How long ago was 2001? N’Sync and the Backstreet Boys were the biggest musical acts on the planet, and sold nearly 10 million records. Each. That’s how long ago.
And on January 2001, the words Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were the furthest thing from household words. The country was still trying to come to grips with the unbelievable occurrence of oral sex taking place in the Oval Office. In retrospect, Monica Lewinsky may have changed the course of history, as the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton would led to the incredible train wreck that was Election Day 2000, when Al Gore won the election, but lost the presidency.
George W. Bush and Richard Cheney were awarded the presidency, the Supreme Court acting as tie-breaker. At the time, there was much anger in among Democrats. By way of the Governor of Florida (Bush’s brother) The Florida Secretary of State (an appointee of the governors’) and the Supreme Court (five republican appointees) the feeling was that the election had been stolen. For some, there would be no assuagement. Others however, resigned themselves to the fact that George W. Bush was now president and we would just have to suck it up for the next four years, until he was inevitably bounced out of office. Besides, it was said, how much damage could this simpleton from Texas actually do?
Eight years later, we now know.
Iraq and Afghanistan. New Orleans and Katrina.
Abu Gharaib, Valerie Plame, “Mission Accomplished”, Terri Schiavo, Guantanamo, Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, The “Sancticity of Marriage”, Jack Abramoff, Scooter Libby, Tom Delay, and Dubai Ports.
“We will be greeted as liberators”
“You’re either with us or against us”
“No one could have expected this.”
The hard-line democrats of January 2001, were right in one sense: Bush would eventually prove amazingly unpopular with the America people. But getting to that point was a journey with more twists, turns, valleys and mountains than any novelist could have come up with.
As Bush/Cheney leaves office, neither of the men has anything much to say on the last 8 years beyond the rote generalities they have brought up at numerous SOTU addresses, press conferences and during the 2004 election. They have repeatedly said is that they are not concerned with their low approval numbers nor what historians will make of them. This is fact. Let the Bill Clintons and Richard Nixons of the world obsess and fret over their place in the national canon of the United States until they lie dead in their graves. Neither Bush or Cheney will lose much sleep in the years to come. They did what they needed to do and they succeeded.
Was the Bush Era a failure?
That depends on how you define "failure."
If George W. and co. sought to do the best possible job they could do in confronting the most dire issues of this young century, then yes, it has been an immense failure.
But any reasonable person could not possibly infer that this was their goal. Honest, competently run government by the Bush Administration was about as possible as a 7-year-old’s attempt to build a rocket ship to Mars out of a cardboard box. The 7-year-old does not fail per se, because success was never an option. By the same token, a successful presidency was never a goal for the Bush team. The goals of Bush were to grant favors to numerous corporate interests: Energy, Defense, and Pharmacy chief among them. From this standpoint, Bush was an enormous success. (Bush is without a doubt the man presaged by Eisenhower in his final speech: “Beware the unchecked influence of the military-industrial complex”)
The main goals of the Bush Administration were to do whatever they want and avoid too much scrutiny while doing it. Whatever the egghead constitutional lawyers and journalists wanted to say, let them say. Who listens to them anyway? No one that matters.
After all, the greatest asset of Bush/Cheney was the Republican Voter. They distrust the media, and lawyers and anyone else who would assault George W. Bush. Trying to argue things such as the harm the Bush/Cheney EPA has done to the environment, or cutting taxes during two wars, or bringing up the numerous constitutional violations of the last eight years would be akin to trying to explain to a 16-year old that she should put the Rihanna and Justin Timberlake cds aside and instead, listen to Frank Zappa or Residents instead. Even today, Bush enjoys a considerable amount of popularity among Republicans. Quite simply the Republican Voter speaks a different language.
Many bloggers will argue that the journalists of this country fell asleep at the wheel during the last eight years. Perhaps there was a period of time, after 9/11 that that is accurate. But walk into any major bookstore, go the current affairs or social sciences section and what do you see? Reams and reams of big, thick, books with titles like Fiasco, Hubris, Life Inside the Emerald City, The Assassin’s Gate, State of Denial, Ghost Wars, Angler, Absolute Power, etc ,etc. Bush and Cheney are easily the most researched and written about administration since Nixon. The number of books about Nixon and the five presidents that followed him, combined, do not begin to equal that on Bush/Cheney.
But as the eggheads, intellectuals and journalists were turning out their articles and books and appearing on Meet The Press and The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, Bush was preaching the message of God, Guns, and Gays. End of story. Rove and Co, speak the language. Those on the other side are mumbling in Urdu or Sanskrit.
We can call it The Culture War, the Blue-Red divide, or the impact of the “Values Voters” or any number of different names, but the fact remains: The hardcore Republican Voter feel that voting Republican is a national imperative, and that the country could devolve into chaos or communism if liberals are in power for too long. If Republicans have traditionally had one advantage in every election, it is that, since the days of Eisenhower, they have come out to vote in force, and in larger percentages than their democratic counterparts. As much as Republicans like to say these days that this is a “Center-Right” country, I would argue that this is a “Center-Right Voting” country.
(If this was a center-right country, it is safe to assume that we’d all be much better behaved than we are, especially in the “Red” States. Yet those states that most overwhelmingy voted Republican in the last three or more elections, lead the country in incarceration rates, firearm deaths, divorces, suicides, out of wedlock births, obesity and illiteracy. Wyoming, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama lead the pack in many of those categories. Note: I do not mean to cast aspersions on anyone who is divorced, obese or has had a child out of wedlock. I simply point out these statistics because the pious Republicans spend so much preaching morality on the campaign stump.)
