What will Bush's Legacy Be?

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been a lot of powerful stories ripping through the press--the war in Iraq is not getting any better, Katrina has destroyed New Orleans while the feds have been asleep at the relief switch, and now Chief Justice William Rehnquist has died, giving Bush another pick for the Supreme Court. I could talk about any of these post, and may do so. But now, I'm starting to wonder how history will treat George W. Bush over the next twenty years? What will Bush's legacy be?

The Bush presidency is both complicated and contradictory. This administration came up at the end of eight years of peace and prosperity under the Clinton administration. This administration also came at a time when history declared the Cold War had ended--a Cold War that had shaped American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. During President Clinton's eight years in office, the economy had taken off in an unprecedented economic boom, and was just starting to reverse itself during the November 2000 elections. American foreign policy had some successes in Bosnia and Kosovo, and some failures in Somalia. Even President Clinton himself had his own complications. Clinton's great success was his ability to grasp the intimate nature of the political arena, and how policy choices can affect this arena--Clinton was able to quickly adapt to the changing political landscape. This can be seen in the health care debate, welfare, Somalia. And yet Clinton--the man--could not adapt his personal failings to that changing political landscape as his sexual affairs with Monica Lewinsky became public, and of the impeachment trial against him. So by the November elections of 2000, the United States was at a crossroads in terms of where to send this country in terms of its slowing economic growth, and the lack of a foreign policy mandate. And in that time, George W. Bush became elected as president.

The election of 2000 was mired in controversy. First, it was a close vote--almost as close as the Nixon / Kennedy election of 1960. Florida became the contested battleground for this election, with unsubstantiated allegations of security guards standing around polling places in black neighborhoods, butterfly ballots placing Patrick Buchanan's name next to Al Gores, and broken down ballot machines. Bush versed Gore quickly morphed from an election issue to a legal issue, with the case moving up through the Florida state courts, and poll workers were instructed to told to recount the ballots from Miami Palm-Dade and gauge the voters intent in selecting their votes--are those hanging chads, pregnant chads, or what? Somehow, this legal case went up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where nine justices had voted to select George Bush as president. This is not to say that Bush won the election or not. But rather, the Supreme Court had forced a decision on this issue for the sake of selecting a president. The result of the Supreme Court decision in Bush verses Gore, had left half the country feeling they have been cheated upon--that the election had been stolen by Bush, and the Republican Party. This feeling will continue to linger among hard-core liberals and Democrats.

But there is actually more to Bush verses Gore than the Supreme Court's decision or the pregnant chads in Florida. There was probably a subconscious backlash against the Clinton administration by the voters themselves. Public opinion polls at that time had shown that while the American voters consistently supported Clinton as president, they disapproved of Clinton on a personal or moral level. They supported Clinton as president and as a leader, but they were disgusted by Clinton's moral failings. These moral failings were brought out both by Clinton's own consistent lying regarding his extramarital affairs, but also by the Republican attempts to impeach Clinton as a means to remove him from office. As the 2000 elections approached, the American public may have become disgusted by this double standard of character. The public had a new choice to gauge the moral characteristics of two new candidates--Al Gore and George Bush. While Al Gore may have had strong moral credentials, he was also the sitting vice-president under Bill Clinton. That was his Achilles heel. George Bush also had his own problems in the past--his drinking and cocaine usage and his discrepancies in his national guard records--he was also a born-again Christian and an evangelist. This alone would have galvanized the growing evangelical movement to select Bush as president. One interesting note: While the public opinion polls show strong American approval for Clinton as a presidential leader and strong disapproval for Clinton's morals, the current polls are showing a reversal for George W. Bush, where the American public is starting to show a strong disapproval for Bush as a presidential leader, and a somewhat strong approval ratings for Bush's morality.

