OPINION & EDITORIAL
Life after Bush: Holding candidates to a higher standard of rhetoric
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Also by Nathan Braun:
- Few controversial issues clearly right; but gay rights one of them (November 1, 2007)
- Nuclear power worth risks (October 18, 2007)
- Humans must evolve, realize climate change is real (October 4, 2007)
- Life after Bush: Holding candidates to a higher standard of rhetoric (September 20, 2007)
- Taxes cost-effective energy solution (September 12, 2007)
Related Stories:
- More stale rhetoric in Dems 'debate' (May 2, 2007)
- President Bush's trip to Latin America disingenuous, selfish (March 8, 2007)
- Bush copycat unwelcome (September 21, 2006)
- An open letter to President Bush (September 4, 2006)
- Bush opposition needs backbone (October 31, 2006)
by Nathan Braun
Thursday, September 20, 2007
At the risk of overgeneralizing a bit, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the presidency of George W. Bush has been a disaster up to this point.
This isn't because he's a bad guy, because he doesn't have good intentions or because he's a Republican.
And it's not because he didn't do anything to rein in government spending after pushing through $1.35 trillion dollars in tax cuts over 10 years immediately after taking office, or because his administration spearheaded a war with Iraq that could end up costing us $1.2 trillion and thousands of lives — wait, actually those both have a lot to do with it.
But these are symptoms of a larger, more fundamental flaw in the Bush administration. Ironically, it is a flaw that almost certainly got him elected in the first place: An emphasis on campaigning, politics and rhetoric at the expense of actual, effective governing.
The latest evidence of this comes from Alan Greenspan, who first served under President Nixon and then went on to become Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987-2003. “Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences," Mr. Greenspan wrote in his memoir, which was published Monday.
Mr. Greenspan elaborated that Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill "found himself to be the odd man out; much to my disappointment, economic policymaking in the Bush administration remained firmly in the hands of the White House staff."
Politics also dominated when it came to Iraq. In his 2006 bestseller, "State of Denial," Bob Woodward writes of the experience of then-United States National Security Council deputy to Iraq Bob Blackwill, who was often assigned to travel with the president during his campaign for a second term:
"Blackwill was struck that there was never any real time to discuss policy. In between the stops or in the air, whenever Iraq came up, it was always through the prism of the campaign. What had the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, said that day about Iraq? What had happened on the ground in Iraq that might impact the president's bid for re-election? As the NSC coordinator for Iraq, Blackwill probably knew as much about the war as anybody in the White House. He had spent months in Iraq, … but he was with the campaign only as part of the politics of re-election. Not once did Bush ask Blackwill what things were like in Iraq, what he had seen or what should be done. Blackwill was astonished at the round-the-clock, all-consuming focus on winning the election. Nothing else came close."
In retrospect, it's no surprise the administration had a "round-the-clock, all-consuming focus" on winning the election when you consider how things were going during the president's first term. But guess what? It worked. Despite starting a war with Iraq over weapons of mass destruction, never finding those weapons, then dressing up in a flight suit and declaring "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of an aircraft carrier, President Bush was able to get re-elected.
And even then, not having to face the prospect of another election in his life, Mr. Bush and his administration still weren't able to effectively make the transition from campaigning to governing. From cronyism — appointing an unqualified and inept Michael Brown to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with disastrous results for New Orleans — to well, more cronyism — the scandal over the firing of Department of Justice Federal prosecutors for political reasons, is the latest example. All too often, politics trumps policy.
As always, there is a lesson in all of this. We — right or wrong, for better or worse — are effectively in the middle of electing our next president. This is a fact.
We, the public, need to hold these candidates to a higher standard and move beyond the partisan politics and sound bytes to a real, proactive discussion of the issues.
So when Democratic candidate and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico promises that if elected he'll remove every last troop from Iraq within a year, it's our responsibility to gauge whether that's even possible, let alone desirable.
And while Republican candidate and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts may believe Hillary Clinton's new health care plan is "European-style, socialized medicine," we should be smart enough by now to dig a little deeper. In fact, type in "Clinton health care" into Google News and the first story that comes up has a quote from the MIT economist who helped Romney design his celebrated health plan as governor. His take? The proposals are "very, very similar."
This isn't about ideology, nor is it part of the substantive discussion of issues such as tax cuts, the war in Iraq and healthcare deserve. Instead, it's the reality of our political situation lately. And that's precisely the problem.
Nathan Braun (braun@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in economics.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 7:30am):
Bush bashing is fun and all, but I've really read enough of it in the last seven years--beating on him for three-quarters of an article and tacking on a "so things need to change" without any elaboration on HOW this is supposed to happen just isn't that impressive.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 7:32am):
If only Bill Clinton or his close facsimile was running in the next presidential election.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 8:19am):
It seems that for Bush, it was all about the feather in his cap. We all have met students like this - perhaps not so prevalent at UW-Mad as at other private schools like Notre Dame or Princeton - where it's all about what school you go to, not about what you get out of the experience. The experience is a 'secondary reality'. The principal reality is 'with whom you would associate'.
But American politics has degraded to another form of celebrity distraction; it's not about policy or 'we the people' anymore.
I fear it must get worse before there is enough popular outcry to get better.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 11:42am):
Ironic that the article didn't have "any elaboration on HOW this is supposed to happen" (as 7:30 points out), when Bush himself has never elaborated about any policy decisions...ever.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 12:03pm):
I'm going to miss all the W stickers. I hope the next Republican candidate for president has a similarly awesome middle initial.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 1:44pm):
Bush ruled.....8 MORE YEARS! 8 MORE YEARS!
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 6:07pm):
Do the Dems realize that W isn't running again?
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