Hang Right Politics

Posted by Big Mo on September 2nd, 2007 in American Presidents, President Bush

Because of some family commitments and the difficulties of analyzing the Lincoln presidency, I’m going to take another week looking at ol’ Abe. So, instead, here is a different sort of presidential essay.

In this essay, I’ll probably catch some heat. If it were posted on some other conservative sites, I’d probably be figuratively tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, or I’d be stupidly labeled a Bush boot-licker. So be it.

But I haven’t been studying the presidents for nothing, and I’ve noticed a lot of things about the American character that are just as apropos today as they were then. So, here goes.

What went wrong with the Bush presidency? How could we have gone from the magnificent response to 9/11 (when he appeared at the WTC site on 9/14/01 and then at the Congress on 9/20/01) to what we have today? Is he even the same man we voted for?

Actually, yes.

Bush hasn’t changed. But our expectations of him haven’t been met, because we expected things of him that he either never intended, or he was not capable of doing.

I had a different piece written to explain what had gone wrong with the Bush presidency. I was going to examine specific policies, proposals, appointments, his handling of the war, etc. However, I’ll save all of that for my actual evaluation of his presidency next year. So, please keep in mind that I won’t be talking about specific things Bush has done or not done. Rather, I want to explore some broader themes. If you want to argue about a specific misstep or give a litany of Bush’s supposed sins, save it for another time, because that’s not what this essay is about — now, anyway, because I did some serious rewriting when I read this:

“Expecting a president to be chosen by an elite group of electors or by the House of Representatives, the American founding fathers gave him immense power, particularly for dealing with matters related to peace and war. In domestic affairs he is more limited by the authority of Congress and the courts, but in dealing with the public he has both responsibilities and opportunities for personal influence far beyond his constitutional duties and power. Having rid themselves of a British king, the often-unruly American people quickly turned to the presidency for the fulfillment of deep-seated psychological and emotional needs formerly met by the monarchy. Americans have always demanded a role in determining the national goals and direction, but they have usually felt more secure and contented with the image of a strong and trustworthy hand in the White House and most restive and troubled when they doubted either his strength or his dedication. Indeed, they have often considered the office even more powerful than it is.

“Depending upon the national problems, crises, or mood, a president may become immensely popular by leading a whirlwind of activity or by doing almost nothing. Americans have occasionally idolized the mediocre and rejected the wise, but surprisingly this has affected the national destiny very little. Fortunately, not every period in American history has needed a president whose personality, principles, and talents can change the direction of an entire society. The great challenge to the system by which Americans chose their high priest and political pilot is the matching of the man with his times. Obviously, every president is subject to the momentum or inertia and the direction of his immediate predecessors and to powerful social, economic, and psychological forces and trends he did not create and cannot change. On occasion, however, the particular beliefs, philosophy, temperament, strength of purpose, understanding of political processes and rhetorical talents of certain presidents have in fact determined which of the different alternative directions the United States would take.”
–Elbert B. Smith, The Presidency of James Buchanan, pages ix-x, 1975.

Those words comes from Elbert Smith’s preface to his enlightening, pithy and highly recommended volume on James Buchanan in the University of Kansas’ American Presidency Series. The insights are basic yet profound; although published just after the turbulent Nixon era, they delineate perfectly the situation we are in today. Re-read them carefully: in a macro sense, they explain the last 14 years and will help explain whom we chose as our next president. More to the point, they help explain why Bush is in so much trouble.

There are two groups to blame for the problems of the Bush presidency: Bush himself and we the people. Notice that I did not include “the media.”

First: President Bush
Bush himself is lousy at communications. That’s a given. This White House has been bafflingly horrible at communications and has had rings run around it by the media, elected Democrats and fringe liberals. Bush lost control of the message on the war and never got it back.

Bad communications on the war lead to equally bad communications in other areas. Why does Bush get no credit for the economy? Look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania. And for heaven’s sake, why is Bush blamed for a hurricane? OK, part of it is because of the most asinine media stupidity in the modern era, but the Bush White House set itself up for that.

Ari Fleisher was OK as press secretary, but Scott McClellan was a disaster. And any Republican president has to know that the media is automatically an enemy, so he has to create a plan to get around that. Reagan did. Papa Bush and Dubya have utterly failed.