Bush/Cheney knew the power they had with the Republican Voter, especially one fed up with blue dresses, "tree-huggers" and dear God, above all, Hilary. This is where Karl Rove came in. He played Republican Voters like Itzhak Perlman plays the Stradivarius. He was able to craft and coalesce a message that engaged the Republican Voter at gut level.
It is not that Rove’s tactics were unique: Every post-war Republican Administration has one thing in common: enemies. Threats. Clear and Present Dangers. Maybe they’re real. Maybe they’re just perceived. It doesn’t matter. Enemies are a valuable and powerful currency in politics.
Eisenhower had Russia and Korea. Nixon had the New York Times, hippies, feminists, and the Viet Cong. Ronald Reagan had “welfare queens driving Cadillac” and (again) the Russians. Bush the Senior had Saddam Hussein, drug kingpins, and Willie Horton.
What was different with Rove is that Bush/Cheney came in like a lamb. They did not trumpet their plans for running roughshod over the executive branch nor did they hurl invective at Democrats.(Monica Lewinsky was never directly invoked in 2000.) Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative" pledging bipartisanship, touting his record of “reaching across the aisle” as Texas governor. He repeatedly invoked “The Children” like Bill Clinton often did. His attitude towards African-Americans and Hispanics was one of genuine ease and comportment. His aw-shucks persona gave no ammunition to his critics. Once again, the fact that he was not a mental giant was all part of the program. Bush wasn’t trying to win over the “Washington Elites”. He was looking for Joe Six Pack, the guy who’s votes would actually matter. (Note: unlike a certain Alaskan governor, Bush would never actually use the term Joe Six-Pack. Another facet of Rove’s genius is that Bush speeches wouldn’t verbally condescend to voters.)
So Republicans and right-leaning moderates alike believed genuinely in the man. He wasn’t out of touch like his father or Bob Dole. And he didn’t give the appearance of being a power-mad tyrant like Newt Gingrich. And he wasn’t a “Washington Insider” like any of them. He was the kind of guy –and this will probably haunt the Republican party for at least the next twenty years – “that you could sit down and have a beer with”. Bush’s past of alcoholism was well known, but his conversion to Christianity became a strength and a good story for the press. He was the twice-elected governor of the second-most populated state in the union as well. Therefore Bush gave off a glow of down-to-Earth-ness, coupled with a Bush pedigree and Executive Know-How.
What could go wrong?
Well for starters, Republicans failed to read the fine print: As governor, Bush had given polluters free reign; in 1968, after graduating Yale, (exhausting all deferments) he had somehow bounded ahead of almost 100,000 applicants for a spot in the Texas Air National Guard; trying to make it in the oil business, his Arbusto Energy company would somehow fail to strike oil anywhere in Texas over the course of nine years; His losses are mitigated by old friends of his father’s; when he and some partners purchase baseball’s Texas Rangers, they get a new ballpark mostly financed by a sales-tax increase in Arlington.
To anyone thinking clearly, this is not exactly the sort of history that qualifies one to head the most powerful nation on Earth. But the Republican Voter allowed themselves to be swayed.
Incidentally, the reason we must refer to Bush/Cheney is because they were, at a minimum, equals in power. Richard Cheney (and Donald Rumsfeld) were Washington masterminds. They were old hands, going back to Gerald Ford’s brief time in office, and then on through the Reagan and Bush I eras. They knew the rules, and rule number one is access. Access to the Treasury, most of all. The powers that be love the Dick Cheneys of the world because he is one of them. Getting a man like that into the White House would be a godsend. He would be able grant them wishes as if he were the veritable genie of the lamp.
But Dick Cheney could never have been elected president directly; Courtney Love being elevated to Queen of England would be a more realistic scenario. He is exactly the wrong type of person for the modern age of political campaigning. He does not have the attitude, the personality nor the capacity for the horseshit that political elections require of its candidates. Compared to him, Richard Nixon was a veritable teddy bear. Thus a person was needed to be The Candidate, i.e., kiss the babies, do the diner sit-downs in Iowa, preach ideology and present a comfortable, non-threatening face that can satisfy both the Republican Voter, and the Moderate ones.
Enter George W. Bush. To the experienced, it was clear that George W. would be the face, and Cheney would be the puppet master with backup from Rumsfeld, Rove and Paul Wolfowitz. George W. would be an effective counteraction to the staid and oh-so serious Al Gore.
And so of course, the year 2000 ended with Bush/Cheney in power.
And then, came September 11th.
And then the Iraq war.
So much has been written about Iraq, there’s no need to go into all the lies and incompetence in this essay. There is perhaps no better way to succinctly put the War into perspective than this paragraph from Peter W. Galbraith’s painstakingly researched book, The End of Iraq:
“The Bush administrations’ grand ambitions for Iraq were undone by arrogance, ignorance and political cowardice. [It ] was a bungled effort at nation-building that was characterized by ineffective administration, constantly shifting political direction, an inability to restore essential services (including electricity), economic decline, mismanagement of billions of dollars, corruption and a failed effort to build a new Iraqi military and police. “
And that is just one example of something we shall have to live with for some time. That is why – in my first sentence – I said the Bush/Cheney presidency will only be partially over. There are perhaps ticking time bombs that we may not even know exist that will come to bear over the next years or even a decade from now.
So while no one from the Bush/Cheney administration cares to open themselves up to self-examination, it is certainly in the best interests of the public to do so, if for no other reason to understand that a man like George W Bush must never again be permitted to take seat in the White House.
