The Bush presidency had its failures too, of course. Perhaps the saddest – and most ironic – is reflected in the hyper-partisan shrillness of America’s national politics.
It is hard to remember now, but Bush originally ran for president on an agenda of restoring courtesy and goodwill to the political sphere. He promised to end the “arms race of anger” in Washington, and pointed to his record of bipartisanship in Texas. “I have no stake in the bitter arguments of the last few years,” Bush told the 2000 Republican convention. “I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect.”
Needless to say, things didn’t work out that way….
But it’s also true that many of Bush’s bitterest foes, including some in the media, never gave him a chance. It became commonplace to describe the 2000 election as “stolen” and the Bush presidency as illegitimate. Democratic candidates vied to outdo each other in anti-Bush invective. For many, “Bush hater” became a label to wear with pride.
It takes two to tango and Bush never had a partner. Foreigners take their lead from how the press deals with issues (thinking that the press represents the American people, Ha!). What I witnessed was nothing less than an assassination in print for eight years, which led to vitriol by foreign states on our own soil. It was despicable. Maybe that is one reason for the press’s horrible demise. I will never buy a newspaper or news magazine again. It seems not only Bush has “failed”.
Amen, Francis. I too have resolved to never buy another newspaper again, except for my own hometown local. For eight years, I’ve seen nothing but biased reporting and vitriolic attacks masquerading as news. Even liberals, I think, recognized what was going on once we entered into the heavy presidential cycle–some repudiated it, for which I’m grateful. The fact is, Bush was a fine president. And I love him for keeping my family safe for eight years.
Anglicanum The hate Bush syndrome bleed into the House and Senate as well as the press. Discrediting the War in Iraq was a way to discredit Bush. Murtha calling the Marines cold blooded killers (all were acquitted ) Reed stating the war was lost, Durbin calling our soldiers Nazies etc was not directed against the troops as much as against Bush. I feel like people now expect the Republicans to roll over and worship at the feet of the naive President Obama. Good luck!
My pastor has said, to me, that he “hated Bush.” At the same time he said it, he acknowledged the sin of the statement and the feeling, but I never hearda statement of repentance, nor did I see any evidence of it.
On the morning following President Obama’s inauguration, pastor was elated, as he had a right to be. But I managed to preach a little sermon to him: I said: “Just look very closely, Pastor. I have done so, and so far as I can see, President Obama does not have nail holes in his hands and feet.” After a blank stare that lasted a few seconds, he thanked me and promised to remember that statement as he watched things develop now.
It’s not just the print press. For years NPR has been nothing more that a shill for the Democratic Party and it uses tax money too.
I’ve never been one to put much stock in the “liberal media bias” claim, but I have to admit that the whole inauguration hoopla has made me rethink that. It was on display for all to see during the entire coverage on most of the major media outlets.
I even heard one commentator on one of the major networks actually refer to the inauguaration on air as, “the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Christchild was born in Bethlehem.”
I mean, I wish President Obama all the best and hope he can change the tone of Washington like he’s been promising, but let’s get a grip here, folks, on reality.
The Archer of the forrest. Bush was “bashed” by the press because of the cost of his inauguaration (50 million) during difficult economic times. I am still waiting for a press comment about how bad it is to waste that much money on President Obama’s inauguaration during such tough economic times .
I don’t think you have to “hate Bush” to observe that his political strategist’s methodology was about “uniting the base” and dividing the opposition. I’ve heard conservative political commentators talk about this, too. This is objectively different from the previous administration, which was about “triangulation”. One is not necessarily less political or more holy than the other — they’re political strategies for getting one’s own way — but Rove’s strategy was divisive at its core, especially in an administration that started with a mandate of .000001% (or whatever, plus or minus). Remember Clinton virtually seducing Newt Gingrich after the government shutdown, or Reagan and Tip O’Neil? That’s just a different kind of politics from that played by the Bush Whitehouse. Maybe Bush didn’t have the temperament or charisma though, as Jacoby points out, everybody thought he did when he took office.
Now, as to the coverage, I agree it was over the top. But I don’t think it’s liberal bias (this was over the top compared to Clinton’s inauguration as much as to Bush’s) so much as the desire to push a sense of historical moment, which is how newspapers, magazines, and TV news shows are sold.