When you lead a democratic-republic into war, the people want to know—demand to know—that they’re going to win, are winning and are making steady progress toward that goal. Bush has not done this. Speaking of goals in a general sense and with a “we win when they lose” rah-rah spirit can only carry you so far. You have to give the people meat. Read this again from Elbert Smith:

“Americans have always demanded a role in determining the national goals and direction, but they have usually felt more secure and contented with the image of a strong and trustworthy hand in the White House and most restive and troubled when they doubted either his strength or his dedication.”

By and large, people don’t look on Bush as a strong and trustworthy hand in control, not because of the “Bush lied, people died” nonsense, but because of lousy communications and no message control.

It’s the single biggest factor in what’s gone wrong.

Bush is on fire when speaking before a sympathetic audience, and he’s a genuinely likeable man. Many people attest to this, even some political enemies. But that’s not what people need in time of war.

Second: We expect too much of Bush
(This is where I’ll catch heat.) For every man who is president, there are 100 Senators and 435 Representatives who think they could do the job better. There are also hundreds of thousands of others who think they could do the job better, and when the president doesn’t do what you expect that he should do, then the president is dumb, stupid, a moron, an idiot; or he’s corrupt, evil, the devil, in the back pocket of corporations or the military/industrial complex or what have you.

Usually, what a president says is ignored. Whenever the president speaks, hundreds of talking heads fall over each other to tell us what he just said, what he meant, what he said by not saying something, what he really meant to say, and so on.

It’s often maddening.

As for Bush, we the people—left and right—have a remarkable capacity for ignoring what Bush actually says, even though Bush is a remarkably consistent man. For example, his position on embryonic stem cells hasn’t changed. Anyone recall his August 2001 speech/decision on the subject (you know, made during one of those breaks from the White House that idiotic libs constantly harp on, as if he was just kicking back and sucking down beers, as if a president is ever really on vacation)? And how many times have we on the right argued with libs, especially wackos, over what Bush actually said concerning Iraq, al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein?

Now, flip that around: has Bush (not underlings—just Bush) EVER misrepresented his position on illegal immigration? Not that I’m aware of. His primary position on the subject hasn’t changed since he was first elected president.

The problem lies more with us, than him, for not actually listening to him. I’m not saying he’s right on that issue! So don’t go off on that tangent. I am saying, however, that no one has the grounds to claim he was misled. We knew what he wanted with it. Many were just upset, dismayed and angry when he actually tried to do it.

Third: We the people
This leads to a much bigger problem: We expect too much of the presidency. Not just from Bush, but from the presidency as a whole. Again from Smith:

“Having rid themselves of a British king, the often unruly American people quickly turned to the presidency for the fulfillment of deep-seated psychological and emotional needs formerly met by the monarchy.”

You may be thinking: Huh?!? We don’t have or want or need a king! Oh, really? Ever heard of the nanny state? How many people in this country now look to the government first for their succor for everything instead of to themselves or their family or even their friends and neighbors?

Back during one of the 1992 presidential debates, one of the audience described Americans as “children” to candidates Bill Clinton, then-President Bush and Ross Perot. Rush Limbaugh still hoots at this “pony-tail-hair guy,” but now I wonder: Do we still have monarchial tendencies? Is the president of the United States supposed to be a combination of Clint Eastwood, Bruce Springsteen and Daddy Warbucks? The big guy who runs the country, kicks ass around the world, keeps the economy humming, holds back the hurricanes, comforts us in tragedy, cheers for our successes, gives us free school lunch programs, gives us house loans, tells us what to eat, etc. etc. etc? In other words, do we expect way too much of the president, far more than either the Constitution warrants or the authors of that document ever expected?

I believe we do.

On the left, they expect a president to be everything to everyone (except evil white men) and satisfy all of their requirements of “justice;” and on the right, we expect a president to be strong abroad and fiscally responsible at home, and satisfy A, B, C, D and so on down the line. A president has to meet rigid standards of doing X, Y, and Z or he’s failed, a loser, a traitor, he’s ignored the base, etc. Increasingly, these days, there’s no happy medium.