Bush's presidency and his leadership abilities really started slow. He certainly succeeded in getting his tax cut and No-Child-Left-Behind education bill through, but his first year as president was hampered by the split in the electorate due to the Florida fiasco and the Supreme Court's decision in selecting Bush as president. To put it bluntly, half the electorate believed that Bush cheated his way into the White House. This would continue to hamper him until the Sept. 11 attacks. But now, I want to look into some of the early legislative victories that Bush achieved in his first term, starting with the tax cut. What is interesting about the tax cut is that it started the Republican propaganda machine towards consistently reworking over arguments to selectively fit a policy choice. This is not bad politics--all leaders will adapt their arguments to fit their legislative and political agendas. But the Bush White House had taken this strategy and made it into a science. When Bush was campaigning for his tax cut during the 2000 elections, he argued that the tax cut should be made to give back the projected federal surpluses to the people. As the recession started to hit in 2000, the argument was changed to where this same tax cut could be used as an economic stimulus package. This strategy of adapting the argument to fit the policy will also be used extensively in the Iraq war. It didn't matter what the argument was, as long as it achieved the political and legislative results. The one major bi-partisan legislative victory that Bush achieved was his No-Child-Left-Behind act. Bush was able to enlist the support of Senator Ted Kennedy to pass a major educational reform bill requiring states to develop standardized testing programs for public school students. While the bill became law, and was touted by both political parties as a major educational reform, the No-Child law failed to improve public education due to a lack of federal funding for this measure.

September 11. This even really started Bush's presidency. Even with the World Trade Center attacks, there is controversy as to whether White House officials knew that Osama bin Laden was planning to use aircraft in terrorist attacks, and had failed to react to this information. I don't want to get into that argument. What the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center really did was to completely rally the American public around their president. At that moment, there was no split electorate. Half the country dropped their disgust at Bush's cheating his way into the White House, and supported Bush in this new war on terror. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Bush certainly made the most of it as he ordered the U.S. military to invade Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his al Qaida terror organization were based with the support of the Taliban government. It is this moment where George Bush could have become one of the greatest presidents, and it is this moment where he failed miserably. Instead of concentrating on Osama and al Qaida in Afghanistan, he shifted his gaze towards Iraq, and started a major public relations campaign to enlicit support for an invasion of Iraq. It is here that the Republican propaganda machine perfected its technique towards adapting any argument to fit its defined policy goals of invading Iraq--Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, Iraq was a threat to the United States (Mushroom clouds sprouting in New York), Iraq had al Qaida terrorist training camps in their boarders, Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator to his people (Another Hitler), Saddam was a bad guy--it didn't matter what the argument was as long as it could be used to justify an American invasion of Iraq. During the 2000 election debates with Gore, Bush stressed that America should not embark on a campaign of nation-building and criticized the Clinton Administration's policies in Bosnia and Kosovo. Now the United States under his leadership had invaded one country--Afghanistan--and was planning to invade another country--Iraq.

There is a lot to say about America's invasion of Iraq--Product for a New American Century's report on a direct American intervention into the Middle East, and the Bush Administration's complete incorporation of the PNAC model in U.S. foreign policy, the swiftness of the actual U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent failure to provide enough troops for the actual occupation of Iraq, and the growing insurgency movement that has started against a complete U.S. failure to plan for a comprehensive occupation and reconstruction policy in Iraq. But there are a couple interesting aspects of the Bush administration that can be seen in its invasion of Iraq. The first is Bush as an individual. George W. Bush certainly saw the political effects that can occur when a president is confronted by war. He had a front-row seat in how his father, George H.W. Bush Senior, conducted the first Iraq war, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. He certainly saw how the public rallied around Bush Sr., as the American forces successfully evicted Iraqi forces from Kuwait, with public opinion polls showing 80% American support for President Bush Sr. That's the first lesson that George W. Bush took to heart--a war can make a president popular.

But Bush already had a war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban government. Why did he invade Iraq? Here the answer could be two-fold. First, is that George W. Bush selected a number of officials where were intimately involved in Bush Senior's war in Iraq--Cheney, Powell, Condi Rice, Wolfowitz, Pearl. A number of these officials had probably believed that American forces should have gone into Baghdad during the First Gulf War, and they had made their views known through the PNAC Doctrine. Once they were brought back into George W. Bush's administration, they were more than ready to put the PNAC plan into operation and finish the job.

But the other answer to why Bush invade Iraq also depends on George W. Bush--the man. Here is a man who--while he has had personal adversity through his drinking and cocaine usage--has never really had much adversity due to outside influences. Think about it. Whatever outside adversity he has had, Daddy Bush or his influential friends, has been able to get him out of it. Bush's experiences regarding Vietnam were shaped by Daddy Bush's ability to get him into the Texas Air National Guard--then get him transferred into the Alabama National Guard to work on Winton Blount's Senate campaign, then was able to get transferred into Harvard Business School. There are reports that Bush Senior may have helped George W. Bush after his own oil drilling company went bankrupt, and in Bush Junior's purchase of the Texas Rangers. What is important to note here is that George W. Bush has always been under George Bush Senior's shadow--they even have the same name of George Bush. And when you're the son of a successful politician, with that same name, it will probably get to you that you want to become just as successful--or even more successful--than that of your father. And yet, whatever attempts George W. Bush has made to beak out of the limelight of his father, he has been unable to and has caused Daddy Bush to bail him out--possibly causing more resentment in George W. Bush against his father.

