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The End Is Near — But Not Near Enuf
Creature of journalistic habit that I am, I’ve long tried to look ahead and not back. It’s usually more interesting than writing about what most everyone else is writing about, and I occasionally stumble upon something that makes me seem positively prescient. (I’m not going to do that here, so you should feel free to skip this post.)
Anyhow, I find myself pondering the end of the Bush interregnum a lot these days. It is with some wonder and not a little trepidation that I consider what will it be like to not be “led†by this mediocrity after eight very long years, and most importantly, how much of the damage that he has wrought can be undone. Or more importantly, how much the next president will want to undo.
But try as I might, I still can’t fix my gaze on 2009 for very long because after six-plus years of the presidency of George Walker “GI at the G8†Bush I still have been unable to figure out how such a lightweight became president. (I know. He stole the election.) And then was re-elected. (I know. He scared the beejesus out of people and into voting for him.)
And yet despite a reign of error unpresidented . . . er, unprecedented in American history, I still do not have the capacity to actually hate the guy. I am deeply aggrieved about what he has done to a country that I love deeply and have served in time of war even if his vice president has repeatedly called me a traitor. But hate? Nah.
Well, Frank Rich, the New York Times reliably trenchant lefty-liberal op-ed columnist, took me by the hand the other day and finally disconfused me about my own confusement:
It’s hard to pity someone who, to me anyway, is too slight to hate. Unlike Nixon, President Bush is less an overreaching Machiavelli than an epic blunderer surrounded by Machiavellis. He lacks the crucial element of acute self-awareness that gave Nixon his tragic depth. Nixon came from nothing, loathed himself and was all too keenly aware when he was up to dirty tricks. Mr. Bush has a charmed biography, is full of himself and is far too blinded by self-righteousness to even fleetingly recognize the havoc he’s inflicted at home and abroad.
Thanks, Frank.
So it wasn’t so complicated after all! The guy is a borderline cipher, an empty vessel into which every neocon gunslinger with an agenda poured his pet projects, which unfortunately happened to include a nasty little dust-up in Mesopotamia that has bled the U.S. of nearly 3,500 men and women, its treasury of nearly $400 billion and incredibly elevated Saddam Hussein to a martyrdom for many Iraqis that would have been unthinkable prior to the invasion.
This makes the caterwauling of the Republican elite over Bush pooping on their “real conservative†blankies so precious. Even more precious is their attempt to lock the door to the presidential kindergarten by claiming that their onetime hero — the man who puffed out his chest on the deck of an aircraft carrier four years ago and declared “Mission Accomplished” — has accomplished absolutely nothing of positive consequence and is not and has never been one of “them.”
What are they gonna do? Run to Mommy (Karl Rove) or Daddy (Dick Cheney) and whine about George kicking sand in their faces at recess?
This is a story line that we will be hearing with increasing frequency from a field of mostly vapid Republican presidential wannabes (not that I think the Dems are a great improvement) who, confronted with the challenge of repudiating the boy-man but not his policies, exhibit little original thinking of their own beyond rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic of a mess one of them hopes to inherit.
The end, you see, is near. But not near enough.
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16 Responses to “The End Is Near — But Not Near Enuf”
2001-2009- The longest eight years in history, LOL!
Here’s an explanation for GWB that may or may not have occurred to you, Shaun. It’s the way I looked at things back in 2000, when Bush secured the nomination.
There quite a few large, publicly-held companies in which a lots of the stock is held by family members of the founders of the companies and the families are, essentially, dependent on their stock dividends for their highly prosperous livelihoods.
If the earning sof these companies take a downturn, that’s bad for the family and, when that happens, the family uses its votes to put a family member in the CEO slot whose sole commission is to get the dividends on which the family depends up again. Two examples in which this has happened recently are Ford Motor Company and Anheuser-Busch.
That’s essentially what propelled George W. Busch into the presidency. The U. S. has a small but influential upper class that’s highly dependent on rent-seeking for its livelihood. They wanted a family member to ensure their position was maintained. GWB got tapped.
In 2000 nobody, least of all GWB or those who propelled him into the presidency, expected that in 2001 we’d be in a shootin’ war. And, all protestations from the Tranzi wing of the Democratic Party notwithstanding, by the end of 2001 we’d have been in a shootin’ war and we’d still be in one now regardless of who was president.
Dave:
Your perspective on how we got ourselves into our current mess — we gotta find something for the young man to do to keep him out of trouble and us in stock dividends — is more or less accurate, but you surely are not suggesting that the propellants were so naive or crass about the state of the world (the growing Islamofascist threat, the coming immigration crisis, the growing disparity between rich and poor Americans, the precarious state of the Israel-Palestinian relationship, North Korea, Iran, etc., etc.) that they thought they could elevate a minor league player to the big leagues?
Or is that exactly what you are suggesting? Elaborate, please.
I’m suggesting that they thought that history was over. They knew GWB as a decent, pleasant in person guy who probably wouldn’t get in the way of the management team he brought in with him too much.
Well, as hubris goes, this might just take the cake.
fnord
Isn’t it possible that they expected Dick Cheney to handle foreign policy in conjunction with the neocons they put in at Defense and in the VP’s office? In acuality he’s had a free hand, although his policies have confusingly conflicted with Sec State Rice, so that the result is incoherence and administrative infighting.
Kimrit:
As Dave alluded, this was never about the best man for the job and the only expectation was reaping the dividends of a wired presidency.
While we’re on the dynasty thingie, I believe that a goodly number of people will automatically disqualify Hillary because they, like me, are very uncomfortable with the possibility that but two familes could rule America for 24 years.
But on the dynasty thingie, wasn’t Dave point that the Illuminati (call them what you will) rule no matter who gets elected.
If that’s the case, won’t they still be running things no matter which figurehead wins the election?
Then why even bother hatin’ Hillary? Why even bother caring at all?
If you already know better, can’t you start knowing better?
(PS Maybe events after the 2000 election were unpredictable, but haven’t the events since the 2004 election been all-too-predictably bad for rent-seekers? Can’t we get some competent Illuminati?)
Dave’s anology is OK, but the problem is were stuck with W. When Billy Ford couldn’t handle the job, the family and the rest of the stockholders fired him. Billy knew he was in over his head, W won’t admit the same failure.
Dude, I totally understand we’re stuck with W because that’s how the system works.
That’s why I’m pleading for some competent Illuminati to come along and think outside the analogy.
You guys are going to miss him……truly, aren’t you?
“Isn’t it possible that they expected Dick Cheney to handle foreign policy”
– and domestic policy.
Shaun -after 8 years of Hillary, the memory of George Bush’s awful presidency will have faded in the minds of Americans, whose minds rotted after watching nonstop coverage of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan on cable news, to the point that the GOP will feel comfortable in nominating favorite son Jeb Bush for the 2016 race! LOL
No more Bushes, No more Clintons!!!! In a country of 300 million, can you possibly tell me that only two mega millionaire politicians exist?
Please. Let the Bush clan move to Saudi Arabia so they can be closer to their money, and the Clintons can have tea with Martha. No mas!
“No more Bushes, No more Clintons!!!! In a country of 300 million, can you possibly tell me that only two mega millionaire politicians exist?
Please. Let the Bush clan move to Saudi Arabia so they can be closer to their money, and the Clintons can have tea with Martha. No mas!”
Amen brother.