The odd thing for me is the sense of deja vu to my childhood. Back in the 50s and 60s, this is the way all first families were welcomed, with gushy stories about the presidential families and the much ballyhooed uniqueness of American democracy. The coverage of the Obama inauguration was the biggest roll back of “hip” since hip became our guiding cultural impulse.
I hate back-stabbing as much as anyone else……regardless of which political party does the stabbing. No president is perfect……it’s an impossibility, and regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, someone somewhere is going to stir up hatred for the man in the chair. It goes with the territory, it seems. President Obama has some good qualities, and he’s going to have to watch his back, because as sure as night turns to day, someone is going to find fault with everything he says and does in this nation filled with whiners. I don’t agree with everything he says and does……and I voted for him. But he at least deserves a chance to prove himself, and who knows? He just may be right! How long will the honeymoon last? Not long, I’m afraid.
Does Obama “deserve” as much chance as Bush was given?
As much as every other president has been given.
Actually, President Bush had a very positive (90+%, I think) approval rating for a while after 9/11, so if any president can be said to have “made his own bed”, he can.
Back in 2000, I voted for Al Gore but I considered Bush a moderate conservative who, if he got elected, wouldn’t be so bad. Neither side came off well in the Florida election debacle, but as I viewed it the margin of victory was within the statistical error range of the election so you might as well flip a coin to pick the winner.
My point is, I did not “hate Bush” when he took office and I didn’t think he stole the election. I would have preferred the other guy, but I was perfectly willing to give Bush a chance.
Eight years later, my opinion is that I gave him a chance and he blew it. His presidency was disastrous for this country, doing damage that will take years or decades to recover from. I know that Obama will turn out to have plenty of his own flaws, but I really do have hope that he can at least begin the job of fixing the mess he inherited.
Ross, I think history will be much kinder to Bush than the current view of him. It took about 10 to 15 years for Reagan to get recognized for his accomplishments other than being an amiable dunce.
I think the one thing Bush has going for him in terms of history and legacy and all that is that he’s still pretty young and in good shape, as ex-presidents go. If he lives anywhere near as long as his father, I think George W. Bush will be around for another 20 to 30 years.
I think that is going to help him in the end, because it will give him enough time to be quiet for a while and let the vehement hatred of him die down, and then he can start explaining himself in written memoirs and giving interviews to the next generation of historians and political scientists.
He sort of reminds me of Herbert Hoover in a way. Hoover was villified for years over the Great Depression, largely for things that were not his fault, but he lived until the mid-1960’s, and he became this almost Grandfather-like political figure whose opinion actually became pretty highly sought after by political powers that be near the end of his life.
I think Mr. Bush could possibly be that way if he plays his cards correctly and begins the process of sufficiently explaining himself and his actions as President. I think that’s one of the major reasons why people hated him so badly was that he was so secretive and this led to all sorts of paranoia and rumors about Bush’s administrative policies. If he and the country can get to that point of being a bit more objective over time with the knowledge of why he did what he did, I don’t Bush will be remembered quite as badly. He’s never be a Top 10 president by any means, but I think a majority of folks can come to terms with him and forgive him, as they did with Hoover and largely with Nixon by the ends of their lives.
Abraham Lincoln was labelled an “ape” and was called “The Original Gorilla,” yet look at what he was able to do. He isn’t called “The Great Emancipator” for nothing.
Yeah, but how many died on U.S. soil because of Lincoln’s policies? Rather than negotiation, he relied on the military to hold the union together.
RE: “Perhaps the saddest – and most ironic – is reflected in the hyper-partisan shrillness of America’s national politics.”
Of course — that had little to do at all with the “Bush presidency” but rather was the result tha the two sides — liberal and conservative — amongst our elected leaders simply have mutually opposing views about the role of the State and the Constitution and the economy and pretty much everything else.
When one side shares values and worldview that is the opposite of the other side, there’s going to be “hyper-partisan shrillness.”
Long long may it continue. The lack of “hyper-partisan shrillness” means that the conservative side will have just decided to sit quietly.