So George W. Bush becomes president of the United States--just as his father Bush Senior did. But George W. Bush does not handily win the election as his father did, but rather is selected by the Supreme Court. So even becoming president is not enough. There is only one way for George W. Bush to become just as good, or even better, than his father. And that is to finish what his father had started in Iraq. That is to invade and take over the country of Iraq. So the People for a New American Century found the perfect spokesman for their plan to radical reshape American foreign policy in the Middle East, and George W. Bush found the perfect way to step out of his father's shadow. Using a sophisticated Republican propaganda machine, together they were able to sell the American public on this invasion.

A good amount of George W. Bush's legacy will be shaped by the Iraq war, and in the administration's mismanagement and failures in Iraq. There are a number of them--the lack of postwar planning after the invasion was complete, lack of adequate troops to occupy the country, lack of supplies given to current troops--such as armored Humvees, and harsh White House and Republican-manipulated character attacks against critics of the war--such as Joe Wilson and the Valerie Plamegate scandal that has resulted from it. What is interesting to note here is that George W. Bush's administration is one that consistently excels at selling and public relations, but has failed in the analysis of complex policy issues, and the execution of public policy. Whatever policy objective the administration has enacted, they have enacted for the benefit of big business while playing a public relations game that the same policy objective was good for the American public. This can be seen in just about everything--the bankruptcy bill, the energy bill, the tax cut, and even Iraq--where Halliburton has received extensive military and reconstruction contracts, paid for by the American taxpayer. President Bush's Social Security privitization plan would certainly benefit Wall Street. You can even see this lack of public policy planning with Hurricane Katrina, where the administration dawdled in not providing emergency aid quickly enough, as the storm destroyed New Orleans. The Bush administration has aligned itself closely to Big Business, almost to the point of cronyism. This is certainly going to be reflected in his legacy.

Finally, the Supreme Court. After Sandra Day O'Conner announced her retirement, George W. Bush selected an unknown named John Roberts. And just yesterday, Chief Justice William Rehnquist had died from thyroid cancer. If there is one powerful aspect of Bush's legacy, it will be his selection of these two Supreme Court justices. Bush is a hard-line conservative, and a born-again Christian. Both his election and re-election strategy centered on getting the evangelicals out to vote Republican. And they did so in record numbers. The evangelicals and the Religious Right feel that they were the ones who carried the victory to George W. Bush and they will certainly want their views to be heard by the president. The Religious Right's goals are simple--to pack the Supreme Court with hard-lined conservatives that would overturn Roe verses Wade, and break down the barriers between church and state. The Supreme Court, when Bush was first elected in 2000, was a divided court with Sandra Day O'Conner making up a powerful swing vote on a number of issues. Now with Roberts being selected to take O'Conner's seat, and Rehnquist dead, Bush has the opportunity to fill two Supreme Court seats--and possibly more if John Paul Stevens dies or retires (Stevens, at 85, is the most liberal justice on the court). George W. Bush now has the power to shift the court to a far more conservative stance, and achieve the Religious Right's ultimate dream.

That is what I can say so far about Bush's legacy--and we still have three more years before the 2008 elections. In some ways, Bush is the complete opposite--as both a man and a president--as to what Bill Clinton was. Bill Clinton had his moral failings, with his consistent womanizing and his own pot smoking (I smoked, but I didn't inhale). As president, Bill Clinton got into trouble as his affair with Monica Lewinsky became public. George W. Bush certainly had his own moral failings with his drinking and cocaine use as a young adult, but there's no evidence yet that these failings have manifested themselves during his presidency. Bill Clinton was a major policy wonk, who could look at the news events and could recognize the political ramifications of those events. George Bush, by his own account, doesn't even read the newspapers. Clinton was a detailed-oriented president (remember his all-night policy wonk sessions?). Bush delegates details to his staff, making only big picture decisions. Somehow, the American public had selected two presidents who were polar opposites of each other--back-to-back. We are now bearing the fruit of this decision.