December 3, 2005
JEB WILL HAVE THE EASIEST TIME OF THE THREE:
Father Knew Best (PAUL C. NAGEL, 12/03/05, NY Times)
From the outset, father and son were close. At the age of 10, John Quincy Adams went to Europe with his father, who was the representative of the Revolutionary Continental Congress. After John Quincy returned to Massachusetts in 1785, he and his father overcame the barriers of time and distance by writing innumerable letters - and, of course, they talked endlessly when they were both in Quincy, Mass., the family headquarters.The son knew he owed his career in politics to his father. When John Adams was defeated for re-election by Thomas Jefferson in the presidential campaign of 1800, his son, who was then the American minister to Prussia, became so disgusted by the extreme partisanship of the election that he returned to America vowing never to enter politics. The senior Adams objected strenuously, insisting that his son was meant for public service.
Obediently, a reluctant John Quincy Adams went forth to become a senator, a Harvard professor and successful author. In 1809, President James Madison sent him to Russia and then to England, where he scored a series of brilliant diplomatic successes. In 1817, he was appointed secretary of state by President James Monroe. These achievements occupied more than 25 years during which the two Adams statesmen continued to listen and learn from each other, mostly by letters.
Well before 1825, when Monroe's second term ended, many citizens assumed that John Quincy Adams would succeed to the presidency. After all, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe had been secretary of state before becoming president. But the younger Adams still had mixed feelings and needed his father's encouragement. In fact, a decisive factor behind the younger Adams's decision to run was his belief that another Adams administration that sought to ignore parties could bring a new appreciation of his father's term.
Consider his father's greatest failures--Dan Quayle, raising taxes, leaving Saddam in power, David Souter, the failure to support liberty in Eastern Europe and China, losing his re-election bid, and weakening the GOP electorally--and you can see that much of George W. Bush's presidency has been about avoiding and fixing same.
History will likely be kinder to George H. W. Bush than we are--given that he had to deal with the complicated end of the Cold War and the transition out of fifty years of wartime economy--but that will only raise him to the ranks of the mediocre. [Of course, had Ross Perot not run in '92 and Bush Sr. gotten to enjoy a second term, in which we reaped the benefits of the post-Cold War period, he'd have a shot at near-great.]
The son, on the other hand, is going to be recalled as a historic figure for the rapid reform he's brought to the Middle East and for laying the initial groundwork of a Third Way welfare system.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 3, 2005 8:07 AMDan Quayle was only a failure in the eyes of the media.
Posted by: erp at December 3, 2005 10:31 AMGHW Bush incited Kurds & Shiites to over throw Saddam and then allowed Saddam to slaughter them at the behest of his vile Saudi Patrons.
Leaving all the other blunders aside as political mistakes, He should be tried as a war criminal for that episode. It would not surprise me one bit to find that the result (Saddam saved and Shia slaughtered) was by design.
Ugh!
Posted by: Bruno at December 3, 2005 10:40 AMBruno: never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
Posted by: Mike Morley at December 3, 2005 10:54 AMcouldn't the same argument be made about a second term for jimmah ? bush senior was in over his head and probably never really wanted the job in the first place. think of all the good skowcroft and baker could have done with 4 more years /sarcasm
Posted by: uh huh at December 3, 2005 10:56 AMuh:
The Iranians don't release the hostages unless they fear Reagan. A Democrat can't get steep tax cuts past Kennedy and company. He doesn't fire PATCO. He didn't grasp the inflation problem well enough to back Volcker the way Reagan did. And the malaise speech suggested that he didn't see how a president could reverse the cultural and geopolitical slide just by using rhetoric. Try to imagine Carter giving the Westminster speech.
Baker and Scowcroft would have fit comfortably in the Clinton foreign policy team, so that's a wash. There was no heavy-lifting to be done during the 90s.
Posted by: oj at December 3, 2005 11:12 AMMike,
I think each situation needs to be evaluated.
There is a lot of incompetence out there, but sometimes you just know malice is involved.
I don't have the memos or the video tape, but there are too things (over the years and in all adminstrations) that can't simply be chalked up to incompentence.
Posted by: Bruno at December 3, 2005 11:46 AMyour argument is that bush sr. would have grown during his second term, but all evidence is that he would have shrunk. still, he did produce a fantastic president in gwb.
Posted by: uh huh at December 3, 2005 12:08 PMoj. Republicans dropped Quayle like a hot potatoe, but that doesn't excuse you.
If Dan Quayle had wanted to continue his political career, he could have easily run and won in Indiana as Governor or Senator (he passed the chance to boot both father and son Bayh out of office.) That he didn't shows he realized there was no chance of using those offices as plaforms for a Presidential bid (if he'd gone for governor, he'd have been the most experienced candidate perhaps in the last century. 8 yrs Senator, 4yrs VP, 4 or 8 as Governor. Someone like that would know the system from all angles.) That decision to not bother shows that he's not as stupid as people like to protray him. A smart man knows when the cause is lost, and MovesOn™. It''s the potatoe heads who'd keep on thinking they have a chance when they obviously don't (i.e. last year's Democrat candidates.)
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at December 3, 2005 2:12 PMcouldn't the same argument be made about a second term for jimmah ?
Aside from OJ's points, unlike in 1992, there was no Perot that got Reagan elected.
Posted by: Timothy at December 3, 2005 3:11 PMOJ:
After the media hatchet job that was done on Quayle, the GOP was probably smart not to pick him for anything else.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at December 3, 2005 4:14 PMIf he'd thought he could win in IN he'd have run.
Posted by: oj at December 3, 2005 4:41 PMuh:
No, my argument is that it doidn't make any difference whgo was in power during the 90s--they were just reaping the benefit of the 80s.
Posted by: oj at December 3, 2005 4:44 PMoj: now that I can agree with.
my point was not made clearly, but in light of your explanation it is moot now.
Posted by: uh huh at December 3, 2005 5:23 PMJeb & Condi in '08!
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at December 3, 2005 5:30 PMRS, you spelled "Rudy" incorrectly :P
Posted by: uh huh at December 3, 2005 7:46 PM