Seven myths about Bush

The Democratic presidential hopefuls are already scrapping for a chance to take on George W. Bush in 2004.

They all are operating on the assumption that Bush, like his father, is destined to be a one-term president.

Yes, Bush's poll numbers are slowly drifting down from last fall's meteoric levels. But his vulnerability might be a mirage.

If so, it will join at least six other assumptions about him that proved to be myths. It turns out that the politician who burst into the American consciousness in the last presidential campaign is not the person many people made him out to be.

Myth One, perhaps the most durable, is that Bush lacks smarts. In certain circles, he will always be regarded with condescension.

Bush obviously bears more than a little responsibility for the persistent questions about his intelligence.

His tendency to mangle his syntax when he speaks doesn't help. Nor have his efforts at self-deprecating humor, such as advertising himself as living proof that a C student could grow up to be president.

Those who have known him or engaged him for extended periods attest to his intelligence and praise his instinctive judgment. He's no genius, but not a dunce, either.

Besides, as historian Fred Greenstein has pointed out, a review of presidents during the past 75 years suggests the limits of intelligence.

A highly intelligent chief executive with character flaws or other failings is likely to end up with a diminished presidency, as did Richard M. Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Legal scholars will debate for years the Supreme Court's actions in resolving the 2000 election, and for good reason. But subsequent recounts of disputed Florida ballots by a consortium of news organizations have failed to provide conclusive proof that Al Gore won Florida.

To the contrary, Bush still would have won if the recount ordered by the Florida court had not been stopped by the Supreme Court, the consortium found.

Myth Three is that Bush came to Washington determined to do away with gridlock. In the campaign, Bush seized on the public's desire to end the raw partisanship of the Clinton era (much of which came from the Republican side).

Since taking office, however, he has done little to reach out. Any cooperation with Democrats has been largely symbolic, other than his mutually beneficial dealings with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., on education.

For a brief time after Sept. 11, true bipartisanship existed, as both parties helped pull the nation through a period of enormous shock. But those good feelings were the exception that proved the rule.

One of the reasons it won't be back is because of yet another myth about the president.

Bush's aides have promoted the idea that he is focused like a laser on fighting terror. Like the other myths, this one has more than a grain of truth.

The campaign against terrorism has redefined Bush from a tax-cutter to a wartime chief executive. Who would have predicted that the man who didn't know the name of the president of Pakistan during the campaign would be transformed into a foreign-policy president?

But Bush is also a fierce partisan and is devoting considerable time and energy to politics. There is growing evidence that he is the most political president of recent times. He has never really stopped campaigning, except for a relatively brief stretch after Sept. 11.

Not incidentally, many of the states he is visiting to help other Republican candidates are also essential to his re-election. Any president elected by the skin of his teeth would be foolish to ignore the electoral map, and when it comes to politics, Bush is nobody's fool.

Myth Five is that Bush is another Ronald Reagan. This idea, quietly but aggressively pushed by Bush's advisers to mollify the conservative base, largely revolves around superficial similarities between the two. Like Reagan, Bush seems to find solitude and strength at the ranch. There, aides say, he enjoys clearing brush, which just happened to be Reagan's favorite chore.

Like Reagan, Bush is hooked on Camp David as an escape from the pressures of Washington. As in the Reagan era, the presidential work week often ends early, at around 3:30 on Friday afternoons, when Bush's helicopter lifts off from the White House lawn bound for Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.

There are other, less flattering, similarities that Bush image-makers don't advertise. Like Reagan, Bush has a short attention span. Like Reagan, he often has little patience for policy-making. But the differences outweigh the similarities: Bush gave the speech of his life to Congress after the terrorist attacks. But he is not in Reagan's league as a communicator, one of the keys to presidential leadership. Reagan, a self-made man, spent a lifetime developing a set of core conservative beliefs that guided his actions. Bush, the heir to a political dynasty, is more of a pragmatist.

The closely related Myth Six is that Bush heads the most conservative administration in modern times. In fact, despite his rhetoric about limiting government, the federal establishment is rapidly expanding. Washington is creating the largest new government agency since World War II -- the Transportation Security Administration. Under Bush, federal spending is headed for the biggest increase since the 1960s.

