A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

by Glenn Greenwald

  More than anything else, this ideological realignment was what accounted for the intense passions ignited by the Joe Lieberman Senate race in mid-2006. Despite his history as a life-long Democrat and a liberal on the predominant 1990s issues, Joe Lieberman is a pure neoconservative, which now matters much more. On the predominant issues of the day, his political comrades—and his most enthusiastic supporters—are Bill Kristol, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, the editors of National Review and the New York Sun, and Dick Cheney.

  Why would hard-core Republican neoconservatives be so emotionally attached to defending then-Democrat Joe Lieberman? Why were so many pro-Bush, highly conservative Republicans pronouncing themselves to be “huge fans” of Lieberman? And, for that matter, why did liberal activists devote so much of their time and energy to his defeat rather than to the defeat of standard Republican officeholders?

  Far more than being a Democrat, a liberal, a moderate, or anything else, Joe Lieberman is a neoconservative and therefore—on the issues that matter most—has become the ideological and political compatriot of Bush supporters. In the 1990s, Joe Lieberman’s positions on the dominant issues of the day may have rendered him “liberal” or “moderate,” but on the issues that matter most now—in light of the ideological realignment we have had in the wake of the Bush presidency—he is nothing of the sort.

  George Bush’s presidency has been so radical and so consequential that it has fundamentally shifted the ideological and political landscape in America. That is because the Manichean worldview he has embraced is unprecedented. Though related in key ways to how both Nixon and Reagan governed, the unrestrained absolutism of Bush’s worldview exists well outside the standard ideological spectrum that has shaped and defined American political debates for decades. Far more than a political agenda, President Bush has pursued a grand and overarching moralistic mission, and he enlisted and severely expanded the powers of the American federal government—both preexisting powers and newly created ones—in service of that mission. All of this was justified, and continues to be justified, by the premise that the mission President Bush is pursuing was not only of the highest moral Good but also literally necessary for the preservation of our civilization. As a result, no limits on the president’s powers in pursuing these ends could be accepted.

  The now infamous January 2002 memorandum from Bush’s then–White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, addressed to President Bush, vividly illustrates this mind-set. It was there that Gonzales helped lay the foundation for the array of the most extremist Bush policies:

  As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war….In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.

  The political values and precepts of civilization long embraced and advocated by America—not only for itself but for the world—became obsolete and were dismissed as quaint relics of the past. The overarching moral imperative of George Bush’s mission ushered in a “new paradigm” in America, and it outweighed all other considerations and subordinated all other values. George Bush was fighting to preserve our civilization, our very existence, and no limitations on his powers could be tolerated. And whether one embraces those premises and the resulting Bush Doctrine—the Bush mission and Manichean worldview—is now, more than anything else, what determines where one falls on the American political spectrum. That is the fundamental political realignment which George Bush’s presidency has spawned.

  Beyond the Bush presidency, whether the United States will continue to follow the increasingly militaristic and authoritarian approach advocated by President Bush and his right-wing supporters is the predominant political question we face. In 2008, the overarching political choice facing our country will be whether it will seek to contain and then reverse the profound damage of the Bush legacy, or whether we will choose to replace the president with someone eager to continue on his path, or even one who believes that Bush has been insufficiently aggressive and intends to pursue an even more militaristic and extremist course. Just as the U.S. established its moral credibility and defining principles through its actions over the course of decades, that credibility and those principles can be restored by returning to the nation we were prior to its extreme transformation under the Bush presidency. What is really at stake as we decide whether to repudiate or embrace the Bush legacy is the national character of our nation.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Tragic Legacy of George W. Bush

  Following President Bush’s 2004 re-election victory, Karl Rove widely boasted that the president’s second term would be composed of a series of large domestic policy victories, which would create what Rove called a “permanent Republican majority.” The president’s spokesmen and most ardent supporters, and even President Bush himself, began boldly comparing his “war presidency” and legacy to those of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry S. Truman.

  In February of 2007, Bush spoke at an event commemorating Presidents’ Day and he invoked George Washington’s prosecution of the Revolutionary War in order to defend his own conduct:

  On the field of battle, Washington’s forces were facing a mighty empire, and the odds against them were overwhelming. The ragged Continental Army lost more battles than it won, suffered waves of desertions, and stood on the brink of disaster many times. Yet George Washington’s calm hand and determination kept the cause of independence and the principles of our Declaration alive….

  In the end, General Washington understood that the Revolutionary War was a test of wills, and his will was unbreakable. After winning the war, Washington did what victorious leaders rarely did at the time. He voluntarily gave up power.

