision was a FISA court, not a federal appellate court.
Thank you
Centerfire for this correction!
It is incredible just how much bullshit the Right has shovelled on Torture and illegal warrantless wiretapping.
It is truly refreshing to hear from someone in command of both facts and law.
It's equally impressive...
how much bullshit the Left has shovelled on torture and "illegal" warrantless wiretapping. Please don't mistake my post for an endorsement of your insipid views.
what is your opinion on glenn greenwald?
just curious.
Gullible Moron
n/t
Thanks centerfire!
Oh wait. You're not him. :p
You mean Rick Ellensberg, right?
Or maybe Thomas Ellers?
I think he's a case study in the sort of bad-faith politics that's been the stock- in-trade of much of the left for the last eight years. That, and that he's a preening narcissistic douchebag who I wouldn't cross the street to piss on if he were on fire.
Thanks anyway
for your corrections. Like any sentient American, I would welcome any and all removal of bullshit from any issue, left or right, whether insipid or tasty.
The lasting legacy will be in being the last Republican Pres.
The real legacy of President Bush is that he will probably be the last Republican President. Demographics are against the Repubicans. See:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20090107_6607.php
But the incompetence, ego, and failures of the Bush Administration will make it impossible for a Republican to win the presidential election in the next couple of election cycles that occur before demographics make it impossible.
President Bush's other legacy is that he has stolen many issues from other Repubicans. No Repulblican can campaign on the issue fiscal restraint, or national security, or good government, or reducing the size of government, or helping the economy or law and order. The Bush Administration through the lack of regulatory oversight, through reckless spending, through crony appointments, and through open borders has destroy the reputation of all conservatives.
Thanks? You can't be serious.
> George W. Bush has not governed in a period conducive to high approval ratings or bouyant public confidence
Nonsense. FDR saw this country through the great depression and his lowest approval rating was over double that of Bush's. Public approval is premised on the perception that the President can solve problems. Bush's failing was that he didn't give a damn about most problems, and of those that he did, he was incompetent to solve. And it showed.
This essay is riddled with statements like "he cheered for this, but it was really the left that did it," or "he screwed the pooch, but the problem came from Clinton," or "he spent trillions more than he should have, but it was Congress's fault for signing off."
Is anything Bush's fault? Or shall we blame everyone but him? That poor man, caught up in the failings of everyone else and the turmoil of leading a nation. Just think how capable he might seem if he had never been challenged.
> it strikes me that Bush was conservative on all the issues conservatives were equipped to enforce conservatism: taxes, national security, judges, life.
Have you considered that some of these may be mutually exclusive? You can't promote small government and low taxes while simultaneously fielding an enormous military presence in the name of national security. It isn't sustainable. We have a towering national debt for precisely this reason, and the blame lies at the feet of Reagan and Bush. Bush funded his personal crusade at the expense of this country's future.
> But he nonetheless ... didn't give up,
And what would that look like, precisely? How does a President give up? If the metric is ambivalence, he's been on a downward spiral since the 2004 elections.
> never shirked the tough decisions
Tell that to the residents of New Orleans. Where was The Decider in the weeks after Katrina when his assistance was needed most?
> and put us on the road to victory in Iraq
Did he? I'll bet you a shiny penny that ten seconds after we leave, the place will fall apart. Saddam was a horrible, brutal man, but that's apparently what it took to keep the factions of that nation from tearing it apart. His replacement will be equally nasty and almost certainly unfriendly to American interests. In the final tally, the Iraq war will have cost $3 trillion dollars and the lives of five thousand people. And what will we have achieved?
The man has ruined the conservative party. Not permanently, but enough to nullify the efforts of pretenders to Obama's post four years from now. If Obama is even half as good as he's said to be, the drought may extend even beyond. It hardly seems appropriate to thank Bush.
oh, and tell that to the residents of Houston
who learned exactly why FEMA had come...
To suppress the press.
Good reply, but you left out one thing...
The biggest fork in the road was Iraq. Here, I think there is a case to be made that the Administration did not have enough faith in its own doctrine of preemption to make it the centerpiece of the public case for war, instead being forced to go to the U.N. and embarrass itself over WMD in a futile attempt to enlist multilateral support.