On the core ideological issue of free trade, Bush stunned conservatives recently when, for nakedly political reasons, he abandoned his conservative principles to prop up the U.S. steel industry. Unlike the Reagan White House, there are no staunch conservative ideologues around Bush. According to one conservative with close ties to the administration, the most conservative people in this White House are Vice President Dick Cheney and, possibly, Bush.

As for Cheney, Myth Seven is that he'll be dumped from the ticket in 2004. It is said that Bush has established himself as a man of substance and no longer needs to fall back on Cheney's experience. There are rumors that Bush might pick Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, as his running mate, or Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Any of those might be seriously considered if Cheney is unable, for health reasons, to serve. At the moment, though, he's looking healthier than ever. He also remains the administration's indispensable man. There are no major decisions or issues that he is not involved with, despite the understandable, and remarkably successful, White House effort to play down his role, to avoid overshadowing the president.

During the past seven months, Bush's firm, almost visceral commitment to combating terrorism has become the signal purpose of his presidency. Ultimately, he'll be judged by his ability to meet that challenge.

That has been a Bush imperative since he began laying the foundation for his presidential run while still in his first term as governor of Texas.

Preventing a return to chaos in Afghanistan, capturing more al-Qaeda leaders, stemming the Mideast bloodletting, repairing the damage to U.S. prestige in the Arab world and keeping the pressure on Iraq are all on his daunting "to do" list for the next six months.

Whether Bush can maintain popular support and dim the hopes of his Democratic pursuers, depends on his navigating those churning currents overseas, while keeping America economically secure and free from terrorism.

If he can do all that, he'll enter the second half of his term in a very powerful position to prove the Democratic mythologists wrong.

Paul West is chief of the Washington bureau of the Baltimore Sun, a Tribune Publishing company.

..interesting that someone like Le Pen can get 17% of the vote in France of all places, but "truth-telling" Brigadiers and Libertarians cut and run after being criticized on a single website...

They didn't 'cut and run', bud. They were harassed, provoked and finally driven out, or banned. More like the Huegenots were driven from France.

Granted, some of them were trouble makers and self promoters, had FR in an uproar, and maybe deserved what they got. But the facts are that a lot of us who stayed, kept quiet with our reservations about this president. What with the joy of the close win, the horror of 911 and all the rest of it, to do anything else would have been churlish. But as those events recede in our memory it is becoming very hard to keep biting one's tongue, as the disappointments pile up at the door of the White House. That doesn't mean Mr Bush is a traitor to conservatism or any of that exaggerated nonsense you can read here at times. But he is dismaying his supporters with these constant letdowns and you would really think that (after his father's experience) he would be on guard against that. I can read the pulse of this website and I will make you a little prediction that posters are going to get very restive here, over the next few months, unless this president stops trying to please liberals who never voted for him. The people here who defend the president 24/7 won't be able to keep a lid on it. And we are going to end up with divisive factions on FR yet again. That can all be avoided if both sides could acknowledge that the others' views have some merit.

Just buying a few votes. The Dems do it too, so it's O.K., right?

Bush Signing Farm Legislation Over Objections of Many Republicans
By Scott Lindlaw Associated Press Writer
Published: May 13, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush is signing a farm bill that expands subsidies to growers and appeals to rural voters but is opposed by many fellow Republicans as a budget-busting step backward in agriculture policy.

The 10-year, $190 billion bill rains federal largess on farm-oriented states that will be campaign battlegrounds this fall, potentially helping Bush in his quest to win back control of the Senate for the GOP - and giving him a chance to rack up IOUs for his own 2004 re-election effort.

It increases spending by nearly 80 percent over the cost of existing programs at a time when government and private analysts are projecting a budget deficit this year of $100 billion or more. The president has been calling on lawmakers to show fiscal restraint.

Spare me. The harrassment cut both ways. (I personally enjoyed observing it). Mr. Robinson stepped in and basically said, "let's stop ripping on Bush until the election's over, let the Dems do that until then."

At the time, if I remember, Mr. Robinson did all the banning personally (no moderators), so it amuses to read of your vicarious persecution complex. As far as I'm concerned, they knew the rules, and should be proud that they were banned by the top dog.

The point of the matter is, opponents on this website have a tendency of accusing each other of groupthink. Witness our present fondness for terms like "Bushbot" and "apologist." Sure, the terms get a point across, but the point is small and unsophisticated. In other words, if you don't feel like arguing, simply accuse your opponent of acting (fill in the blank).

