September 24, 2006
Bush’s Endgame II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 08:00 AM EST Wow. Talk about a rush to judgment. Bush’s presidency has more than two years to run and Joshua Zeitz thinks he bids fair to be the worst President in American history, comparing him unfavorably to James Buchanan, whose Presidency was followed six weeks later by the break up of the Union and the worst war in American history to bring it back together. That strikes me as a bit, well, Howard Deanish. Mr. Zeitz writes that not even Buchanan or Millard Fillmore (who—to paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan—did nothing in particular and did it very well) can “compete with his record of colossal short-term failure and long-term calamity.” With Bush’s Presidency not yet 75 percent complete, it strikes me as a tad premature to bemoan the long-term calamities that resulted therefrom. Predicting the future is one thing; announcing it, as Mr. Zeitz seems to do here, quite another. As for short-term failures, Bush has certainly had his share. All Presidents do. The Iraq war has been a much tougher affair than most people thought, and its outcome is anything but certain. I wish that Bush had used his veto on such dreadful legislation as the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Act. But Bush has had some successes too. One, certainly, is the American economy. Despite two body blows—the Internet bubble collapse and 9/11—the economy has been growing strongly for the last three years, tax revenues are soaring, the deficit declining, and unemployment at historic lows. If you want colossal short-term failure in managing the American economy, I would suggest a short tour of Jimmy Carter’s dismal presidency. Another major success of the Bush Presidency is, unfortunately for him, a negative success, and therefore it is far harder to credit him with it. But since 9/11 there have been no more 9/11s on American soil, contrary to the predictions of nearly everyone. If a President’s first duty is to protect the homeland, Mr. Bush has done a very good job of it, at least so far. Mr. Zeitz writes that “with the collusion of a Republican Congress, Bush will have turned a modest budget surplus into an enormous deficit.” This wins the Paul Krugman Memorial Everything-Is-Always-Bush’s-Fault School of Economic Analysis award. (1) There were a few other factors involved that had nothing to do with George Bush (see above about stock bubbles and 9/11). (2) The federal deficit is lower as a percentage of GDP than that of most other great powers (and far lower if you factor in state surpluses). (3) It has been declining since fiscal 2004. Mr. Zeitz writes, “He will have spent well over $1 trillion . . . to pursue a botched war that he initiated on the basis of bad intelligence.” Mistakes—big ones—were certainly made in conducting the Iraq War. The list of wars without big mistakes is a very short one indeed. Even the cakewalk called the Spanish-American War was a farrago of logistical failures. (Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders had to run, not ride, up San Juan Hill, because the horses were still back in Tampa.) As for bad intelligence, is it really George Bush’s fault that every single major intelligence service in the world was wrong about Iraq’s WMD’s? (Let’s leave aside whether they might actually have been right, and the WMD’s are in Syria or buried in the desert somewhere.) What intelligence was he supposed to have used instead? Presidents have to act on the best intelligence they can get. Mr. Zeitz writes that President Bush “will have failed in his grand designs to dismantle the welfare state and democratize the Middle East.” Pushing for and signing a massive drug-prescription plan for the elderly under Medicare is a very strange way to dismantle the welfare state. To be sure, his attempt to reform Social Security before there is a fiscal train wreck of epic proportions (a forthcoming train wreck that is not a matter of economic prediction but of demographic and actuarial certainty) has so far failed. I would lay the blame for the failure to advance towards a solution to this impending crisis 100 percent on the Democratic minority in Congress. Bush came up with a plan; he fought hard to move public opinion on the subject. The Democratic response has been exactly one word: No. They have refused to do their job as a loyal opposition and develop alternatives. It has been a disgraceful performance. As for his failure to bring about democracy in the Middle East, I would prefer to wait a generation before making a judgment. It was a brave and bold (or reckless and foolhardy) decision to attempt to fundamentally alter the politics of the Middle East in order to dry up the wellspring of terrorism. If it works, the world, and especially the people of the Middle East, will owe a huge debt of gratitude to George Bush. If it doesn’t, then his statue will be right up there next to James Buchanan’s. As for leaving a legacy of “extreme partisan polarization,” it takes two to tango. I would invite Mr. Zeitz to give us a list of Democratic attempts to find common ground and advance the people’s business in the last five and a half years. To be sure, they have often invited the President to surrender. But he has declined to do so. I suspect the reason for this is because he won the election.
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