The administration wasn't "forced" to go to the U.N. for multilateral support, the administration knew that its doctrine of preemption (nation building) wouldn't fly with the American people without exagerated fear of sudden death. As evident with the constant drumbeat from administration officials about the exagerated dangers - "mushroom cloud", "uranium from Africa" etc. - that they took every opportunity to present. There are few examples of war supporters touting johnny democracy-seed without first screaming about the impending death that was certain from Hussein.
It's History
As the saying goes: "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
You seem to admit that you supported a bad President and want to avoid a repeat. For that, you have to figure out what you could have done differently. Instead, you write:
"But I don't disclaim my strong support for him in the 2000 primaries, and my work for him in the 2004 election."
One lesson is that honesty and competence as important as ideology. The Bush dishonesty and incompetence were clear in the 2000 campaign. During the campaign, the NYTimes hired a nonpolitical economist to sort out the candidates' economic and tax proposals. It took that guy exactly one week to figure out that the Bush proposals were sham lies. That's how Paul Krugman became (the now famous) liberal economist columnist.
Some conservatives, perhaps you, have been able to pretent amazing things about Bush. Do you remember the first Bush cabinet pushing this obvious baloney? Condoleezza Rice said she gave Bush a copy of Silas Marner. Maureen Dowd snarked that George Bush may not know the difference between himself and the George who wrote that book.
Had you looked beyond the superficial ideology, you could have spotted the incompetent phoney already in 2000. Spouting conservative ideology is not, or should not, be enough.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/new
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070103.html
Your right on with this. I voted for Bush in 2000. It took me a while to catch on, but the amount of rhetoric, lies, deceit, ignorance, arrogance, blunders, and incompetence is just unbelievable. I don't think Bush could be president of 3rd grade.
In 2007 Bush promised a balanced budget in 2012. This is really hilarious.
And this goes with everything else. The amount of rhetoric would fill a book so I will end it here. It was exhausting just to keep up with the lies. And Clinton was good at lying, but he did not destroy the country.
when clinton lied, it was to an inadmissable question.
;-)
Patrick reveals that he's utterly clueless...
...by not even mentioning the illegal immigration/border issue. Do we remember June 2007? When the Base roared? Bush went head to head w/the GOP Base and lost yet he cont'd to insult them as he did just the other day in his news conference. He drove millions of voters away from the GOP over this issue. Now look at the mess in Mexico. More than 5000 murders in 2008. Worse than the GWOT. And the lawless chaos is spilling over into the US big time. Bush was so wrong-headed as are those who administer this website. What an insult, Patrick, to purposely minimize this issue. How dare you.
Those who run this website have wandered off on some pseudo intellectual tangent. Clueless and boring. And wrong.
I am done with this website. So long. Darvin Dowdy
Show respect for effort
Although I wholly agree that Bush was a disaster for the country and that the GOP is now dysfunctional, I come to this site because I find that there is a sincere desire to engage in a fruitful dialogue with all interested parties: Republicans, Democrats and progressives while avoiding ideological warfare. This site is a welcome change from the bigotry and hatred which characterizes many rightwing blogs.
Agree completely, undoctored
Agree completely, undoctored (n/t)
+1
n/t
Don't let the door hit you...
You big baby. :)
(What, aren't I allowed to be juvenile from time to time? How about a great majority of the time, can I get away with that?)
"It's that conservatism failed to articulate clear conservative"
That is as precise as a statement as you can make on the last 8 years
Essentially conservatism has failed in the last 8 years to articulate a clear conservative way of actually governing.
It is easy when out of power to say "LOOK WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO YOU" but much harder when you hold the entire government
Somehow we must set up the infrstructure and message to not allow "a half-assed tax-cut-and-spend regime." but an actual governing strategy within the conservative principles of low taxes, small government and a right to life
the out of power strategy says that
a good functioning gov't will not persuade people to vote republican, no matter who made it so.
Bush legacy: 2 points
1. On balance, I think I would prefer it if OBL were dead, Afghanistan were a messy long-term nation-building project and Saddam were contained in Iraq. All of which were achievable in my view.