It why I find these us versus the "coven" spats amusing. they're so . . . cheap. By the way, what are we up to now, Coven II, Coven: The Sequel, Coven IV: The Return of DonMorgan?

"Just buying a few votes. The Dems do it too, so it's O.K., right?"

Your original claim wasn't that GWB bought votes with the Farm Bill or even increased spending. No, your claim was that GWB "lied."

Yet you won't or can't show where he lied. GWB said that he'd work with Congress to pass a compromise farm bill. He worked with them, but they didn't pass a compromise. Does that mean that GWB lied? No.

Yet somehow I suspect that I'll see you running around on thread after thread claiming that GWB "lied" about the Farm Bill.

That's a very dishonest tactic that you are practicing...

"Don't you want to see some real accomplishment on issues like guns, abortion, foreign aid, immigration, the UN, the growth of the State?"

Of course. That's why I cheered when President Bush cut off the federal funding of foreign "family planning" monies. I cheered when President Bush's two DOJ appointments, Ashcroft and Olsen, personally wrote to the Supreme Court stating that the OFFICIAL U.S. position is that the Second Amendment protects an INDIVIDUAL, not a "collective" right to keep and bear arms.

I cheered when President Bush told the UN to go stuff itself regarding its International Ban on Small Arms Trades. Then Bush went one step further and killed (for all practical purposes) the UN's International Criminal Court. Bush now has our Justice Department investigating whether the UN itself violated American gun laws when Koffi's body guards all showed up in NYC with new submachine guns.

Have you not been paying attention? Bush killed the Soviet-era ABM Treaty and we are now set to DEPLOY interceptors for our national missile defense system in 2004. Gore wasn't going to get that done, I assure you.

Bush killed the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming. Do you think for one moment that Mr. Earth in the Balance would have done that?

So when I see people posting fringe comments on FR such as "Bush is a liberal", I have to wonder if the poster is dumb, not paying attention, or just a "plant" from DU trying to stir up some divisiveness over here on FR (it's happened).

Look, there are a lot of things that you can complain about in regards to GWB, acquiesing to Congresses increased budgets come to mind (though I understand WHY he did it), but to call him a "liberal" is so out of line (how many liberals would have told the UN to go stuff it and how many liberals would have signed the pro-gun legislation that permits pilots to arm themselves in cockpits) that it really calls to mind AGITPROP tactics from DU and other fringe party elements.

"...but to call him a "liberal" is so out of line..."

Sorry, Southack, you cite details, liberal sacred cows though they may be, as examples of the President's conservatism. The test is in the focus of policy and fundamental assumptions which govern the concepts he articulates. The best example is this:

The following are excerpts from a March 23, 2002 Washington Times piece by Bill Sammon.

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"MONTERREY, Mexico: President Bush yesterday said Americans are duty-bound to 'share our wealth' with poor nations and promised a 50 percent increase in foreign aid, but 'We should give more of our aid in the form of grants, rather than loans that can never be repaid,' he said. 'We should invest in better health and build on our efforts to fight AIDS, which threatens to undermine whole societies.'

"In addition to the moral, economic and strategic imperatives of increasing foreign aid, Bush said, it could also help in the war against terrorism.

"'We will challenge the poverty and hopelessness and lack of education and failed governments that too often allow conditions that terrorists can seize and try to turn to their advantage.'"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Now how is that any different from George McGovern, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or Ted Kennedy's basic view of reality?

Essentially it isn't. It's a validation of the "Feed me or I'll kill you" school of domestic and international policy. It's still the same old idea that America is the world's milk cow, and we citizens exist only to serve the state by creating wealth for redistribution. In Bush's case I highly doubt that it's because of any sort of closet Marxism. Probably it's the result of concepts of Christianity heavily influenced by some radical liberation theology mixed in with some evangelicalism, none of which has anything to do with the faith of all those who went on before and turned the USA into the freest, richest, most tranquil and law abiding nation in human history until about thirty-five to forty years ago.

To convince me of his conservative principles, Bush would have to say something which expresses the understanding that poverty is, by and large, social justice, the forseeable effect of personal behavior and national policy, and that a return to those principles which made the USA what it once was is the only way forward. This is beyond Bush's ability to conceive or articulate, I know, but I'd settle for something saying that Mexico cannot export its disastrous social and economic problems to the USA. Is that too much to ask?