Renowned author and historian Alvin S. Felzenberg (author of The Leaders We Deserved and Some We Didn’t) came up with a much-lauded grading system for our past presidents: He judged them on six criteria – Character, Vision, Competence, Economics, Civil Rights, and National Defense/Foreign Policy. Taking these standards in mind, I have taken the evidence of the past eight years as presented in the public record, and applied them to the Bush/Cheney presidency.
1) CHARACTER: (BEST EXAMPLES: WASHINGTON, LINCOLN, EISENHOWER, REAGAN)
Felzenberg describes presidential character thusly:
[The presidents with the best character] had the courage to risk public displeasure and even political defeat by adhering to the course that they had set. None were known to have harbored grudges or to have allowed their personal piques and prejudices to determine how they related to allies and adversaries. While none were strangers to failure and all had occasional moments of self-doubt, all remained optimistic that they would succeed in office and that the nation would be better for their efforts. While all were pragmatists, none lost the spirit of idealism that they had exhibited during their youth. None displayed the slightest sign of having grown cynical in their years of service. [Those with the worst character] all aspired to political careers at an early age. Each made ethical or professional .”
Bush/Cheney fail here and it has nothing to do with the past of either men (Cheney spent a lot of time dodging Vietnam too) ; starting from the point of his first term as Texas governor, we can see that Bush/Cheney's allegiance has always been to well-endowed political donors, which usually means of course, those industries that stand to benefit well from political favors. Neither of these two men had anything in the way of idealism in their youths, but cynicism? They had buckets of that. We shall return to this category at the end before granting a grade.
2) VISION: (BEST EXAMPLES: LINCOLN, TEDDY ROOSEVELT, REAGAN)
Bush and Cheney had the same reasons for seeking the White House that people want to climb Mount Everest do: Because it’s there. (Actually another Bush goal – even subconsciously – may have been to surpass his father while simultaneously redeeming himself in the old man’s eyes for his misspent youth)
Otherwise, the “vision thing” was outsourced. Bush’s corporate backers and an army of lobbyists generated many Bush policies, including most famously, Cheney’s energy task force – almost 60 of them came from the oil and coal industry. Of course, lobbyists may have been superfluous, since just about every Bush/Cheney political appointee came from a previous corporate job. Almost 52 Bush/Cheney appointees had come from working for Enron alone. Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior was the proverbial fox in the henhouse.
Before being named Secretary in 2001, Norton was senior counsel at Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, P.C., a lobbying firm for NL Industries, suppliers of titanium dioxide a chemical used in several paints. They were a defendant in at least fourteen federal environmental and personal injury lawsuits. She was also Colorado Attorney General where she fought vigorously against enforcement of environmental laws. This is just one example of how the Bush cabinet served corporate concerns first and foremost.
Bush/Cheney grade: F
3) COMPETENCE (BEST EXAMPLES: FDR, EISENHOWER)
Felzenberg takes a well-rounded view of competence. It involves, the ability to communicate effectively goals and policies to other politicians as well as the public; the ability to achieve policy objectives; and third, to respond effectively to unforeseen events. From that standpoint, Bush/Cheney does relatively well with number one, so-so with number two, but fails utterly with number three.
Bush/Cheney had three strong advantages coming into office in 2001, (and gained another huge one after 9/11). They knew exactly what they wanted to do, who they wanted to please, and who they needed to plead their case to.
They adhered strictly to Republican Dogma where everything can be either classified as Pro- or Anti- columns: they were Pro-business, (and therefore anti-union and anti-environment), pro-Gun, Pro-Church-and-State,(defined as “pro values”) , anti-tax, anti-abortion, and anti-Gay. Everything that the Bush Legacy encapsulates flows from these positions. It did not require complicated schematics or ten-point plans to get simple messages like “tax cuts” across, especially when couched in terms such as “Tax Relief For the Middle Class”. But not only was Rove able to talk clearly and cleanly to the Republican Voter about these things, he was able to anticipate Democratic arguments and to converse the argument back onto them, and label them “obstructionists” who were trying to impede progress. For example when Democrats in the House objected to making Bush’s tax cuts permanent after 9/11 (and again after the Iraq War had started) , they were labeled as calling for “a tax increase” even though it would have been no such thing; taxes would have only been back to where they were as of January 2001. But again, with the Republican Voter as their audience, one only too quick to believe anything bad about Democrats, such chicanery won out easily.
This is one of the most unique things when talking about Bush/Cheney; all of their policies were put through the filter of being “Good for the American People”, even when they clearly were not. But again, the Republican Voter is quick to put faith in their elected officials, anyone who can protect them from the “tax and spend Democrats” who, somehow, in their eyes, drove this country to ruin between 1992-2000.
Right after 9/11, just about everything that happened before seemed to be utterly irrelevant. The shape of America changed, not overnight, but in mere hours, it seemed. The rampant illegalities of the 2000 Election (which were still an issue at that time) faded into the dim past as if it happened 20 or 30 years ago. George W Bush was now a Leader (capital “L” intentional) and many Americans who did not vote for him (a majority in the country) felt obligated to fall in line behind the Bush/Cheney administration.
Osama Bin Laden was not chosen to be Time magazine’s Man of the Year (the Man of the Year is supposed to be a person who had the most effect on the planet, for better or for worse. Time felt the need to go with the safe choice of Rudy Giuliani, (who, like Bush, was terribly disliked by much of his constituency at 9am on Tuesday, September 11th.) but there can be no doubt that it is bin Laden would change the course of history forever like few men ever had.
