May 16, 2008
THE PEBBLE IN YOUR SHOE IS NOT A CANCER IN THE BODY POLITIC:
Redeeming Dubya: The national memory often confuses hubris with greatness. That’s good news for George W. Bush. (Ross Douthat)
[T]o earn the sort of vindication he seems to blithely expect, George W. Bush will have to win over not only centrists but at least some liberals.Again, stifle that laugh. Bush won over a certain sort of liberal once before, the crusading, hawkish sort that felt the tug of Bush’s moral certainty after 9/11 and was moved—at least until Iraq turned sour—by his confidence in America’s ability to remake the world.
Imagining that these liberals, and others, might be won over again requires two big assumptions. First, assume that the years immediately after Bush leaves office pass without domestic calamity. If the current economic downturn becomes another Great Depression, for instance, his reputation will be buried as deep as Hoover’s or Buchanan’s. If America continues to muddle through, however, Bush’s domestic record—which is lackluster without being nearly as bad as his critics, left and right, often claim it’s been—will probably vanish down the memory hole that has swallowed the domestic record of nearly every president not named Roosevelt or Johnson.
This is the easy part of the equation. The harder assumption involves what will remain after “compassionate conservatism” has faded into the same oblivion that claimed Nixon’s “New Federalism” and Bill Clinton’s “New Covenant.” Foreign policy, that is, where for history’s judgment to turn favorable, America’s intervention in Iraq eventually needs to come out looking like a success story rather than a folly.
This seems improbable, to put it mildly. But the crucial word here is eventually. The Bush administration has often seemed bent on vindicating, in the short run and by force of arms, Francis Fukuyama’s famous long-term prediction that liberal democracy will ultimately triumph. Now Bush’s hopes for vindication depend on the Middle East’s following a gradual, Fukuyaman track toward free markets, democratic government, and the “end of history.” And just as crucially, they depend on American troops’ staying in Iraq for as long as it takes for that to happen. If these events come to pass—if the Iraq of 2038 or so is stable, democratic, and at peace with its neighbors, and if American troops have maintained a constant presence in the country—no one should be surprised to hear hawkish liberals as well as conservatives taking up the idea that George W. Bush deserves a great deal of the credit.
The Left is so deranged by the regime change in Iraq that folks like Mr. Douthat give it a historical importance it won't bear. It is certainly best for President Bush's legacy if thirty years from now the several states that once made up Iraq are thriving democracies -- he already has a huge head start in Kurdistan -- as is much of the Islamic world and Africa (here the head start includes: Afghanistan, Libya, Liberia, etc.), but consider the series of other chains of events that he has set in motion that are far more significant to America and the world:
Third Way: While the big enchilada, Social Security, will be done by a successor (and it will be done), W will have been the one who got the ball rolling and he did accomplish public school vouchers, HSAs (in the prescription drug bill), private retirement account reform, civil service outsourcing, the Faith-Based Initiative via Executive Order, etc.
Courts/Culture of Life: It would have been nice if he'd gotten to appoint John Paul Stevens successor, but even without that he's had time and opportunity to shift the legal system to the Right from top to bottom. A McCain victory would go a long way towards cementing this legacy, but even a President Obama can't undo it too easily. In addition, the silence of the Democratic contenders on social issues suggests just how much Mr. Bush has changed the political climate as regards matters like abortion, embryonic stem cells, gay marriage, etc.
Taxes: By passing at least one tax cut every year of his presidency, with no hikes, Mr. Bush has practiced what Ronald Reagan preached, but proved unable to hold the line on.
Immigration Amnesty: He really ought to just issue a blanket pardon (a la Jimmy Carter and the draft dodgers), but, if not, the next president will legalize them legislatively in his wake--even if it's dressed up in fancy terminology. W has created the political climate in which it is understood that this is just a matter of when, not if. Creating tens of millions of new American citizens is an epic achievement.
Axis of Good: as a foreign policy matter the relationships the President has forged with places like India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc. beggar a little post-colonial brush fire in Iraq.
Palestinian Statehood: it was one thing for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Yitzhak Rabin to stump for a Palestinian state, but when certified rightwing kooks like Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush came out for it all that was left was determining the borders.
Free Trade: while a reform of the global treaty has been difficult, mainly because of the historical political strength of farmers in the developed world, an accord is likely to be reached within the next couple years and, in the meantime, Mr. Bush has forged a series of bilateral agreements with numerous allies.
Exporting the Third Way: where once the politics of applying free market solutions to the modern welfare safety net was the province of only Chile and sectors of the Anglosphere, the successes of W, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton have made it universal in the English-speaking world and extended the concept even to such unlikely places as France and Germany. For all the talk -- on Left and far Right -- of what a disaster the Bush presidency has been, you have to be willfully blind not to notice that Canada, the Australian Left, Raul Castro, Ayatollah Khamenei, the French, etc. have all adopted his ideology. It's a funny sort of failure that is universally (except for Spain) emulated.
Posted by Orrin Judd at May 16, 2008 7:32 AMI have been saying for some time that history will be kind(er) to Mr. Bush than the present, and this will be seen in five years plus.