(The one that really gets me is “he’s ignoring the base.” Well, who is the base? And who decides who gets to be in the base? If I support something that Bush does, but another conservative doesn’t, does that other conservative have the “right” to declare himself in the base and myself not in the base? In other words, who decides who is a conservative and who isn’t? Where’s my membership card? How do I gain access to the club?)

At the same time, the left in America (generally speaking) seems to always be searching for someone to take care of them: a president who will make all the problems go away and make the sun shine again. They seek a president who will hand out the goodies, and because President Bush isn’t catering to the demands of certain interest groups, well, then he must be racist and sexist and homophobic and anti-science and a big polluter and in the pockets of big oil and big business and big tobacco and other such ridiculous nonsense.

Because Bush isn’t their ideal president, then he is responsible for all of society’s ills. It’s blindingly stupid. Save for the brief time when the left felt safe supporting Bush between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, they’ve hated him because he did not and would not subscribe to their prescriptions for society’s ills. He approached the problems through a combination of Reagan—reach for the American dream and cut taxes—and “big government conservatism,” and not through liberal solutions; so, instead of debating him, they declared that he was totally wrong and stupid and had to be stopped no matter what.

Of course, not all Americans have this latent monarchial need for the president to fulfill the end-all, be-all daddy of American life. Unfortunately, enough do. This perspective goes a long way toward understanding why President Bush is blamed for Hurricane Katrina, despite all logic and facts to the contrary. Media bias alone cannot explain it.

Smith says:

In times of national calamity the president is condemned. When the nation is relatively serene, he receives the praise. His words and actions are closely watched and disseminated to anyone and everyone willing to read or listen, and regardless of what he can or cannot do, he is held responsible for the state of the nation.

I have a feeling that even Bill Clinton would not have escaped the wrath of Katrina. Oh, he would have deflected as much as possible, and pointed fingers elsewhere, certainly. But he would have taken hits. Bush, though, continues to get creamed because he handled the image badly, even though the local and state officials were the ones in charge. Regardless of what he can or cannot do, he is held responsible.

Which leads to:

Fourth: The GOP Congress
I could write a book on the 1994-2006 Congress, but I have neither the time, energy or desire to do so. Again, from Smith:

“Indeed, they have often considered the office even more powerful than it is.”

Just how powerful is the presidency supposed to be? Most Americans seems to be unaware just how powerful Congress really is, and how Constitutionally weak the presidency is. (This is a theme I’m previewing for my report on Abraham Lincoln.) Congress—and the federal bureaucracy—has such an incredible amount of power over almost all facets of everyday life, that most people don’t realize it. Almost every Congress increases government expenditures, government programs, government red tape and ultimately, government power. We don’t have an imperial presidency; we have an imperial Congress.

When’s the last time you ever heard Congress declaring, as a body, that a major government program was no longer needed and would be shut down? Never.

The GOP was sent to DC in 1994 to do certain things. They ended the 40-reign of the Democrats both because of a brilliant campaign and an unusual number of retirements. They got rid of the stench of funk, corruption, fat and inertia, but alas, in 12 years they became exactly what they had displaced. They loved the power, the perks and the prestige. Don’t get me wrong: The first two years of Bush’s second term were hardly spectacular. “Drifting” seems too charitable a word, as Bush tried to push things that Congress wasn’t interested in. But in 2006, Bush “lost” Congress because there was nothing left for him to work with, because the party itself had utterly lost its way during the last 12 years.

What this has lead to
From the word “go,” Bush has been a hated president, and the visceral hatred directed at him has only increased as his presidency continues. At first, it was just the hard left, because he was Republican and he “stole” Florida in 2000 despite all logic and facts proving otherwise. But after the war began, more of the left joined in the hate, and now the hate, loathing and detestation encompasses much of the entire political left, including major office holders. The hatred, or disdain, or disgust, etc., is not just political. It’s personal.

They hate him because he has made and continues to make very hard choices, the type of choices that none of the lefty leaders would be able to make. Bush had made his decisions with little regard for polls or his popularity. He does what he believes is right for the country and by the Constitution. (No one has EVER proven otherwise; the only things suspect are the signing statements.)