One of Osama’s unintended consequences was to secure, for George W Bush, a mandate which he had not had up until 9/11. Bin Laden, gave him the wherewithal to be accepted by a huge mass of the American people. Osama provided him, literally, with a loudspeaker, to trumpet the Bush/Cheney administrations goals. Osama conferred legitimacy on Bush/Cheney; from this point on George W. Bush, the mediocre Yale student, the failed oilman, the failed House candidate, the family Black Sheep, was no more. In his place stood George W. Bush, Commander-In-Chief in The War On Terror. (More than one writer has noted that if Osama sought to destroy America, his boosting of George W. Bush’s stature with the American people was a cunning, if roundabout, method to accomplish the feat.)
Of course, another advantage Rove had in his arsenal was the vast sea of right-wing media at his beck and call. Just as the job of managing the war was given to mercenaries like Blackwater, just as the job of formulating energy policy was given to the energy companies, so to were the duties of public affairs and campaigning handed over to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (Fox News, The New York Post, The Weekly Standard) , Rush Limbaugh, James Dobson and a host of other hard-right outlets.
Fox News alone provided a bumper crop of lieutenants: Bill O’ Reilly, Sean Hannity, John Gibson, Oliver North, Neil Cavuto, and Michelle Malkin were on the front lines for the Bush/Cheney, and gave gold medal performances. Fox labeled themselves as “Fair and Balanced” but were of course in daily contact with Rove and the White House press office. If 9/11 was a boon to Bush it was manna from heaven for the right-wing media. They were like zoo animals freed from captivity and allowed to run wild in the streets. No longer would they be limited to cute little phrases like “feminazis” and “tree huggers”. From now on, they would be able say, with all due seriousness, that anyone who opposed George W. Bush and any actions he took before, during or after 9/11 was nothing less than a Traitor.
Prior to 9/11, this sort of invective would have been unthinkable. The Republican Dogma of Pro- and Anti- gained a new collorary: You were either for George W. Bush or for Osama Bin Laden. Shades of grey were eliminated. A bumper crop of right-wing authors, radio and TV hosts rose to fame during 2002 and 2003: Laura Ingraham , Jonah Goldberg, and – perhaps the absolute bottom of the barrel, Michael Savage and Ann Coulter. There was a metaphysical arms race to see who could come up with the worse scenario on what do with liberals (concentration camps were mentioned by the most extreme) who failed to comply with the Bush World Order.
Of course, the White House ostensibly had nothing to do with Fox or Rush Limbaugh, (and indeed the level of rhetoric was far less than genteel than anything Rove would ever officially approve of) but they basked in comfort behind the Jericho-like bulwark provided by their right-wing deputies. Fox’ ratings went through the roof, while CNN and MSNBC floundered; right-wing authors dominated the New York Times best-sellers lists and were invited to speak at colleges; ratings for Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson’s radio shows skyrocketed ; perhaps the apotheosis of this whole period was the brouhaha over some documents supposedly proving that Bush had skipped out on his National Guard Service back in the late 60s. Dan Rather and CBS (one of the biggest “Liberal Media” targets of the right wing) took the documents at their word but later it was discovered they were faked. The resulting uproar cost Rather his job. The right wingers rejoiced.
Even the growing success of NASCAR and Wal-Mart bode well for the Republicans as these were solid components of "Red State Culture". (There are of course, no Wal-Marts located above the Mason-Dixon line) The 1,880 days between September 11, 2001 and November 7, 2006 were a boom period for right-wing media easily comparable to the dot-com era. It is not for nothing that Rove and Hugh Hewitt could prophesize that a Republican permanent majority was coming, where Republicans would control the White House and Congress for decades.
With this aid, it was no problem for Bush/Cheney to push their agenda like the drug plan, the Patriot Act, Credit Card reform, etc ,etc. Of course, the same lobbyists giving Bush/Cheney its cues were also in the ears of several congressmen; there was little Lyndon Johnson-type arm-twisting that was necessary to get representatives from both parties to go along with many of the corporate policies of the Bush/Cheney White House.
Conversely, the right wing media was instrumental in hiding important facts about their policies. They could be counted on not to report certain things or to request that other policies not be investigated too closely. They could also be counted on to attack and discredit anyone who did.
Now as far as implementing policy, the record is mixed; once again, where policies were meant to benefit corporate America, there were few problems. One of the hallmarks of Bush’s record in Texas and the White House, was for corporations to police themselves. Which they did. (Think Chinatown , Serpico or L.A. Confidential for the police departments they modeled themselves after)
But where Bush/Cheney was in charge of implementing policy out of its own yard, things get dicier, the most obvious example being the two wars. And if there’s anything that Bush/Cheney get an absolute F Minus in, it’s the ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances.
Let us consider the now-famous picture of Bush relaxing at the ranch in Crawford reading (allegedly) the CIA report “Osama Bin Laden Determined To Strike In The US” in August 2001. There is the fact that not a single senior official was fired in the wake of 9/11. Despite the fact that FBI Director Robert Mueller and AG John Ashcroft both received warnings of a hijacking plot in late August. In addition, foreign intelligence from the Philippines, Russia, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco warned of hijacking plots in the US as well.
Concerning the Iraq War, as of now there are 4200+ dead U.S. soldiers, and another 30,000+ injured. The U.S. Army, its machinery, and it’s troops have been stretched to the breaking point, with troops doing multiple tours of duty. Why? Because no one in charge expected they would be there this long.
The Sunni and Shia civil war has waned, but not ended by any means. And even as Iraq has cooled, Afghanistan has fired up again. Clearly, this administration was out of its depth believing it could handle two military fronts. But again, was that ever the goal? Bush/Cheney’s incompetence increased the monster profits seen by defense companies. Given that we have determined that Bush/Cheney’s aims were to privatize the U.S. government , it can be concluded that rank incompetence was not merely a by-product of Bush/Cheney but an absolute intent. (and given the amount of jury-rigged evidence – the rationale for the Iraq War -- that has come to light since 2003 such as The Downing Street Memo, what other conclusion can one make?)
