The Comedy and Tragedy of George W. Bush

By DON ROLLINS

Americans remain an astonishingly forgiving people when it comes to its wayward political figures. Investigations, convictions, indiscretions, cowardice, warmongering — all might be pardoned given enough time, contrition or rationalization.

Nixon was a paranoid liar, but he opened up relations with China; Rudy Giuliani has wasted more political capital than anyone this side of Andrew Cuomo, but don’t forget he was once the embodiment of post-9/11 resilience; Liz Cheney is on the record as opposing renewables, gun reform and universal health care, but now that she’s pissed off every doctrinaire Republican in the country, she’s adrift in an avalanche of liberal love.

So long as the offender doesn’t lead with feigned contrition or whitewashed narratives, most of us are willing to give them a guarded listen. Done right, rehabilitation and restoration can be as healing for a nation as its individual relationships.

History has a way of presenting us now and then with the moral dilemmas surrounding political grace - none more complicated than in the case of a beleaguered former president intent on changing his legacy.

If we were to list modern US presidents given to both comic and tragic extremes, George W. Bush would be at the top. An often conflicted mix of privileged child, college bro, Texas emigree, evangelical and folksy political overachiever, Bush’s gaffes and aw-shucks mannerisms made for an epic chapter in presidential spoofing. The laughs just kept coming.

Despite the post-Trump temptation to frame him as a moderate Republican populist for his times — a redacted image Bush is currently promoting, along with a book of original paintings of immigrants — the record tells a different, at points tragic story.

To understand Bush’s time in office is to concede the people’s choice of an executive way over his head. To compensate, he relied heavily on a circle of proven conservative administrators, few visionary but all adept at getting things done. What the Bush White House lacked in a “balcony” view of governing was more than made up for by sweeping actions.

But leaving so much of the shop in the hands of others proved a fundamental error, eventually resulting in unhealthy competition and disjointed governing. By the time the boss in title left office, his approval rate hovered at 25%, among the worst since presidential polling came into being.

Just how much influence Bush’s cabal exercised over him may never be fully known, but the outcomes of his two terms speak for themselves. During his tenure:

● Laws requiring federal authority in federal jurisdictions were sidestepped in order to allow states to limit abortion access and roll back LGBTQ rights;

● Torture was restored as a “necessary tool” for counterterrorism;

● Educational progress and funding were tied solely to test scores;

● The invasion of Iraq was ordered, despite no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the pretext for the operation;

● The US lobbied Israel to end negotiations with Arab nations and consider a joint military plan to change the balance of power in the Middle East;

● The federal government offered slow, ineffectual responses to devastating hurricanes multiplying suffering and related deaths;

● In 2001, 24.2% of tax cuts made went to the wealthiest 1%;

● The Clinton-era, 1994 ban on assault weapons was allowed to expire;

● The longest war in US history began by ordering forces to enter Afghanistan with no clear plan for executing or ending the conflict.

Even this truncated roll call of the Bush administration’s active and passive transgressions should give us pause, before hailing the president behind them.

Grandfatherly and benign as he is these days, it should be remembered George W. was party to an eight-year neglect of such basic American values as diversity, proper rules of engagement, national sovereignty, safety and economic parity.

Bush’s jovial nature and mellowed outlook count for something, especially to the few remaining Republicans rejecting hard-right groupthink. But as with everybody else, Bush has a past. Whatever measure of forgiveness we can muster, we should never forget the tragedy that came with the comedy.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2021

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