That is, in fact, my greatest concern. That conservatives will fail to organize and resist the agenda of the liberals.
So, the concensus answer seems to be yes, we should give Obama the same chance Bush got.
My answer is that we should give the Obama policies exactly the “chance” that they deserve.
I’m not really interested in trying to be mean to the man — merely resist the policies.
Thanks Sarah. You’re right. I just endured so much Bush hatred (living in the North East) for the last eight years, it warped my perspective. At work, at my Union, and virtually everywhere I turned, it was not just opposition to the policies, but outright hatred and irrational venom directed at Bush and anyone that supported anything that he did.
But, you are right. Resisting the policies (as needed) is precisely where I need to get my head and heart to be at. I have prayed earnestly for the man. His leading his term in office with abortion activism doesn’t win him any prizes in my view. But, I will continue to pray for the man and resist the evil.
Remember during Bush administration that the nation has lost jobs in 25 of the 31 months that President Bush has been in office, making for the worst jobs record at this point in a presidency of any administration. We’re going to need an enormous payday loan to clear out the global chaos built up over the last eight years. The unemployment rate is still on the rise and it appears everyone, including big time executives and corporate operations, need some kind of payday loan to remain above waters. But exactly how can one person do that without a steady flow of income? You can’t even get a payday loan without a stable job or another source of income. During Bush’s presidency, there was only a 2 percent job increase. The GDP only grew about 2 percent and Bush managed to turn a budget surplus into a deficit within three years. The massive job loss massacre has and continues to torment the livelihood of many citizens. The Bush economy has done worse for the American country than anything else, and it is now up to the Obama administration to get us back on track. For those of you who managed to still have a job, just be glad you are still able to obtain a payday loan for your short-term financial dilemmas.
Dear Logan B.,
The picture you paint, of a “payday loan,” is a good one for individuals, but falls apart when you try to apply it to a nation. The government doesn’t create the jobs you rightfully note that we need, it cannot, nor does it create the wealth that underpins the money that is needed to make the “payday loan.” We lost jobs during the past eight years (to whatever extent we did) because companies were unable to both expand their business and pay the taxes that the government demanded. So. . . if we want to see the economy expand, we are going to have to get government out of the way, so that the employers out there, who are the only ones who create jobs of any kind in the final analysis, can go about their business and grow. We will do that by further reducing taxes for these companies and entrepreneurs, not by turning on the printing presses and generating more pieces of paper with presidents’ pictures on them. Ideally, corporations would pay no tax whatsoever. Their profits would go toward rewarding the stockholders, whose initial investments make growth within that company possible in the first place, and toward actual job creation as demand for their products increases, thanks to an expanding economy. President Obama’s recent quote: “We will spend our way out of (this). . .” gives us a picture of the future, a future of inflationary recession continuing for the forseeable future. God, help us.
RE: “Resisting the policies (as needed) is precisely where I need to get my head and heart to be at.”
Well, don’t get me wrong, Sick and Tired. Make no mistake that resisting Obama’s policies will cause all sorts of rending of hair and gnashing of teeth and rhetorical devices about how we are “not giving Obama a chance,” being “partisan,” being “divisive,” and becoming an “Obama hater.”
They’ll need to try to personalize it.
We shouldn’t.
Not like so many liberals did with Bush — they opposed both his policies [naturally] and were indeed full of personal hatred for him.
I think the thing about Obama is that he [i]is[/i] likable. That’s why he was elected, after all. But his being likable has nothing to do with the soundness of his policies, or the truth of his foundational governmental worldviews.
Logan (22), I browsed the internet and could find that 3.7 million new jobs were created during the Bush Presidency (The president doesn’t create jobs, employers do). I could not confirm your statistics. This is one of the lowest rates of job creation in a long time and not a good record but not as dismal as you paint. Where did you get your data? Bush was in office for 48 months.
Not enough coffee yet. Bush was in office for 96 months not 31 months.
Over 2,800 days without a terrorist attack on American soil is more than enough of testament for Pres. Bush’s success. My concern for this country is that Obama will pull a Neville Chamberlain in his pursuit of talking “peace” with terrorists and their supporters — that kind of naivete will cost lives that will far outnumber the lives lost in the current war.