One of the bigger scandals that has gone almost completely unnoticed, except by 60 Minutes, is the incredible case of the missing $12B, (yes that’s a “B”) that has disappeared without a trace. This money was from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad where it supposed to be dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by Paul Bremer. A company called NorthStar Consultants was supposed to be in charge of auditing and inventory. NorthStar has since turned out to be little more than a shell company whose “branch” addresses are in a suburban home in La Jolla, CA and a P.O. Box in the Bahamas.
Of course that $12B is only the biggest part of the waste and fraud that has taken place in Iraq. Halliburton was charging the U.S. for 42,000 daily meals for soldiers while only serving 14,000. Former Halliburton subsidiary KBR has been sued multiple times since the war began, and some 80 employees have reportedly become whistle-blowers. Some of the charges include that KBR let the Army store dead bodies in refrigerated trucks regularly used for food and drink transport and storage , and then went back to using them for that same purpose. A clear infraction of military and civilian health rules. (As well as those of common sense) In addition, of some 200 trucks the company transported to Iraq only 25% would work at any given time. Many of them had been bought at second-hand car lots.
Custer Battles was a company that was awarded $17m to protect civilian aircraft flights into Baghdad International Airport. At the time they had no employees beyond the two main partners, one of whom, Michael Battles was the GOP candidate who ran (hopelessly) against Patrick Kennedy for Kennedy's Massachusetts House seat. They were able to get this money despite rules stating that a contractor has to have the capacity to fulfill a contract. In the space of a year, they were awarded $100M total in no-bid contracts.
Much of the wrongdoing will never come to light, and even if it does, there’s precious little anyone can do about it. In the five years since the beginning of the Iraq War the Bush administration has not litigated a single case against any war profiteer under the False Claims Act.
Before the war, it was stated by Donald Rumsfeld and Mitch Daniels, the director of the Office of Management and Budget that the war would cost a total of $60M maximum. To date, the direct cost of the Iraq war along is 10 times that amount. That’s 50% higher than the cost of Vietnam and four times higher than that of WWII.
Add in Afghanistan, and the direct costs of both wars adds up to $800m. The administration failed to account for the deadly IEDs that the enemy would employ; they often leave armored soldiers living but cause the brain to dislodge inside the skull, causing severe brain damage. In addition, they failed to realize how many National Guard units and independent contractors (mercenaries) would be utilized.
But that is merely the direct cost.
Neither the Pentagon nor the Bush Administration added in future costs in the estimate, especially medical care for veterans or the families the dead leave behind. 4100+ have been killed. Another 260,000 have been treated at veterans’ care facilities. Nor were inflation, increased fuel prices and interest factored in. Nor of restoring the military to pre-war strength. As the title of his book, The Trillion Dollar War insinuates, Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz estimates that we will eventually spend $2.8 trillion and 4.5 trillion on Bush’s War.
Another unforeseen consequence has been the rise of Hamas over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election. In June, 2002, Bush announced that the U.S. wanted parliamentary elections in Palestine in 2005. After Yasser Arafat died that date was pushed back to 2006. Many in the Fatah government said they weren’t ready ( Bush and Condoleeza Rice, in another story that has drawn little interest tried to overthrow Hamas from power in 2007 in a top secret coup, that failed miserably.) Instead of getting rid of Hamas, the U.S. backed insurgency of Muhammad Dahlan, a Fatah soldier, inspired Hamas to seize total control of Gaza. So therefore the most recent flare-up between Israel and Hamas can be directly linked to the incompetence of the Bush administration.
Therefore, it is concluded that Bush/Cheney was able to persuade large majorities to follow their ideas, defense strategies and policies. But those ideas and policies were backed by the flimsiest of rationales and a whole-heartedly bankrupt and soulless plot to enrich defense companies. And they couldn’t even do it correctly.
GRADE: F MINUS
4) ECONOMIC POLICIES (BEST EXAMPLES: WASHINGTON, LINCOLN, T. ROOSEVELT, REAGAN)
Felzenberg asks three questions: Did this president improve the performance of the US did this President improve the performance of the US economy during his time in office? Did the president improve the economic infrastructure of the country? Did this President sustain the social contract and expand the economic opportunities available to all Americans?
Many would see this as a loaded questions. There are things that a president can do to control the economy of course, but there are also things that he cannot. Certainly the temptation to blame Bush for every job lost over his presidency is strong, but would be inaccurate. Advances in technology started an acceleration in output and worker productivity that has led to more automation and therefore, less jobs in some sectors. NAFTA paved the way for more jobs to leave America and that happened on Bill Clinton’s watch. Detroit had problems before Bush came to office and will have them after he leaves.
Having said that however, in general, especially in context of economic infrastructure, Bush/Cheney fails miserably: their tax cuts benefited the richest 5% in the nation; the average citizen saved a whopping $300 in taxes. Those tax cuts caused the surplus grown by Clinton into a gaping deficit.
According to those in the know, an ultimate goal for Bush/Cheney was to eliminate the progressive tax system and replace it with a consumption or sales tax. (Admittedly, this goal is not unique to Bush/Cheney; Republican dogma commands that the IRS one day be completely dismantled) This plan would, of course, put millions of lower-class and middle-class families in a higher tax bracket than the wealthy.