  At a 2005 ceremony marking the sixtieth anniversary of America’s victory over Japan in World War II, President Bush repeatedly compared the triumphant legacy of Franklin Roosevelt to his own. Speaking at the naval base that is the home to the USS Ronald Reagan, Bush emphasized that Iraqi insurgents are just as “ruthless” an enemy as were the Germans and the Japanese, and then he extended the Bush-Roosevelt equivalence further:

  Now, as then, they are trying to intimidate free people and break our will, and now, as then, they will fail. They will fail, because the terrorists of our century are making the same mistake that the followers of other totalitarian ideologies made in the last century. They believe that democracies are inherently weak and corrupt and can be brought to their knees. America will not run in defeat, and we will not forget our responsibilities….

  [Roosevelt] knew that it was the lack of democracy in Japan that allowed an unelected group of militarists to take control of the state, threaten our neighbors, attack America, and plunge an entire region into war. And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan.

  In January 2007, when Rudy Giuliani spoke to a Republican gathering in New Hampshire, he, according to an account from The Politico, chose Abraham Lincoln as the president to whom Bush should be compared:

  “I don’t imagine that they had those favorable/unfavorable things back during the Civil War,” but Lincoln would not have fared well, Giuliani said.

  Seeming to draw present-day comparisons, Giuliani noted that Lincoln even faced riots in New York City because people were unhappy with the war. “They wanted to quit because it was getting too tough.”

  And the same month, Bush’s spokesman, Tony Snow, attempted to defend Bush’s 2003 declaration that Iraq was a “Mission Accomplished,” and Cheney’s 2005 assurance that the Iraqi insurgency was in its “last throes.” Snow’s defense:

  If you had asked any other president in American history during a time of war whether they had a credibility problem because they had not foreseen changes on the battlefield, you probably would have had plenty of cause. I mean, Abraham Lincoln constantly guessed from Manassas straight through until the final months of the war.

  During a December 2006 meeting with le
ading Congressional Democrats convened in order to discuss how the new Democratic majority would work with Bush on issues relating to the war in Iraq, Bush astonished—and angered—Senator Dick Durbin by expressly comparing himself to Harry Truman. According to Durbin:

  Bush said that “in years to come they realized [Truman] was right and then his doctrine became the standard for America.” He’s trying to position himself in history and to justify those who continue to stand by him, saying sometimes if you’re right you’re unpopular, and be prepared for criticism.

  Clearly, the president who had previously dismissed the judgment of history as irrelevant has changed his mind, and his legacy has become one of his central concerns. Bush told Fred Barnes during interviews for the latter’s Bush-glorifying book, Rebel in Chief, that he had just finished reading three consecutive books on George Washington’s legacy and, according to Barnes, Bush said: “Even after two hundred years, they’re still reassessing George Washington. What will they say about me?”

  As documented in the first chapter, few, if any, presidents can match the sheer duration and intensity of Bush’s unpopularity with the American people. And regardless of one’s views on the Bush presidency, there is virtually universal agreement that Bush’s legacy will be shaped and dominated by one decision: his decision to invade Iraq.

  In March 2006, Mark McKinnon, a senior Bush campaign adviser, acknowledged to USA Today: “There’s no question the president’s legacy will be dominated by Iraq. The war is really driving almost everything in government.” Political scientist Steven Schier added that Iraq has virtually eliminated the Bush administration’s ability to focus on any other issue: “They were expecting to move on to a bunch of other things in the second term like Social Security reform and the ‘ownership society,’ but all that has been pushed aside because of Iraq. It’s the whale in the bathtub for the administration.” The USA Today article was accompanied by a poll demonstrating that Americans generally also concur that history’s judgment of Bush will be shaped by one issue—Iraq:

  Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the Iraq war will be what Bush is most remembered for, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday. Just 18% cite the president’s efforts against terrorism, 10% his response to Hurricane Katrina, 5% his Supreme Court appointments. Tax cuts, the hallmark of his first year in office, were chosen by 2%.

  Historians have frequently noted that wars, especially long ones, virtually always end up dominating a president’s legacy and rendering almost irrelevant every other issue. Lincoln is remembered for the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson for World War I, Franklin Roosevelt for World War II, and Lyndon Johnson for the Vietnam War. The legacy of those presidents is shaped overwhelmingly by those wars, and the success of their war management is what, in turn, drives the judgment of them by history. As Robert Dallek, a biographer of Lyndon Johnson, put it: “War kills reform. It consumes the energy of the administration, the public, the press. This is what the focus is on.”

  The most obvious comparison is between the Bush legacy and that of Lyndon Johnson, whose presidency was so crippled by the intense unpopularity of the Vietnam War that he was all but precluded from seeking a second term. In one sense, however, a fatal flaw with that comparison is that President Johnson achieved a string of extraordinary domestic policy successes—from the enactment of the groundbreaking Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the various domestic safety net programs and reforms that created The Great Society. As PBS’s American Experience Online put it:

  If the record of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency were to end in 1965, his would surely be ranked among our nation’s finest.

