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Tuesday, January 13. 2009
Misunderestimated
After watching the press conferences of both President Bush and President-Elect Obama, I was hard-pressed to come up with something to say. The differences between the two men are evident — we are going to miss the Bushisms. The press “misunderestimated” Bush? That alone is a big difference in the two, although hardly a policy point that needs serious criticism.
President-elect Obama appears to take his job, and the contact with the press that comes with that job, seriously. Bush, not so much. I guess we can assume, since the alternative is too frightening, Bush took his job seriously, but he really never took the task of speaking to the press seriously.
Bush, a man who has no intellectual curiosity about much of anything when it comes to government and governing, looked to answer questions in sound bites that were easy for him to remember but said very little.
Obama, on the other hand, is a very active policy wonk, and can get caught up in the detail of ideas and policies causing his intellectual curiosity to spill out into the press conferences as he goes beyond simply answering questions; Obama explains the question and the answer.
And Obama doesn’t call reporters by nicknames, he uses their real names and the news organization that employs them. Barack Obama, if this style remains, will be a refreshing change from the past eight years, although we will be sadly disappointed by the lack humor, something which all of us appreciate about George W. Bush. There was very little of note.On the other hand, while perusing one of my usual forums, Miss March gave a synopsis of the Sunday Morning news program, Sunday Morning on CBS, in particular, their “First Draft of the Bush Legacy.”
The segment took a look at the polls of two colleges noted for their History Departments, Siena and George Mason colleges. Of the 744 historians polled by Siena, 82% said Bush was a “failed president.” In the poll taken by George Mason, 90% of the 109 historians polled said Bush was a failed president.
Several prominent historians were quoted on the program. One of those, Douglas Brinkley, said, “As a judicial historian looking at what’s occurred on his watch, it is almost void of genuine accomplishment.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist, Joseph Ellis, was somewhat more conciliatory towards Bush: “I think President Bush might very well be the worst president in U.S. history. He’s unusual. Most two-term presidents have a mixed record. Lyndon Johnson, one of the greatest achievements in the 20th century was civil rights legislation; on the other hand you have the extraordinary tragedy of Vietnam. Even Richard Nixon opened the door to China and had foreign policy credentials. Bush has nothing on the positive side, virtually nothing.”Well, that wasn’t very conciliatory at all, but the sum of the segment was that the first draft of history on the Bush Administration would be dismal. Bush’s supporters countered that of course, but these were people who are and did work in the Bush White House. They believe history will give Bush high marks, especially in foreign relations. We have to admire their loyalty and optimism.
But Miss March’s synopsis wasn’t really the most interesting part, what really caught my attention were the replies to her post, one in particular that was a regurgitation of the falsehoods spewed out by the extreme right wing of the political spectrum.
The poster started by saying 9/11 was not Bush’s fault, that responsibility belonged to President Clinton and that it took everyone by surprise. Well, neither is true in the least. The poster claimed Clinton had so severely cut the budgets for the military and intelligence agencies they couldn’t do their jobs.
Well, that’s false. While Clinton did cut the military budget, it didn’t hamper their ability to monitor terrorist organizations, as noted in the official report by the 9/11 Commission. Problems with the intelligence, according to the Commission, had to do with the communication and the wall of separation between domestic surveillance and that of international spying. We were getting a lot of information, but from long-standing laws governing the gathering of that information, the CIA and NSA, for instance, were barred from sharing that information with the FBI.
Nor was the attack on September 11, 2001 a surprise. Richard Clarke, in his testimony and in his book concerning his part in the failure to prevent 9/11, said he and his colleagues in government tracking Al Qa’ida had been giving the new Bush Administration reports warning of a coming attack on U.S. soil, but were rebuffed. According to Clarke, and then confirmed by the other principles involved in the Bush Administration, there was a national security estimate delivered to the White House a month before the attacks, titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”
Richard Clarke had worked in the White House on anti-terrorism issues since the Reagan Administration and was the Chief Advisor on counter-terrorism issues.
Despite the title and the detail provided in the “Presidential Daily Briefing,” Bush claimed there was nothing in the memo to suggest an attack was “imminent” and his national Security Advisor at the time, Condoleezza Rice, tried to make that claim during the 9/11 Commission hearings.
The poster goes on to excoriate Clinton for not pursuing the attackers of the first assault on the World Trade Center that occurred in 1993. Well, the truth is, a total of six people were found and convicted of carrying out that attack and all are serving life sentences. The poster claimed Clinton never went after the perpetrators of the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (the poster misspelled the name: “Kohl”).The suicide bombers were killed instantly but according to the 9/11 Commission and confirmed by Richard Clarke, Clinton had pursued Al Qa’ida and had authorized the CIA to kill Usama bin Laden if he were found. The CIA found him and according to the testimony of George Tenet, then the Director of the CIA, provided to the 9/11 Commission and confirmed in Clarke’s book, Tenet took it on himself not to carry out the order to kill bin Laden, thinking it might be a violation of law since assassination of foreign nationals is barred by U.S. domestic law.
President Clinton was furious with DCI Tenet when he failed to carry out Clinton’s order to kill bin Laden.
Geez, this is already moving in on 1,100 words and I haven’t even got to the part about the current recession being Clinton’s fault (he’s serious too), that Louisiana Democrats rebuffed federal help during Hurricane Katrina to make Bush look bad and that Saddam Hussein did have “weapons of mass destruction” when Bush started his war in Iraq. His proof? Hussein used biological and chemical weapons on the Kurds 20 years before Bush started the Iraq War when Hussein was our ally, before the first Gulf War.
Yet this same poster excoriates Clinton for ordering the bombing of Iraq to get Hussein to comply to U.N. resolutions, an option that was available to Bush, had there been any real intelligence to indicate Hussein had such weapons.
The point is, the Bush apologists are out there and still disseminating this information as if it is true. Nothing is Bush’s fault; all the blame lies with Bill Clinton — and his wife of course. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is currently vetting her for her appointment as the next Secretary of State. That’s been a mostly smooth confirmation hearing — except for Senator Vitter, the Louisiana Republican who brought out charts to use as he pounded Hillary Clinton about foreign donations to her husband’s charity, the Clinton Global Initiative. That was entertaining.
Not to mention, the poster also insisted Barack Obama “stole” the 2008 election. Seriously. How? Obama decided to go with private funding of his campaign rather than take the public financing McCain opted for when it was obvious he couldn’t raise money for his campaign.
Originally, I was going wax poetic about the joys and beauty of the grilled cheese sandwich and publicly thank my sister Cheryl for introducing me to this wonderfully delightful lunchtime treat. Now that I’m done with this, I’ll go make myself one! Yum!
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