Bush wanted another $750M in tax cuts, wanted to make them permanent, and wanted to abolish the Estate Tax, even after 9/11. Indeed, 9/11 was used as a reason to make them permanent. (Arianna Huffington famously dubbed this “Operation Enduring Avarice”)
Another blot on Bush/Cheney ‘s record: in the 27 months following January 2001, the economy lost 3 million jobs after having created 1.7 million in 2000 alone. It was the longest sustained period without job growth since the 1930s.
Part and parcel with that comes Health Insurance, or rather the lack of. After declining in 1999 and 2000, the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 1.4 million. Also, doctors and hospital began to turn away Medicare patients as the government cut reimbursements. Bush/Cheney’s answer to this: blame it on lawyers who brought “excessive” malpractice suits on doctors, thus raising the cost of health care in the country.
And then there’s the EITC: The Earned Income Tax Credit. Giving working families back thousands of dollars per-child, the program is credited with keeping many borderline families out of poverty. Yet, in 2003, Bush/Cheney changed the standards for proof of eligibility for the EITC, stating there “rampant fraud” in the program. Critics charged that many families wouldn’t be able to meet these new standards and even those that did would now have to spend money getting commercial tax-preparers to wade through the thicket of paperwork that was to come.
In one very strange way, Bush did try to extend economic opportunities to some of those on the lowest totem pole in this country, and was pilloried for it by his own party. Bush’s proposal to grant amnesty to undocumented aliens in this country inspired howls of protest from Republicans. His failure to get the bill passed is one of the few policy failures he had to endure. (Note: The debate over illegal immigrants was one with various benefits for the White House: it was of course a boon to various industries – meatpacking, hotels, the fast food industry – to have inexhaustible supply of cheap labor. And it was a priority of Rove’s and Bush’s to get more Hispanics on board with the Republican party. Had amnesty passed, Bush would have gotten all the credit – despite all the Democrat backing he had – and the Republican party could possibly have found itself gaining a majority of the Hispanic vote. The Republican Voter’s failure to support Bush on this may cost them dearly in more election cycles to come.)
Overall, Bush/Cheney has crippled the nation’s capacity for economic growth in one exceptional way: between 2001 and 2005 Bush/Cheney borrowed $1.05 trillion from the U.S. Treasury. (Putting Iraq and Afghanistan on the credit card as it were) .
The first 42 presidents prior to Bush/Cheney borrowed $1.01 Trillion. COMBINED.
GRADE: D minus , but could drop further in the future pending revelations of more shady dealings and greater repercussions in the future.
5) PRESERVING AND EXTENDING LIBERTY (BEST EXAMPLES: LINCOLN, GRANT, JOHNSON)
How did Bush/Cheney protect and advance the freedoms that the nation’s framers proclaimed to be the rights of all Americans?
Here of course, Bush/Cheney fails utterly. Perhaps they are not as bad as Andrew Jackson and his “Trail of Tears”. Perhaps they are not as bad as those who promulgated slavery (Polk, Fillmore, and others). But nevertheless, they have done severe damage. The terrific book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, Jane Meyer does a line by line itemization of Bush/Cheney’s various constitutional violations.
After 9/11 it is said that a small group of lawyers in the White House and Justice Department who dubbed themselves “the War Council” actively decided that 9/11 was reason enough to usher in new, broad presidential powers. (Suddenly the sobriquet “King George” originally bestowed on the de facto anointed nominee back in 1999, took on a whole new – and chilling – meaning)
The bottom line is that they took Nixon’s words –“ When the President Does It It is Not Illegal” – and modified it to say “When the President Does It In The Name of National Security, It Is Not Illegal”.
Walking through this doorway, we enter a hall of horrors: The Patriot Act. FISA. Gitmo. Waterboarding and the absolute disowning of the Geneva Conventions. The Suspension of Habeas Corpus. Executive Privilege. Extraordinary Rendition. Secret Military Tribunals. Unrestricted Records Searching. Arresting non-violent protesters. Giving the CIA back its powers to spy within the U.S. Increasing the power of the FBI to do so as well. Patriot Act II.
In fact, Bush/Cheney did not even wait to take office – or Election Day 2000 -- before violating liberties. In summer of 2000 Florida’s secretary of state Katherine Harris sent the election board a list of 57,000 (mostly black) citizens who should be removed because they were “possibly” convicted felons. Many on the list, of course, were not, and others had only been convicted of misdemeanors. Post November 7th, Bush/Cheney again began presaging their assault on civil liberties when several congressional staffers were sent Miami-Dade to the building where the recount was taking place, to harass and intimidate the election officials.
With Right-wing extremist Richard Ashcroft appointed Attorney General, the tone was set early for the rampant lawbreaking of Bush/Cheney. Detailing all of Bush/Cheney’s Constitutional assaults has taken up several books. Suffice it to say, that even Richard Nixon’s crimes pale in comparison to those of Bush/Cheney.
GRADE: F MINUS MINUS. (That’s not a misprint, I say minus twice, because the standard grading system will not permit us to go any lower. )
6) DEFENSE. NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN POLICY
(BEST EXAMPLES: WASHINGTON, MONORE, POLK, T.ROOSEVELT, FDR)
Basically the bulk of Bush’s foreign policy is, of course, Iraq. And as already discussed in Competence, it has been an enormous failure. Some will say straight out that the invasion is the worst foreign policy decision in U.S. History.
Afghanistan appeared to be a success at first, but then came the reports that as U.S. troops allegedly had Osama Bin Laden and his men cornered at the caves of Tora Bora, the men were told to pull back and end the pursuit. "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora," Is what General Tommy Franks wrote in an Oct. 19, 2004, Op-Ed article in The New York Times. Intelligence assessments on the Qaeda leader's location varied, Franks continued, and bin Laden was "never within our grasp." In spring of 2005, however, the Pentagon, after a Freedom of Information Act request, released a document to The Associated Press that says Pentagon investigators believed that bin Laden was at Tora Bora and that he escaped.