2. Bush's true legacy is this (as I've written before): he squandered two generations of conservative struggle to undo the errors of liberalism. We had achieved so much but had yet to really crack the nut of shrinking government. Bush came into office on a tide of prosperity and government surpluses and proceeded to squander the opportunity to methodically and effectively role back government programs. For example, he could have led a push for conservative, market-delivered health care reform. Instead, we now face the very likely scenario of a huge new government program that looks like Medicare for the masses at best. This only touches the surface of opportunities lost.
Conservatives will be looking at the Bush years as a huge opportunity squandered, in my view, for generations to come. An opportunity to really fullfil the promises of good, small government that so many had worked so long to realize. In the end, I don't think George W. Bush even recognized the opportunity that generations of conservatives had handed him.
I find somewhat offensive the tack many conservatives like Patrick seem to be taking that gives Bush a pass on this. The Presidency is not the special Olympics; you don't get a trophy for participating.
johnson, it's the free market that has brought us
to this point. Health Care is responsible to its stockholders,a nd when they ask for 8% growth per year, somehow it is given to them. even at the cost of dramatically declining health care coverage, and dramatically more red tape.
Did I mention how much I hate hedge funds?
we have a free market in health care?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
glad I got my laugh in for this Friday.
Weak Post
Pat, Pat, Pat...
I enjoy The Next Right, especially its open door debate policy. But this posting is entirely in the wrong direction. The GOP must make hard decisions on several issue. One is the Bush legacy: embrace it or forget (not reject) it. This post is simply too embracing and if the rest of the GOP takes this approach, it will mean a long trek in the wilderness for the party.
It's OK to stick to your guns, but "The Next Right" must make a decision. Is it really going to be the THE NEXT RIGHT, or the very same right we've already seen and which occupies an ever narrower space in electorate's consciousness? I'm sorry, but you'll need to break with the past and engage with reality-based arguments. Here are just two you're just going to have to deal with...
1. The war in Iraq was fought under false pretenses. While we can have a lively debate about the Bush Doctrine and the validity of both preemptive attacks, large vs. small ground force operations, and nation building, you'll need to face up to the reality that Iraq was a poor test case for the Bush Doctrine: there were no WMDs, there was no al-Qaeda support (before the war). Twisting intelligence and selling a preemptive war where there was no threat compromised the very doctrine being promulgated--and that is a testament not to invalidity of the doctrine but of the absurdity of celebrating those who implemented it. Talk about unproven hypotheses! As a result, your argument really amounts to: Isn't the world better without Saddam Hussen? Sure, and it would be better too without Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong-il and Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir. But I never saw any push to invade any of these nations.
The problem, Pat, is that everybody knows this and only the thickest of us think otherwise, which is why Iraq will remain an albatross around neck of Bush's legacy, and the GOP has no choice but to forget the last eight years and try to return, as I've suggested, a more moderate and rational--rational here meaning pragmatic, solutions-oriented, rather than rigidly ideological, nay-saying--set of policy positions. The GOP was so far off the ranch with ideological blinders that it was easy for Obama (and even Hilary Clinton) to step up and say: at a minimum, I'll try to solve problems rather than just obstruct programs, feed the base occasional red meat, and hope it all works out in the end.
2. The Administration was incompetent, plain and simple, and that counts for something. And that incompetence came in many flavors: it thumbed its nose at Congress repeatedly; it vetoed legislation on a repeated basis but never offered solutions, and when it did, they were often compromised heavily by special interests (Medicare D); it welcomed K Street through the door and then used "imperial presidential" arguments to protect these special interests. In the end, the "MBA" president should have known that job performance is often measured by "metrics" that tally management's effectiveness. If the key metric--agreed to by all in both parties--is whether we are collectively better off than we once were, then his job as CEO was an abysmal failure. The GOP needs to acknowledge this if it's to ever move on and get it right (pun intended). Trying to salvage what Bush did right is, I think, a patsy's game.
When you think about it, in terms of problem solving, Bush fared best with his tax cuts (though I didn't agree with them since I'm a deficit hawk, but I'll just give you that one for free since tax cuts seems to be something no conservative can ever see as anything other than effective, even when they're not), No Child Left Behind (though it was unfunded) and talks with North Korea (once he caved on certain conditions). But I'm stumped for what proactive policies he oversaw that really improved things for the U.S. Frankly, I'm at a loss. Bill Clinton may have been a philanderer and a librul, but stuff got done: reduction in welfare rolls, reduction in the size of government, reduction in budget deficit, PAYGO policies implemented, favorable outcome (despite much waffling) in Kosovo, a hand in Northern Ireland's peace process. For the Bush years, I am just not seeing it.
