Bush the President, meet Bush the Historian
Winston Churchill once said, “History is written by the victors.” I have heard some say that this is, in fact, untrue…they claim that history is written by the historians. Either way, it seems obvious, particularly in a recent interview with Charles “Charlie” Gibson, that George W. Bush believes that history is written by the outgoing president and the Republican Party.
I may be proven wrong…but I believe that he is greatly mistaken.
Our current president appears to have given up on passing measures that will somehow “heal” his tarnished legacy…and has instead chosen to take a “media world tour” in which he attempts to rewrite history in a light that minimalizes his administration’s catastrophic failures. He has help: Karl Rove and other GOP mouthpieces have been trying to accomplish the same goal.
A few particularly insipid examples:
The Iraq War
When asked about his biggest regret, Bush stated, “…the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn’t just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that’s not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.“
Really? YOUR biggest regret is that SOMEONE ELSE didn’t have their facts straight? Plus, we now now that a substantial number (it’s estimated at 50 to 75%) of members of the American intelligence community reported to the Bush administration that there were no WMD’s. British intelligence told Tony Blair and President Bush there were no WMD’s. French intelligence also said there were no WMD’s. As far as the “members of Congress” and the “leaders of nations” are concerned…they were looking at the intelligence PROVIDED TO THEM by the Bush Administration. That is to say…if legislators and world leaders had indeed believed there were weapons of mass destruction…it’s because they were deceived by the information presented to them by President Bush and his surrogates. And no…this did not occur PRIOR to his arrival in Washington, DC.
When asked if, knowing there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, we should have still invaded Iraq Bush said, “You know, that’s an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can’t do. It’s hard for me to speculate,” and he goes on to say that he is proud of his actions because, “I keep recognizing we’re in a war against ideological thugs and keeping America safe.“
Except our goal…was never to engage in an “ideological war,” and the current conflict has made us anything but “more safe.” A recent study by our own intelligence community shows we have done little except swell the numbers of terrorist organizations: “The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee.”
The Economy
Apparently…Bush isn’t to blame for the current recession either. In his words, “You know, I’m the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President.”
Obvious grammatical problems aside…I think the flaw in this argument is clear. Even IF the problematic decisions were made a “decade or so” before Bush became president…why did he do nothing to address the issues for eight years? In the very same interview he claims that Paulson and others came to him years ago and warned of the impending crisis. He’s trying to say “Oh yeah, I knew all about the economy and was watching it closely” without realizing that it implies, “I watched it fail while doing nothing.”
Karl Rove has chosen a different approach:
That’s right: It’s all Obama’s fault. Rove and other conservative pundits have unabashedly put forth the idea that the current market troubles can be attributed to “fear of an Obama Presidency.” It’s not that greedy lenders extended billions of dollars in loans that they shouldn’t have given in the first place. It’s not the investors who bought heavily on margin. It’s not the companies who leveraged new debts upon their old ones. It’s not our outdated, uncreative, and stagnant auto industry. And it’s certainly not the record-setting national debt, swelled by an expensive and fruitless foreign conflict, causing the American dollar’s value to plummet abroad. It’s the fault of that guy running that “hope-based” campaign.
What He Fails to Mention
Bush, Rove, and others can attempt to explain away the blame for the economy or the Iraq War (placing it on either past or future generations)…but they fail to realize that history will look at more than just these two elements.
ProRepublica has an interesting “pre-report card, report card.” As the article points out, “He stripped staff members and resources from areas like environmental, health and corporate regulatory enforcement. But the extended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worst financial crisis in decades swelled the national debt to its highest level in absolute terms, and its highest since the 1950s relative to GDP” and these measures are bound to have very REAL implications.
Here are some of their statistics:
National Debt on Election Day
Percentage of Americans without health insurance
Average high school graduation rate
71.7%
74.4%
U.S. funding for global HIV/AIDS
Average number of endangered species listed per year
Average number of Superfund clean-ups completed per year
Percentage of federal contracts with open competition
Illegal immigrants deported
Number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests
Number of personnel who process FOIA requests
5,378
5,367
Unemployment rate
Pounds of meat and poultry inspected per full-time employee of the Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Percentage of new Army enlistees with a high school diploma or higher
Days in office the president spent at his ranch
The Bush Legacy Tour website goes further in enumerating elements of the Bush Presidency that will likely be recorded in history:
“The conservative leadership in Washington, DC:
- Misled the American people into an endless war in Iraq that has made the United States less safe, has resulted in the death and injury of thousands of American troops and Iraqis, has cost American taxpayers as much as one trillion dollars, has strained our military to the breaking point, and has prevented us from finishing the job in Afghanistan.
- Stood idly by while thousands of Americans lost everything during Hurricane Katrina – and still haven’t taken leadership to rebuild the Gulf Coast and help people return home.
- Allowed trickle-down, laissez-faire economics to help the rich get richer, while regular Americans struggle with soaring gas and food prices, a meltdown in the housing market, and exploding debt during today’s economic recession.
- Turned control of our country’s health care system over to insurance and pharmaceutical companies, leaving millions of Americans incapable of paying for the rising costs of health benefits and turning emergency rooms into primary care physicians.
- Broke their promise to America’s children, failing to fund early education programs and No Child Left Behind.
- Ignored the scientific reality of climate change, obstructing efforts to make our air and water cleaner so oil and gas companies and big business could achieve record profits.
- Turned their backs on America’s workers, assaulting workers’ rights and impeding regular Americans’ efforts to form unions and bargain for better pay and working conditions.”
Who writes history?
Is it the “victors“…or maybe the “historians?” Karl Rove has predicted that “I’m absolutely positive history will be kind to this president, who made the right decisions in a difficult time for this nation.” Well, I’m “absolutely positive” that he is kidding himself…because these days…history is written by the people living it. Thanks to the internet, blogging, Wikipedia, and other contemporary, collaborative efforts at compiling, storing, and sharing information…more people are writing history than ever. And…perhaps more importantly…more people are reading it.
