Two weeks ago tomorrow, Barack Obama took the oath of office, becoming the 44th President of the United States. Obama’s swearing-in also represented the end of the George W. Bush Administration, a fact greeted with vindictive glee by many across the country. Even though I did not vote for President Obama, I wish him well, and I appreciate seeing our democracy at work. There is something very powerful and very moving about the peaceful transfer of power we are privileged to witness every four or eight years. I also join so many others in celebrating our country’s first African-American president – a truly extraordinary and historic moment for our nation. I cannot, however, take part in the mean-spirited jubilation that accompanied the end of Bush’s tenure in the White House.
It is very fashionable to deride Bush, his administration, and his record. It is “cool” to hate President Bush, and to flippantly talk of how he “shredded the Constitution” after September 11th, or “lied to the country” in the run-up to the Iraq War. It’s popular to fault Bush and Bush alone for the current financial crisis. So loud were the criticisms and so organized the accompanying media narrative that it is simply assumed Bush deserved all of the blame for the myriad missteps in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. East Coast elites ridicule Bush’s inarticulateness and sneer with certainty at his alleged stupidity. West Coast, Hollywood-types blanch at his lack of “sophistication” and even professed shame for their citizenship in a country led by the proudly un-hip Texan. The mainstream media not only share these sentiments, but have also perpetuated the same narratives through sometimes alarmingly blatant and slanted reporting. Through it all, Bush refused to alter his course, resisted what might have been a natural inclination to change for the sake of popularity or political expedience, and in doing so, only further enraged them all.
Of course President Bush made mistakes. All presidents do – all people do. 9/11 forced Bush into some difficult and sometimes controversial decisions, but to assign ulterior and sinister motives to his choices is simply unfounded. While I do not agree with those who believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake, I absolutely believe that for far too long, the war was managed poorly, and as Commander-in-Chief, Bush is ultimately responsible. He indeed deserves some of the blame for the financial and economic predicaments in which we now find ourselves, but in fairness, many of the seeds of this systemic failure were planted over a long period of time, including during previous administrations and in years when oversight was the responsibility of a Democratic Congress. Without question, there were mistakes made during Hurricane Katrina and the botched handling of her aftermath – at every level of government – yet somehow then-Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin both seemed to avoid the finger-pointing directed at President Bush. Admittedly, Bush is a poor speaker, and in this era of modern media, the ability to skillfully communicate is a very important quality for an effective president. And while his poor diction often failed him in making his case to the American people, ineloquent oratory does not always equate to idiocy. As I recently argued to a friend, while Bush is surely no genius, it is simply impossible for anyone to run and win a national campaign – much less to function as the most powerful man in the world – without a degree of intelligence that surpasses that of the average person. Bush is no exception, and he is no idiot either.
Seemingly lost in the frenzy of hatred and criticism surrounding Bush is the proverbial elephant in the room: there has not been a single subsequent terrorist attack in America in the seven years and four months since September 11th, 2001. The apparent ease with which so many seemingly disregard this singular but seminal accomplishment reflects an unattractive and ignorant naivety on their part, as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of the world in which we now live. How quickly so many seem to forget the pain we collectively felt when, as a country, we were blindsided by that horrific day. How shortsighted so many appear to be in blocking out the intense fear that those heinous acts caused us. How ungrateful so many apparently are for the fact that Bush and his administration managed to do what even the most optimistic of us would have considered impossible that horrible day. And how ironic that New York, the city most affected by the horrors of 9/11, served as the effective epicenter of the anti-Bush movement.
There are increasing signs that Bush’s successor has begun to understand the difficult realities of the world and maybe even to gain some appreciation for the job that President Bush did under circumstances you and I cannot fully know. The most telling of these, obviously, was Obama’s decision to keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. It was also striking that, even while he fulfilled his campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay, he is not sure what precisely to do with its detainees and not finding many prisons (here or abroad) eager to welcome those currently held there – problems also cited by the Bush Administration as hindrances to closing GITMO. The story was similar with the issue of “torture”, a favorite charge of the anti-Bush crowd, and an issue on which their leader, Obama, is also now hedging. I imagine the fact that he now receives a daily intelligence briefing has something to do with the beginnings of this migration from Candidate Obama to President Obama. I predict we’ll see further moves on the part of our new president that, while probably done quietly or masked cleverly, will still serve to maintain many of the same practices and policies for which he and his party so roundly criticized Bush. In many ways, this would be the ultimate exoneration for President Bush.
I suspect – and frankly hope – that the same Americans who so cavalierly badmouth Bush today will eventually understand the good he did while president. While it may take years, as more facts come to light about Bush’s tenure, I hope that his steadfast judgment and pragmatic choices will eventually be vindicated as I believe they should be. We cannot know now and may never be able to fully know the information to which he was privy – the information on which so many of his most controversial decisions were likely based. But what we should know and appreciate now is that the last eight years have been among the most challenging ever faced by any president, and that in this time of unfamiliar and unprecedented difficulties, we as a nation were served well by President Bush’s consistency, by his commitment to principles, and by his constant goal of doing what he felt would best keep this country safe.
While I know that George W. Bush is not one to be caught up in concerns about his legacy, he deserves one far better than that which his critics are already trying to write for him now, he deserves more than the jeers and boos he received from the crowds on the National Mall at the Inauguration, and most immediately, he deserves the thanks of what is currently an ungrateful nation.
