Posted on 08/01/2002 9:12:06 PM PDT by dvan
American teachers are concerned, we have discovered this week, that George Washington is less well known among the young than a series of cartoon characters. Steven Spielberg may be enlisted — Saving General Washington, perhaps? — to remind teenagers that this was not the founding father who flew kites (Benjamin Franklin), who was shot dead by the Vice-President in a duel (Alexander Hamilton) or who had sex with his slaves (Thomas Jefferson), but the one who engaged in the altogether more mundane activity of establishing the nation. It is a fair bet, however, that the name of David Rice Aitchison rings fewer bells still, even among American educators. But from the purist, or pedantic, point of view, Mr Aitchison was the 12th President of the United States, although he is never recorded as such in the history books. He acquired this distinction because Zachary Taylor refused to take the oath of office on the constitutionally allotted day of March 4 in 1849. That date fell on a Sunday and Taylor insisted that he would not assume his post until the sabbath was over. As the law stood, the longest serving member of the majority party in the Senate, Mr Aitchison, had to fill the one-day vacancy. He later claimed to have stayed in bed for the duration of his tenure.
If his American and European critics are to believed, George W. Bush is the reincarnation of Senator Aitchison, except with a four-year lease on the Oval Office. He should never have acquired the position in the first place, it is said, he spends most of his time either asleep, keeping fit, or on vacation, and he has a political outlook more appropriate to the 19th century. And he is, they insist, at long last about to suffer for it. His polling numbers have allegedly nosedived along with the Dow Jones index. Scandal is knocking at his door via corporate ethics much as it did on the door of Bill Clinton, though for other reasons. Bush’s domestic agenda is unravelling, it is said. His foreign policy is incoherent. The congressional elections in November will finish off his party, it is prophesied, and he himself may not secure a second term two years later. The Washington whisper is apparently that the younger Bush is destined for the political fate that befell his father.
It is a neat argument — except that it is baloney. The truth is that the President remains exceptionally popular, he will not be scuppered by scandal, his domestic agenda is in perfectly reasonable shape, his foreign policy is for the most part (the Middle East is a partial exception) unusually coherent and neither the Republicans this year nor he in November 2004 have much to fear at the hustings.
Mr Bush’s ratings are indeed somewhat lower now than several months ago. They have “sunk” from 90 per cent approval last October to 80 per cent in January to around 70 per cent today, despite a rough month on the stock market and elsewhere. Four out of five Americans back his handling of the War on Terror, three out of four consider him to be a strong leader and seven in ten attest that he is honest and trustworthy.
No President at a comparable point since Dwight Eisenhower has basked in anything like such approval. For a man elected with only 48 per cent of the popular vote 20 months ago, it is an extraordinary outcome.
There is no reason to believe that Mr Bush’s activities as a director of Harken Energy will come back to haunt him. A multitude of newspapers and several financial institutions have been through this saga with a fine-tooth comb. The story is already starting to fade from the American headlines. If this is the worst that can be pinned on his life before politics, then he does not have much to worry about.
Mr Bush’s domestic agenda is “unravelling” only if you expect American Presidents, like British Prime Ministers, to be able to push legislation through like meat through a mincer. Clearly, they cannot — even when their own political party commands comfortable majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The founders of the US Constitution were divided between those who favoured a strong central administration and others who opposed it. In a brilliant compromise, they decided to create a federal government but with so many checks and balances that it would only ever function smoothly at times of extreme necessity and when a very broad consensus could be mobilised. This was an act of political genius, not institutional vandalism. The effective secret of America’s success is that Washington is habitually immobilised.
By these standards, Mr Bush has already been an unusually dominant President domestically. He came to the White House with no personal mandate, a wafer-thin party advantage in the House of Representatives and nominal ownership (soon lost) of the Senate. He had far fewer resources than Mr Clinton enjoyed when he arrived in the capital city. He should have been able to achieve absolutely nothing at home.
Yet the President had an agenda which consisted of five items. These were a major tax cut; an overhaul of education programmes; a shift in resources towards the Pentagon; a new emphasis on “faith-based” welfare reform; and the desire to acquire the right to negotiate new trade agreements. He has secured the tax cut, obtained most of what he wanted on education, achieved far more than he wanted (courtesy of Osama bin Laden) for military expenditure and the House of Representatives backed him on trade last week and the Senate will imminently endorse his position. Only his faith-based ambitions do not appear to have a political prayer. If Meat Loaf was right to proclaim that “two out of three ain’t bad”, then surely four out of five — especially allowing for the rules of American political life — is more than reasonable.
The Bush effect on foreign policy, though, has been yet more transformative. The wholesale shift in international outlook after September 11 is the obvious development, but the most subtle and arguably equally significant switch has been in America’s relationship with Russia. When Mr Bush went to Washington his opponents chorused that his plans for national missile defence would ignite a new Cold War with Moscow. In fact, the ABM treaty had been put down as quietly as an ageing labrador.
Europeans might not much like what Mr Bush has done because much of it rightly reflects their own small place in the post-Cold War world order. They would be churlish not to concede that he has redefined America’s role on the global stage in a manner that will hold fast for at least a generation until the ultimate rise of China (if it occurs) presents some different and potentially difficult international questions.
And it should not be assumed that the voters have noticed none of this. In the absence of a full-blown recession (which remains pretty unlikely), Mr Bush’s approval scores will remain well above 50 per cent for the duration of his presidency. All mid-term elections in the United States are difficult to predict — they are dominated more by local factors than national events — but I am dubious about the predictions being made that the Republicans will lose control of both chambers of Congress this November.
Demographic factors mean that the Republicans have a more than sporting chance of not only clinging on to their lead in the House of Representatives but they could easily extend it slightly. In the Senate, it now looks as if there will be only six really marginal races and the Democrats have to defend five of the states concerned. A one-seat win would be enough to change control of the chamber. There is a perfectly plausible prospect that, come January, the Republicans will again enjoy a monopoly of power in Washington. Not many sane Democrats will then fancy their chances of denying Mr Bush re-election.
Whatever might be happening on Wall Street, therefore, shares in Mr Bush are well worth hanging on to. He has made a career out of being underestimated. He is not alone in this regard, either. John Adams, the singularly ineffective second President of the United States, insisted in 1782 of the man who would precede him: “That Washington is not a scholar is certain. That he is too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station and reputation is equally beyond dispute.” American teachers might circulate that review to stimulate some interest among their students.
This is a scummy hit piece. The opening paragraph, more like a salvo, is a disgusting wretch for readers on both sides of the pond, but to drag kids into it is irresponsible and crude, ie., just another ho-hum article from our 'friends' the Blairs.
subtle propaganda or innocent sensationalism, i don't know. but of all the things to remember Thomas Jefferson for...?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.