"I know, but I'd settle for something saying that Mexico cannot export its disastrous social and economic problems to the USA. Is that too much to ask?"

That's precisely what Bush has said, but you've missed HOW he's said it.

Permit me to explain: Bush is touting pro-Mexico plans because he wants to keep Mexicans IN MEXICO!

The fewer job opportunities that exist in Mexico, the GREATER the incentive for Mexicans to risk U.S. penalties to come over here to work for low wages. The more job opportunities in Mexico, the more Mexicans want to stay in Mexico. Same with disease, hunger, et al. The more of that which is in Mexico, the more Mexicans want to escape it by coming over here.

That's why the anti-NAFTA people are in reality supporting INCREASED immigration into America. The fewer jobs that there are in Mexico, the MORE people are going to hop our border and come over here. Short of radical military solutions along our frontier, the most effective way to keep people in Mexico is to make Mexico more hospitable to them.

And that's precisely what GWB is doing and saying.

The problem is that Mexico is a degenerate caudillo/guerilla socialist kleptocracy, with predictable economic performance, but with a projected population of 200,000,000 people in 2040, in a land that's only 2/3 inhabitable. The major amount of American aid will wind up in Swiss bank accounts. Short of a national recovery program for the entire nation, some sort of 12 step program, kind of a "Marxists Anonymous" for the whole country and the convulsions that will cause, the only solution is for Mexico to export its disaster north.

Bush doesn't understand any of this. If he did, he wouldn't be spouting such bland, tired old liberal chestnuts about America's duty to share the wealth with the hungry have-nots.

Besides all that, there's this, the conclusion of the same article quoted above:

Again, quoted from The Washington Times 23 Mar 02 by Bill Sammon.

"After his speech, Mr. Bush met with Mexican President Vicente Fox, who wants the United States to expand its guest-worker program for Mexicans and grant amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Mr. Bush agrees with the proposal, but acknowledges the American public would not support granting blanket amnesty to the several million Mexicans who are living in the United States illegally.

"A senior administration official said a bill before the U.S. Senate granting amnesty to 200,000 of those Mexicans is part of an "incremental" approach to the immigration issue. The official was asked by The Washington Times if that means the president favors an even-greater relaxation of immigration rules that stops short of blanket amnesty . . .

"During a joint news conference last night with Mr. Fox, Mr. Bush made clear that he considers the bill before the Senate, known as 245(I), to be merely a first step in a broader effort to give special treatment to Mexican illegals.

"'Beyond 245-I, which is the family reunification act, is first of all understanding the unique nature of the Mexican in our country,' he said. 'The Mexican national is different by virtue of the fact of proximity to the United States.' . . .

"Prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, Mr. Fox had called for looser immigration laws by the end of last year. This was viewed as politically advantageous to Mr. Bush, who has long courted Hispanic voters.

"But after the attacks, the American public called for stricter, not looser, control of borders. Recognizing the altered political landscape, Mr. Fox has instead called for expansion of guest-worker programs and amnesty for a smaller group of illegals.

"'This type of policy was tried in the 1950s and 1960s and touched off massive permanent illegal immigration to the United States,' said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

"'The alternative that Fox is offering relies on the revival of a failed guest-worker program that has served the interests of neither the United States nor Mexico,' Mr. Stein said. 'As enticing as the words 'temporary' and 'guest worker' might sound, we know from experience in this country and elsewhere around the world that there is nothing temporary about these schemes.' "

In contrast to this, things like Bush's stand on the Kyoto treaty is small potatoes.

"Bush and the Republicans are moving this country into leftist land as fast as Ted Kennedy can steer the bus."

You seem to be taking quite a few cheap shots at me. Am I the only target that you can hit?

You've certainly misfired on Bush, as no sane person would confuse pulling the U.S. out of the International Criminal Court with "moving this country into leftist land."

Do you even know what "Leftist" means?

I ask this question seriously, as you've claimed that even though Bush pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, that Bush has done "nothing" Conservative.

Nor have you managed to explain how killing U.S. funding for foreign abortions is "leftist" in your mind.

Your charges of leftism and liberalism are clearly erroneous, so one can pretty much only wonder whether you either don't understand what those terms mean or that you have no reluctance to toss false charges out at whomever your current enemy du jour might be.

Whatever your motivation, your results are surely lacking. You've made yourself a laughingstock on FR.

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