I have of late become utterly convinced that Mr. Bush will be seen through very different eyes come January of 2010, a mere year into #44. Whoever that #44 may be doesn't even have to eff it all up for this to be true. All (s)he has to do is be seen, as (s)he will be seen, doing.... pretty much a whole bunch of stuff that Bush has been doing... for pretty much the EXACT same reasons. Duh.
Bush is a victim of one thing above all. The nausea-inducing ignorance and stupidity of history, that is held by the Western world's electorate at large.
Posted by: Andrew X at May 16, 2008 9:29 AMW is mainly a victim of the Right's unwillingness to help him communicate his message. Even late '40s-early '50s Dems helped the notoriously poor-speaking Truman communicate his point. Of course, it helped that Edward R. Murrow was doing what was essentially propaganda for the nascent Dept. of Defense at the time....
Still, though, George W Bush knew one thing, above all others, when he decided to invade Iraq: He knew that Vietnam's real lesson was that the United States can never pull out of a war-torn country in such a way that it makes the US look like it is running with its tail between its legs. He knew that the decision to bail out of Vietnam cause all manner of hell to be visted upon this country (the '73 OPEC embargo and the Iranian hostage crisis being very vivid examples of such hellishness). All he had to do was continue the war effort so that the next president can put his/her own stamp on it without performing the bailout.
Not bad for the Republican Party's first proactive effort at global leadership since Theodore Roosevelt (Nixon and Reagan inherited the Dems' global leadership role by default). While it may not save the party from (172 days until) GOP Doomsday, the effort will pay future dividends.
Posted by: Brad S at May 16, 2008 10:34 AMW is mainly a victim of the Right's unwillingness to help him communicate his message.
They were so unwilling because many either reject the message or don't understand it. Even now many on the right can only talk of how Bush has betrayed conservatives with NCLB, the prescription drug plan, on immigration and by screwing up the war. They don't understand the groundwork Bush laid that should lead to Republican dominance, and so turned their back on him.
Posted by: Patrick H at May 16, 2008 11:12 AMNope. The lesson applied in Iraq was the previously unlearned lesson of Vietnam, WWI, WWII, Korea, and Iraq: hang Ho, Lenin, Stalin, Kim, and Saddam or you lost.
Posted by: oj at May 16, 2008 11:34 AMHubris? George W. Bush is not hubristic. That's one of the refreshing things about him.
Posted by: Mikey NTH at May 16, 2008 11:40 AM"[T]o earn the sort of vindication he seems to blithely expect, George W. Bush will have to win over not only centrists but at least some liberals."
I don't think Bush much cares. Most liberals still cannot forgive Reagan for causing the Fall of the Evil Empire. They have to resort to siding with any and every homicidal maniac after the Fall. They cannot claim their "moral high ground" for siding with the communists who "only want equality for mankind". They are now nostalgic for someone like Saddam, and those who kill women and children, and treat women worse than animals.
In other words, BDS is incurable. It takes a generation or two for the symptom to quiet down.
Posted by: ic at May 16, 2008 12:09 PMModern Liberals feel that the Soviet Union was evil and destined to fail. Reagan was a dunderhead who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Nancy ran the country during his last term because of his Alzheimer's.
I'm not kidding, that's honestly what they tell me.
In 20 years, expect Liberals to say that democracy was always going to come to the Middle East and George Bush had nothing to do with it.
I live in Vermont and I know all these moonbatty Vermonters who just assume that I'm a fellow moonbat and lay the craziest jive on me I've ever heard.
Posted by: Bryan at May 16, 2008 1:29 PMSome day--some day, W will be remembered as the James Knox Polk of his age, which is high praise.
Posted by: Lou Gots at May 16, 2008 2:06 PMThere really is a whole lot of evidence that the Bush Administration knew that the attacks of 9/11 were going to occur before they did. A book called THE TERROR TIMELINE by Paul Thompson(Harper-Collins) shows that warnings of the attacks came in from Israel, France, Egypt, Jordan and many other sources including Robert Baer of Syriana fame. The book THE COMMISSION by Philip Shenon records the efforts that the Bushies undertook to keep the full truth of 9/11 from reaching the public.
For a visual dvd version check out PRESS FOR TRUTH. It shows the CBS NEWS reports of the Bush Justice and Defense Departments warning top officials not to fly commercial aviation in the days before 9/11.
THE LET IT HAPPEN ! That will be his legacy.
Oh, goodie. A whole herd of Truth-spammers advertising their psychotic delusions. One good thing about having a President BarryO is that these little bits of pugnaciously concentrated ignorance will have to crawl back under their rocks because they'll have no explanation why their elected messiah continues the conspiracy.
Tighten the foil, Burley, the beams are sneaking through.
Posted by: oj at May 16, 2008 5:51 PMI just received my new W bumper sticker. It cost me $5.00. Need I say more?
Posted by: Jay O at May 17, 2008 7:25 PMBoys, boys, I know I was not invited to this circle jerk but you do'nt have to spew on me. After 9/11 a top ranking official--Pavitt-- of the CIA gave a speech at Duke University aknowledging that the agency had considerable knowledge of the attacks coming. Why do not you go to the online version of THE TERROR TIMELINE at History Commons at The Complete 911 timeline and view all the evidence.
Rather than seeking to obtain a manhood by screeching at evidence why not try testosterone precursors. They will help your thinking as well.
What would the CIA knowing have to do with anything?
Posted by: oj at May 22, 2008 10:08 PM