That depends.
That depends on what you mean by "the next right". You obviously consider "next" to mean "more moderate". I consider "next" to be "re-engineered" but still as determinedly conservative as Reagan's conservatism. I continue to be amazed by those among us who insist on advocating for "moderation". How exactly do you intend on striking a clear distinction between us and the Democrats if you think we should move closer and closer to their views? What, then, should be our principled plan for e.g. restraining the growth of government? That it should only grow by 2% per year instead of 10% as the Democrats might propose? What is the rationale for 2%? Why not 4%? At some level these moderate Republican policies just come across as cold-hearted Democrat-lite policies.
You have come up with a good
You have come up with a good point. It is very hard to thread the needle on the left or right. Democrats will lean to the left more and more, and republicans to the right more and more. I guess I would be in the middle, but I can see the danger for either party. We have seen 30 years ago how far left democrats would go with welfare. Today we have seen the far right with the threat of religion in government, neoconism, cronyism, tax cuts for the rich as jobs leave the country, laissez-faire and not solving problems. So this is the perception seen by those in the middle. Until the republicans can determine how far right they want to go, there is no point in voting for them.
moderate your policies
where they're actually extreme, say.
"veterans benefits are the new welfare" is extreme. WAY extreme.
Stop calling the other side cowards.
Hell, stop the culture war in general.
if 25% of the population wants abortions totally banned, well, stop trying to ban them!
Oh, and say phooey to AIPAC as well.
What is "right" or "conservative"
About starting a war on false pretenses? About keeping people like Alberto Gonzalez with a job? About wide ranging civil liberty intrusions through things like no-knock raids and wiretaps?
The problem I see with the GOP is that they love authoritarianism... they want a strong executive and a strong military... but they also want a small government. The two do not go hand in hand, in my eyes.
Repudiate Bush
The Right's hopes for revival in time to survive the 2010 elections depends upon repudiating Bush, and running as "the party of Reagan".
Bush deserves blame for doing several acts of damage to the Republican brand. I name just four.
First, Katrina - after that, one never wants to hear the "the most terrifying words in the English language are 'I;m from the government and I'm hear to help' ever again.
Second, Iraq - he has nearly broken the Army and the National Guard. So much for the traditional Republican advantage as being seen as better in handling defense matters.
Third, the economy - so much for the traditional Republican advantage as being seen as better for business.
Fourth, he has put the Republican Party on the wrong side of every demographic trend in this country. To single out just one example: Hispanics are the fasting growing group in the country. He did amazingly well in winning their support. And now has thrown it all away.
Don't Blame Bush for 4
no don't blame Bush for 4, that was the House GOP, they are the ones who forgot against immigration reform, as long as the House and the rest of the GOP act like they are out to just kick 15 million people out of the country the GOP will be on the wrong side of this demographic.
its just not ever going to be pratical for the very least because when the GOP says things along these lines, then the family members they do have who can vote, vote democratic and then John McCain can come close to even losing his home state.
#4 was the House GOP and the continutation of the GOP becoming a regional party.
slight Tanget....
but I never understood it, if the GOP argues this is a CENTER-right country, why do they highlight the we need to move even more right then we are? why has the GOP never asked maybe thats the problem
the GOP acts like its a center-RIGHT insteand of CENTER-right, meaning the party needs to accent more of the center, and less of the right of their platform.
There are alot of Democrats who are only democrats because we feel the party is moving to far right, and obviously the party doesn't want to move to the center to attract us, so we vote Democrat.
you and me and Warren Buffet
Eisenhower Republicans.