Felzenberg says the best presidents in this department are those who can achieve international objectives without resorting to war. When that proved impossible they provided the leadership necessary to prevail in a necessary or inevitable war. The worst? They allowed themselves to be tossed about by events or pursued policies that proved harmful to the nation’s interests.
Bush/Cheney have actually invented a new category. They actually manufactured a war out of whole cloth. Saddam Hussein was certainly a dictator who tortured and killed his enemies, but he had nothing to do with 9/11, nor did he have the much vaunted, "weapons of mass destruction."
To this day, Bush/Cheney blames the “faulty intelligence” they received for the mistakes in the war. Of course, this ignores the fact of the many voices calling for diplomacy and inspections at the time. (Once again, this shows the ability of Bush/Cheney to push public policy both by itself and through the intermediates at Fox, et al.)
But beyond the direct tragedies cause by the Iraq Invasion, the broader” War On Terrorism” was another casualty: It is generally agreed that the methods Bush/Cheney used to fight terrorism actually made things worse. While Al-Qaeda has been defanged thanks to the materials and hard drives the U.S. military seized during the opening blitz into Afghanistan, we still do not, after seven plus years, have Osama Bin Laden. Most military leaders agree that, while free, bin Laden still has the power to inspire. Also, remaining Al-Qaeda have learned to avoid all electronic communications. They have adapted to new realities. Many see the continued occupation of Iraq as reason enough to continue bin Laden’s jihad.
In 2006, a potential attack was halted in London by Scotland Yard. Many took this opportunity to signal that the War on Terrorism needed to be waged less by the Pentagon and more by a network of spies and policeman. But Bush/Cheney repeatedly rejected this view.
One rationale for the war was that “Democracy will spread across the Middle East”. That, to say the least, has not happened. Certainly some Middle Eastern that were already quite moderate (Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan) have continued their progress, especially in the advancement of rights for women. But Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two of our closest “allies” continue their dictatorial ways. Iran of course, decided that electing a loon like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the best way to respond to their new neighbor. And we already mentioned Hamas.
There are other failures in foreign policy, non-Iraq related: Bush/Cheney rejected the ABM Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Nuclear Weapons Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the convention on banning landmines, The UN Conference on small arms, and the Kyoto accord on global warming.
On the subject of National Security, Bush/Cheney were again, huge failures. Bush’s tax cuts hurt spending on defense: both he and Cheney repeatedly rebuffed requests for increased spending. A bill that would have required chemical plants to have stiffer protections was lobbied against by – guess who? – the chemical industry and Republicans largely voted against it. Various nuclear weapons facilities also had lax security. The same held true for airports and seaports.
Then there is the subject of the 9/11 Commission. First, Bush/Cheney rejected the call for such a commission. It was only through the demands of families of 9/11 victims that they finally relented. When finally announced, Bush/Cheney said it would cooperate fully the Commission. But both Bush and Cheney refused to testify before the Commission. They also held back funding for it. Two years after the Commission’s report was handed in, Bush/Cheney had only partly complied with the recommendations. Their efforts in that regard garnered a C-grade from the Commission.
On this subject in general, though, Bush/Cheney gets an F.
CHARACTER (AGAIN)
As far as character, with all the evidence we have, what rating can Bush/Cheney get other than a Double F Minus?
For a view of Bush’s character even before entering the White House, we can cite the refusual of Governor Bush to grant a stay of execution for convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker. Tucker had been part of a gang that committed a gruesome ax slaying in the early 80s had found religion while imprisoned and was sentenced to die. Several clergymen, prison officials and human rights groups had joined in imploring Bush to commute the sentence. Not free Tucker, mind you, merely let her spend the rest of her days in prison.
Bush refused.
Not long after, the recovered alcoholic and “reformed sinner” was on the campaign trail, touting himself as a “compassionate conservative”.
From that point on there are any number of things you can point to that reveal the character of Bush/Cheney. Basically, at any point where the federal government had a chance to help the most vulnerable in our society, Bush/Cheney would always, without fail, say no:
• SCHIP, the source of funds for states to provide health care to uninsured children, had proposed raises in funding vetoed by Bush multiple times.
• Regarding any federal program that dealt with AIDS or other STDs, Bush/Cheney would approve no federal funding for any program that did not champion abstinence as the primary method of avoiding STDs
• The “Mission Accomplished” Fiasco. That George W. Bush, a man who leapfrogged in front of hundreds in the state of Texas to join the Air National Guard and therefore avoid Vietnam would do a photo up in a fighter jet borders on the obscene. Throw in the fact that Dick Cheney had gotten married and had a child specifically so he could get draft deferments number four and five, and it goes right past obscene. Then consider that a couple of years’ later, when Mission was clearly NOT Accomplished, Bush/Cheney claimed that the banner was the creation of the crew of the USS Lincoln. (It is worth noting that, in the modern era, not a single President who was also a war veteran – Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter or Bush’s father – ever wore their military uniform after becoming president.)
• While Hurricane Katrina was laying waste to New Orleans, Bush was at a naval base with a country singer for a photo op. Unfortunately it turned into one of the most tone-deaf moments in presidential history.
• Enron, Bush’s biggest corporate backer, who engineered the rolling blackouts that plagued the West Coast, cost Democratic California governor Gray Davis his job. Democrat Max Cleland was branded an “al-Qaeda sympathizer” by his GOP opponent in the 2002 Georgia Senate race. (Cleland is a Vietnam veteran who lost both legs and an arm in the conflict). Bush/Cheney approved all this and more by their silence.