  Thrust into the role of Chief Executive on that tragic day in Dallas in November 1963, Johnson reassured an emotionally devastated public by pledging to honor, and build upon, the legacy of his slain predecessor: “John Kennedy’s death commands what his life conveyed—that America must move forward.” Johnson did indeed move forward, presenting a program of domestic reforms originally crafted in the mold of the New Deal and imbued with the vigor of the New Frontier. By 1965, Johnson had devised and signed into law more than two hundred pieces of major legislation, including a sizable tax cut, a billion dollar anti-poverty program, and a groundbreaking civil rights bill.

  By stark and obvious contrast, not even President Bush’s most fervent supporters would claim that the Bush administration has achieved anything close to Johnson’s record of epic successes on the domestic front. Indeed, to the extent that Bush’s domestic record will be remembered for anything positive in the eyes of his supporters, that achievement is confined almost exclusively to one item—his relentless commitment to cut taxes. And even there, such enthusiasm would likely be tempered even in the most fervent antitax precincts by the fact that such cuts occurred in the face of massive and growing budget deficits and redounded to the benefit of only a small portion of Americans.

  Beyond single-mindedly cutting taxes, there are few, if any, discernible Bush accomplishments on the domestic front. Beginning with the 9/11 attacks, domestic policy was almost completely overshadowed by matters of foreign policy, particularly Iraq. And during those fleeting and isolated instances in which domestic issues took center stage, sheer failure pervades Bush’s record on virtually every front—from the resounding rejection of the president’s Social Security reform plan to his administration’s tragically inept and indifferent handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, to the spectacle of converting the Schiavo drama literally into a federal case, to increasingly dangerous dependence on Chinese credit and loans, to Bush’s conversion of the multi-hundred-billion-dollar budget surplus he inherited into a multi-hundred-billion-dollar budget deficit.

  While discretionary spending has skyrocketed under the Bush presidency, there is no Great Society or New Deal for his supporters to tout, nor is there any shrinking of government spending or federal power. As a result, even some Bush supporters have been aggressively critical of the utter disarray and failure that characterizes the Bush domestic record, and many have specifically argued that domestic policy has been treated by the Bush White House as nothing more than a means for consolidating political support. John DiIulio, a former top domestic policy adviser in the Bush White House, famously complained during an interview with Ron Suskind:

  Everything [is] run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis….The lack of even basic policy knowledge and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking: discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera.

  Former Bush treasury secretary Paul O’Neill echoed those sentiments when he contrasted his time in government in the mid-1970s to his tenure under the Bush administration by pointing out that the primary difference “is that our [mid-’70s] group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl, Dick [Cheney], [Bush communications strategist] Karen [Hughes] and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics.”

  Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett became a leading Bush critic based upon his central complaint that the Bush administration simply never had any coherent domestic governance at all, but instead viewed domestic policy solely as a tool for gaining political power. Bartlett told the Washington Post that whereas domestic policy has traditionally been developed by policy experts in federal government agencies, the process was turned upside down in the Bush administration: “Ideas are hatched in the White House, for political or ideological reasons, then are thrust on the bureaucracy, ‘not for analysis, but for sale.’” Republican economist Richard Rahn similarly complained in a 2004 Washington Times column that “from the beginning of the Bush administration, sympathetic, experienced economists have warned its officials about the need to avoid some obvious mistakes. Unfortunately, these warnings have gone unheeded.” In sum, domestic policy was almost completely ignored under the Bush presidency, exce
pt when it was hopelessly botched.

  The temptation to compare the Bush legacy to that of Lyndon Johnson must thus be tempered by this critical difference. Whereas Johnson’s domestic record was highly successful, even extraordinary in some respects, Bush’s is almost entirely bereft of any notable achievement, and is instead characterized by a series of clear, often embarrassing, and sometimes tragic failures.

  Ultimately, though, even the Johnson legacy could not be saved by domestic achievements. Johnson’s domestic successes are rendered minor in the judgment of history as a result of the seemingly unbending axiom that wartime presidents are remembered by their wars. As PBS’s American Experience described it, “the promises of [Johnson’s] Great Society were swallowed up in the quagmire of Vietnam.” In that regard, there is a compelling parallel between the Bush and Johnson legacies. From American Experience:

  The presidency of Lyndon Johnson is described as having all the characteristics of a classic tragedy. Johnson aspired to be “the greatest of them all,” and for a moment greatness seemed within his grasp. But his fall was as swift and as sure as that of any tragic literary figure.