When the GOP wants to solve problems, and not just WASTE MY MONEY prosecuting FAX FRAUD, I'll tune back in. (Mary Beth Buchanan had better resign... the lady deserves to be hoist on her own petard)
Its simply we are no longer a nation of laws
thats what the last 8 years did. As a law student with thoughts of teaching Constitutional Law one day
I have to day whats more important our ideals or our ideology,
there is this
Now do I want the Bush Administration to face any penalities for what we may or may not have done in the last 8 years. I honestly don't know and thats the problem I can at least realize that if we had meant it all these years, that the greatness of this Country is our ideals and that we are a Nation ruled by laws, then every citizen whoever believed that should be pushing for investigations and for those responsible to be held responsible. or we admit we don't really mean we are a Nation of Laws, that the powerful political elite are above all laws and reproach and that we will defend their actions not on our ideals but our ideology,
This is the true effect of the last 8 years to me, it has shown the world what we American's truly believe of our American Ideals.
bush thinks he'll be prosecuted
that's why he bought land in paraguay, where we don't have an extradition treaty.
Still with the Us VS Them mentality
"I am no different than many of you in feeling a sense of disappointment that President Bush -- due many times to forces beyond his control, yet oftentimes by inclination -- did not frequently enough get to govern as a Republican."
Why is it that someone must govern either as a "Republican" or a "Democrat"? Hasn't this divisiveness been the root of many of our country's problems? Blind adherence to ideological labels is one of the reasons the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And another reason why so many are fleeing the Republican "Brand". Have you been paying attention to what the base is doing to the party's image?
How about we try thinking of our politicians as LEADERS and start holding them accountable for acting as such instead of focusing entirely on AGENDA, AGENDA, AGENDA?
The POTUS (regardless of affiliation) should be ethical, honest, and above all else committed to doing what is in the best interests of ALL Americans (not just one part of them who push the button for a straight ballot with the same letter as they do).
Excellent post Patrick
Patrick, excellent post. Your message has had one positive effect on this forum at least: it has revealed the BDS-afflicted among us. Their disease requires them to utter the words "torture" and "incompetence" whenever the subject of Bush's legacy comes up.
And I agree mostly with what you write. The one thing I would take issue with is:
It's that conservatism failed to articulate clear conservative ideals -- and the means to enforce them -- on a whole swath of other issues that the form the vast majority of government policymaking.
For example, when it comes to government spending, there isn't a lack of a 'clear conservative ideal' of what to do - we should cut spending, or at the VERY LEAST restrain its growth so that it doesn't bust the budget. However, what does differentiate an activity like cutting government spending from something like appointing conservative judges is that there is not as yet a clear conservative method for how to cut government spending successfully. Appointing judges is easy - find a reliably conservative judge and appoint him/her. But cutting spending? There's a lot of different ways to do it and depending on how you do it can lead to success or failure. Mostly conservatives have had failure on this front, which is disturbing, but it shouldn't be reason enough to give up the fight.
Otherwise thank you very much for your well-reasoned message and your leadership in setting up this forum.
Derangement or good judgement
You may think it is a sign of derangement when people rail against Bush's incompetance and his torture polcies as not in keeping with what we want from our nation's leader. I think it is sign that there is hope for us yet.
torture and incompetence
Fine, rail against incompetence and torture. But when one claims that Torture Is The Number One Thing That Must Be Remembered As George Bush's Legacy, then that's BDS. Besides, most of the hand-wringing about torture from the left is just political posturing wrapped around moral preening.
Oh, there are PLENTY of other things to remember him by
If you read my previous comment above you will see that I think there are plenty of other things to remember him by other than torture.
I'm no fucking idealist, I don't give a duck
about the illegal use of torture by a President, so long as he is willing to stand by his command decisions and step down in disgrace if it is ever uncovered.
The fact that this president has not done this has done uncalculable damage to our interrogators, our intelligence and our standing in the world at large.
The Supreme Exectutive Doctrine spans a lot more than Torture. Do you mind if I call that one main leg of Bush's legacy? I won't say at all that it is the only thing to remember.
The pollution of the Civil Service and the Military by idealogues, and the active persecution of dissent -- most particularly from Professional Republicans, is another fine leg to write the Bush Legacy on. The subsequent firing and ideologically motivated hiring practices, combined with Heritage's wonderful idea of appointing people who don't have any clue about their jobs. Hereby instantiated by the wonderful FDIC Chairwoman who was proposing things that are blatantly illegal. Ugh. Bad Governance, and Bad form.
