There’s a fascinating series of essays in The Texas Monthly — fifteen different looks at how Bush’s presidency will be judged in the future.
You’ll be stunned to know that the overall consensus is just a tad negative.
Douglas Brinkley, for instance, writes:
Bush’s problem is that his war, so far, is a loss. That is one thing Americans won’t stomach. It’s not a matter of there being a false pretext for the war. Polk made a pretext of Mexicans coming across the border. McKinley made a pretext out of the Maine’s being blown up by Spain when it was really an onboard fire. You can have a phony pretext for war, but you’ve got to win. By not winning in Iraq, President Bush has very little legacy to stand on.
There was also a meanness of spirit that started coming out. This was not somebody who was in any way healing the nation or trying to be bipartisan. He became a stubborn ideologue. Stubbornness is a positive quality of presidential leadership—if you’re right about what you’re stubborn about.
For the most part, all fifteen are just variations on this theme. Between insulating himself in an idealogical echo-chamber, to the ill-fated “go it alone” hubris, things look downright grim for Bush’s legacy.
Matthew Dowd, a former Bush strategist, recalls the “mandate”:
The biggest hope and aspiration of those of us who were brought in as former Democrats was that we could make Washington into a place, like Texas, where people could sit down, have a conversation, socialize, not judge one another as good or evil, not question intentions, and actually get things done. But when all the levers of power in Washington became Republican, creating consensus seemed to become unnecessary at the White House. That hurt him. Now, near the end of his presidency, when many of us thought we would have helped solve the problem of polarization, we’re in an even more polarized place.
Polarized? Us? Sigh…
Dowd goes on:
How does he reestablish that gut connection he had with the American public? You can’t do it through sales and marketing. This is a substantive problem that requires a substantive change. First, a tremendous sense of compromise and consensus building—even if he has to sacrifice some of his principles along the way. Second, a resolution on Iraq that represents a significant shift in policy. Once you’ve lost the support of the public on the war, which is where we are today, sending in a small contingent of troops is likely going to be seen as not helpful. He’d be much better off with the public if he said, “This is a mess, we made mistakes, and the only way to fix it is a wholesale change.”
I don’t actually remember there being a gut connection with the American public, but maybe that’s just me?
There’s something to his suggestion about Bush humbling himself before the public, though. Of all the people who really need to stand up and own a problem, it’s this president. No, it wouldn’t repair the damage done, but it’d go a looooong way toward healing the country.
I don’t see that happening, though — do you?
Only on the economy is there much hope that history will regard him a bit differently. While I agree that his tax breaks have been somewhat misconstrued, it’s hard to imagine that there’s anything he can do to stave off the inevitable judgment of the future.
Barring divine intervention, he and Iraq are eternally intertwined.