• Bush/Cheney wrapped themselves in the flag at every opportunity and stated that any criticism of the war was a criticism of the “brave men and women fighting for their country”. However, as thousands of those brave men and women have returned – whether in coffins or on stretchers – they have been failed at every turn. “The Administration strongly opposes these provisions that would allocate an additional $1.3 billion for VA medical care." That is a direct quote to Congress regarding an appropriations bill to increase VA funding, by then-Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolton. Elsewhere America learned of soldiers buying their own Kevlar vests, and scrap metal to fortify their helmets, sub-standard facilities in VA hospitals here, claims by Iraq vets denied. (Victims of head injuries from IED’s were asked to prove they did NOT have those conditions prior to going to Iraq)
• After Lewis “Scooter” Libby was found guilty of obstruction and perjury in the Valerie Plame case, Bush promptly commuted his sentence, in sharp contrast to how he handled the case of Karla Faye Tucker.
• As stated before, under Bush/Cheney the Interior and the EPA assaulted even minimum protections designed to keep skies clear and water unpolluted. Under Bush/Cheney corporations (mining, oil, logging, etc) became the de facto stewards of the land.
• Under Bush/Cheney funds were cut for federal programs such as job training, libraries, HUD’s Hopes Six program, Boys and Girls Club of America, the Even Start Family Literacy Project, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and Americorps.
• Speaking of miners, who do one of the most dangerous jobs in 21st century America, Bush repealed Bill Clinton’s Black Lung Regulations that helped miners dying from Black Lung to claim benefits from the mining industry.
• In June, 2004, Dick Cheney got into an argument on the Senate Floor with Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt) regarding Cheney’s ties to Halliburton and Bush’s judicial nominees. The exchange ended with Cheney telling Leahy “Go fuck yourself”.
And there may be no better place to end this than with Cheney, and this exchange he had in March 2008 with ABC’s Martha Raddatz.
CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.
RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
CHENEY: So?
RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?
CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.
“So?”
“So”? You say?
Yes. “So”
That’s it. The objections of a majority of Americans mean less than nothing to Dick Cheney. All the damage they have foisted on Iraq, all the families both here and abroad that have been torn apart, all the bad policy, all the dead soldiers, all those that have survived but missing limbs, brain fragments or with melted faces.
All this merits is a “So?”
With that one word though, we were given a perhaps the most succinct post-mortem of the Bush/Cheney administration.
In his book, Felzenberg did not grade Bush/Cheney as, at the time of the book’s writing, they were still in power. However, he did write an epilogue where, perhaps in advance of the 2008 Election, gave some advice on what to look for in a president. In finding what one should look for he, stated voters should:
• Sound out a sense of purpose
• Examine how they met adversity in life
• Look for broad life experiences
• Probe for a natural curiosity
• Seek a well developed sense of integrity
• Crave humility
And as for what to avoid in a candidate?
• Watch out for cynicism and complacency
• Stay away from whiners
• Stay away from Know-It-Alls
• Stay away from candidates with a narrow focus.
• Be leery of unrelenting ideologues
• Stay away from bearers of grudges
• Eschew tendencies toward bald assertions of power
You could hardly find a better way to describe Bush or Cheney, then with these statements. And if some of these qualities (or anti-qualities as it were) were not in evidence in 2000, than they certainly were in 2004. Yet thanks to the powers of persuasion of Karl Rove, and the marketing of Bush/Cheney by the right-wing media, and an American public loathe to dispose of a “Wartime President” they managed to eke out a win that hinged only on one state.
Bush/Cheney are easily the worst administration of the last 70 years. If they are graded on a scale, they can be said to compare favorably with the presidencies of Andrew Jackson, Millard Fillmore and perhaps even Woodrow Wilson. (After all, the treatment of slaves, Indians, Jews and women were of no issue during the last eight years)
But regardless, they stand revealed as an administration that did not serve the people at all. They served Corporate America and themselves. And, as many a political pundit has noted, January of 2008 could not have arrived too soon.
And yet, Bush apologists, of which there are many still have not had their appetite satiated. This summer, they appeared ready to nominate Republican candidate John McCain, solely on the strength of his vice-president pick, Sarah Palin. Palin, in less than two years as Alaskan governor has already racked up a number of outstanding ethical and legal foibles (many with a distinct resemblance to the hijinks perpetuated by Bush/Cheney) . The hard liners of the Republican Party have made it clear that they want her to be the nominee in 2012.
This is why a swift appraisal of Bush/Cheney is so important. The extremists of this country will stop at nothing for candidates that defy every rational measure of being good for Americans – All Americans – instead of merely a small section of it.
Has some good come out of Bush/Cheney? Yes, absolutely. The past two presidential elections saw a larger turnout than at any other time in history. Jointly, more citizens became better-informed on facts about government and the way it is supposed to work. In 2008, this severely disabled the huge turnout advantage Republicans usually enjoy.
Bush/Cheney was also the first presidential administration to take place under a fully formed internet. There are, quite literally, hundreds of websites dedicated to politics now, many of which are fully independent brought into action by a army of citizen-journalists. There is little any president will ever be able to do that can escape the scrutiny of this corps.
Beyond a doubt, more learned scholars than I will write books by the score concerning The Bush Legacy. But let’s go back to my earlier claim; neither man is terribly worried about what’s to come on that score.
Is there any greater indictment then, than that cloak of apathy in which they have dressed themselves?
No.
posted by Seth Janklowicz @ 7:17 PM
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