We aren't at war with Iran right now, which I suppose should go some way towards clearing the bush Legacy of a Monumentally Stupid Idea, even if I'll lay the root cause at Gates' feet.
Foreign Policy speaking? That will go down poorly, but it is true not as bad as LBJ's regime. The rule of law in this country has certainly suffered FAR FAR worse than our foreign policy (or other countries' opinion of us, Greece Excepted).
What Are You Smokin?
Bill Clinton shirked WHAT tough decisions? Clinton was one of the hardest-working Presidents ever, and he never backed down from tough decisions even up to the very end, like sending Freeh to work with the strike-team of FBI, Interpol, Secret Service, and the Intelligence Services to Yemen, to root out the Cole bombers who were arrested and imprisoned AFTER Bush was se-lected in 2000.
Bush has been AWOL on making decisions for much of his entire Presidency, beginning with setting a record for taking vacation days his first year in office, and ending with him sitting on his hands and lobbying for his "legacy" for the last three months as the entire structure of American Capitalism and his once-proud GOP party is crumbling in front of him, and as the results of his foreign policy are coming home to roost.
And who can forget Bush's "decision-making" ability on 911? Who can forget the video of him licking his dry lips as he tried to focus on the "My Pet Goat" book he was holding upside down as he learned of the enormity of his responsibility, the trumpet call to leadership, and as he decided to spend the entire day hiding, flying back and forth from Florida to Omaha to New Orleans and back to Washington on Air Force One, while "DIck" Cheney grabbed the controls and did things we have yet to find out?
That same response, that shirking instinct, that instinct to cut and run was captured perfectly in the famous picture of him looking passively at the devastation of Louisiana from the window of the same Air Force One, safely on his way back to Washington and away from the harsh test of leadership to his Nation.
It is disappointing to me, Patrick, to see you post this. This was your chance to demonstrate that you have some decency and courage left, and your dissembling, your excuses, your continual cover-up of the miserable failures that have marked Bush's dismal years in Office shows everyone here exactly what to expect from you: Partisan loyalty über alles, just more of the same Right.
Don't feed the troll
Ditto
head
Dangerous path..
Don't dismiss a point just because it comes from someone you don't like. That post may have inflammatory language, but there's a fair bit of truth to most of his points.
Patrick, do me a favor. Give clinton credit for
Afghanistan, as he got Clark to devise the plan, and we Democrats will give Bush credit for whatever crawls out of Iraq.
Fair enough?
Bush's Legacy
The Bush legacy, especially it's impact on conservatism and the Republican Party is not pretty. The GOP has now lost whatever core competitive advantages it once held. I will not bother to itemize the bill of particulars with regard to policy and competent (or incompetent) management of government. I will let the record speak for itself, except to remind you that for the majority of his presidency Bush had a solid Republican majority in both Houses of Congress---something enjoyed by no other Republican president since Eisenhower (1953-54), so conservatives/Republicans were equipped to control spending, pursue sound fiscal policies, and to institute conservative reforms. Needless to say, I disagree with much of your commentary, Patrick. In short, I consider Bush's record to be very poor overall. But more importantly, perhaps, his record and especially his "operational political style" along with Karl Rove's strategy and tactics have done great long-term damage to the conservative cause and to the image and credibility of the Republican Party.
I will give Bush credit for three accomplishments:
1) Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty;
2) Reducing the tax rates on dividends and capital gains, and supporting the establishment of tax-advantaged health savings accounts;
3) The appointment of Roberts and Alito to the US Supreme Court.
With regards to 9-11 and the terrorist-threat, yes, Bush responded accordingly and properly (post-combat Iraq is another matter). But any president who did not respond effectively to 9-11 and related threats should (would) have been impeached. So, while I will gladly give him whatever credit he and his administration may deserve for homeland security, I do not believe that his response exceeded what should have been expected from any president.
Unfortunately, Bush's legacy will be heavily tarnished by a record of runaway spending, excessive expansion of government and of the "nanny state", and the debasement and dumbing-down of the GOP and conservative governance, thus eliminating the core advantage that conservatives and the GOP once held in the political competition. And, to be sure, the GOP-controlled Congress during those years is equally to blame.
Some People...
...deserve to be tortured.
no cruel or inhuman punishment
we do not need confessions, which were the original reason for torture, in America.