After years of venting my frustration with the president in this forum on an almost daily basis, I've made a conscious effort to tone it down recently, I guess in part because:
1. He's the lamest of lame ducks and increasingly irrelevant.
2. He's so universally disliked, it feels like piling on at this point.
3. I'm ready to move on, and ignoring him is a step in that direction.
After hearing his final press conference and thinking about it, though, I really think it opens a window into why this guy was such an epic failure. His response to the question about what mistakes he made was extremely telling:
Even by Phil Gramm's standard's, the nation is in a bad way, and this glib, flip response is how he starts his answer. Classic Bush.
Take a look at that response, and the thing that jumps out is that they were all bad because they had negative political ramifications for him. The Mission Accomplished banner had no impact on what was actually going on in Iraq, but it made Bush look like a smacked ass for years. Katrina presents a similar issue. You can tell from his response that he views it as potentially negative because was bad for him politically, not because a major metropolitan area nearly drown while he was trimming brush in Crawford.
Hey George, I can understand why you might look back on Katrina with some regret, because that was the moment that the nation learned that the emperor had no clothes, but guess what? The problem with Katrina wasn't that you did an inadequate photo op, it's that there was an utter vacuum of leadership in the days following that disaster. Hundreds of people died, and you're bummed because you think you could have avoided some of the criticism for your non-response by putting on a better PR show. Ask the people of New Orleans if they give a flying fuck about whether you landed Air Force one in the area, or how strongly you were criticized.
John Stewart actually touched on this as well some last night, but he's spot on to the extent that these are not really "disappointments." As to Abu Ghraib, I'm wondering if he's just disappointed that we got caught.
Regarding the WMD thing, though, I fully do not understand what the hell he means. If you're concerned that a country has WMDs and intends to use them against you and then you engage them in a war and learn that they do not, in fact, have WMDs, you should be relieved, not "disappointed." Again, my interpretation of this is that he's disappointed because it caused him enormous political problems.
For the record, I would not have expected Bush to come into the press conference and issue a straightforward mea culpa on all the things he did wrong during his presidency in response to this question. What he did say, however, offers an honest and probably unintentional glimpse into the way Bush viewed his job.
Simply put, policy was always secondary to politics. Clinton ushered in the era of the perpetual campaign, placing a heightened importance upon spin and message control, but Bush brought it to a new level where he spent so much time spinning, he didn't bother to govern.
I'm pulling for Obama, obviously, but the reality is that he's got a tough, tough job ahead of him to try to unfuck our country. My support for Obama was based in large part upon the idea that he would bring a new governing philosophy and more transparency to the office, so I'm hoping he at least lives up to that expectation. We cannot continue on this same path.
As for Mr. Bush,
Goodbye, and good riddance.
1. He's the lamest of lame ducks and increasingly irrelevant.
2. He's so universally disliked, it feels like piling on at this point.
3. I'm ready to move on, and ignoring him is a step in that direction.
After hearing his final press conference and thinking about it, though, I really think it opens a window into why this guy was such an epic failure. His response to the question about what mistakes he made was extremely telling:
Q And I'm not trying to play "gotcha," but I wonder, when you look back over the long arc of your presidency, do you think, in retrospect, that you have made any mistakes? And if so, what is the single biggest mistake that you may have made?
THE PRESIDENT: Gotcha.
THE PRESIDENT: Gotcha.
I have often said that history will look back and determine that which could have been done better, or, you know, mistakes I made. Clearly putting a "Mission Accomplished" on a aircraft carrier was a mistake. It sent the wrong message. We were trying to say something differently, but nevertheless, it conveyed a different message. Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.
I've thought long and hard about Katrina -- you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and -- is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?
I've thought long and hard about Katrina -- you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and -- is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?
Hey George, I can understand why you might look back on Katrina with some regret, because that was the moment that the nation learned that the emperor had no clothes, but guess what? The problem with Katrina wasn't that you did an inadequate photo op, it's that there was an utter vacuum of leadership in the days following that disaster. Hundreds of people died, and you're bummed because you think you could have avoided some of the criticism for your non-response by putting on a better PR show. Ask the people of New Orleans if they give a flying fuck about whether you landed Air Force one in the area, or how strongly you were criticized.
There have been disappointments. Abu Ghraib obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were -- things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way.
Regarding the WMD thing, though, I fully do not understand what the hell he means. If you're concerned that a country has WMDs and intends to use them against you and then you engage them in a war and learn that they do not, in fact, have WMDs, you should be relieved, not "disappointed." Again, my interpretation of this is that he's disappointed because it caused him enormous political problems.
For the record, I would not have expected Bush to come into the press conference and issue a straightforward mea culpa on all the things he did wrong during his presidency in response to this question. What he did say, however, offers an honest and probably unintentional glimpse into the way Bush viewed his job.
Simply put, policy was always secondary to politics. Clinton ushered in the era of the perpetual campaign, placing a heightened importance upon spin and message control, but Bush brought it to a new level where he spent so much time spinning, he didn't bother to govern.
I'm pulling for Obama, obviously, but the reality is that he's got a tough, tough job ahead of him to try to unfuck our country. My support for Obama was based in large part upon the idea that he would bring a new governing philosophy and more transparency to the office, so I'm hoping he at least lives up to that expectation. We cannot continue on this same path.
As for Mr. Bush,
Goodbye, and good riddance.
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