The right has now joined in, with hard-core conservatives crying “betrayal” over a number of things, and for many, their disdain, disgust and even hatred is also personal.

The hatred directed at Clinton was nothing compared to what’s directed at Bush. With Clinton, much of it was political. Little of it was personal, and if it was, it was more disgust than anything else. Few people hated Clinton with such ferocious intensity that much of the left and some of the right feel for Bush.

Before you say, “so what?” or “poor baby,” there’s a real point here. This intense hatred has, in my opinion, put Bush in a position where he no longer has constructive criticism.

Newsweek magazine was on to something about a year or so ago in their cover story about “Bush in a bubble” but for entirely the wrong reasons. The cacophony of carping, bitching, whining and moaning from the left and media, now joined by the right, has definitely isolated Bush to some extent, causing him to hold on to advisors and cabinet members who have outlived their usefulness or who are actually causing him harm. He’s not receiving the kind of criticism that leads to a better administration; he’s only—well, mostly—been receiving criticism designed to destroy him.

When everyone is bitching at you, wouldn’t you tune them out too, and continue to do what you believe and know to be right?

Conclusion
So, in sum, does this seem like I’m blaming conservatives and Republicans for George W. Bush? Partly, yes, and that’s the most important point I wanted to make. Why?

We voted for him! (“We” meaning half the nation.) We, the right, put him in office without fully understanding the man or listening to what he was saying. We elected him in 2000 without fully understanding what “compassionate conservatism” was all about. Republicans and conservatives wanting to defeat Gore because he was the chosen successor to Clinton latched on to Bush because he was not Gore. Nothing unusual in that.

As Smith wrote,

“Obviously, every president is subject to the momentum or inertia and the direction of his immediate predecessors and to powerful social, economic, and psychological forces and trends he did not create and cannot change.”

[BIG MO NOTE: How true. The Clinton economy collapsed when he took office, and 9/11 happened shortly into his first term. The corporate scandals, which occurred during Clinton’s years, were exposed during Bush’s first term.]

To continue:

“On occasion, however, the particular beliefs, philosophy, temperament, strength of purpose, understanding of political processes and rhetorical talents of certain presidents have in fact determined which of the different alternative directions the United States would take.”

Of course! Now, granted, you cannot and never can know everything about a man before he takes office. It’s impossible, and supporting a candidate always has been and always will be a gamble. You could just as easily get a Franklin Pierce as a Ronald Reagan. Sometimes you strike gold, and in the fall of 2001 and 2002, it seemed like we had.

But George W. Bush hasn’t turned out to be what many conservatives wanted. Because they failed to understand the man we elected, and failed to really listen to what he was saying before we put him in office, many are now mad that he’s actually trying to do things he said he wanted to do. He’s not the great champion of conservatism that so many wanted him to be. And because of that simple fact, so many on the right have turned on him viciously and want him gone, gone, gone.

Believers are always harder on the heretics than the infidels.

So, yes, for that, we have ourselves to blame.

And yes, some are tired of him because the war hasn’t gone swimmingly or been fought the way they believe that it should be fought. But they should ask themselves if there has ever been a war in American history where that hasn’t been the case? Ever?

I’m not asking you to have a pity party for poor George. (Hardly. I have my disagreements with him as well.) Instead, I want you to fully understand why I think the Bush presidency is in trouble.

The good thing is that, regardless of polls and some conservative anger over this and that, he remains focused on his primary mission: To leave the country and the world more secure than when he took office. His entire outlook changed on 9/11. He literally looks at everything through that lens. When he leaves office in January 2009 and all the moronic haters throw their marathon parties in celebration, Bush will retire quietly fully believing that he did his best. And he will be right.

So, to sum:

1) Bush is absolutely lousy at communications and has no message control. (no kidding).

2) People expected the wrong things from Bush, and when he did what he said he would do, they got mad.

3) People expect way too much of the presidency itself, in actuality more than the Constitution itself calls for.

4) The imperial Congress is far more intrusive into American lives than people fully comprehend; Bush’s decline is linked to the disintigration of the GOP Congress.

5) The intense hatred of Bush has caused him to turn inward and forge ahead alone.

There’s obviously more to say, but this is more of a 50,000-foot look.

Posted by Big Mo