It seems the Bush presidency is effectively over, even though he’s going to be around for just over 23 months. His opponents hold Congress. His polling numbers have collapsed. Already, there is a battle within his party to anoint a successor.
This will make a lot of people happy because one of the things the Bush era has unleashed is permission to cast your political opponents in the worst possible light, along with a level of deviousness we have not seen from a White House staff in years.
Many are likely to see this as ugly payback time.
That’s wrong.
I disagree with just about everything President Bush has advanced, but I respect the presidency and understand its role. I don’t hate him, and I would argue now that his presidency is in collapse that you should not hate him either.
In Iraq, we are learning an old lesson.
The cost of warfare is so high that any rational society should reject it in all but the most extreme circumstances. Iraq was not an extreme circumstance at the beginning, it has become quite clear, although it may be now.
I am not arguing that those who oppose the president should soften their stand. The man deserves a strong opposition that challenges the assumptions of his presidency.
But this not about President Bush.
It is about the chance we have over the next two years to change the nation’s political discourse to somehow reflect what one might call the better angels of our nature.
We need to walk away from the sense of hateful disagreement that defined so much of the past decade and find a way to disagree respectfully.
Political positions are among our most cherished rights.
I was watching the State of the Union address last week and looking for the right metaphor, something that would imply substance on two sides and nothing in the middle. All I could come up with is a sandwich without peanut butter, a pretty petty comparison.
The president was gracious in welcoming the new speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in wishing the best to two members of Congress who are ailing, and in saluting the common and uncommon heroes who had their special places in the House for the State of the Union address.
That reminded me of something I saw in Holland, Mich., during the last presidential campaign. I went to watch Bush in action and came away not converted, for sure, but impressed. The people there were reaching out to him, and he was reaching back.
He was great. I disagreed with him.
But his backers loved him.
They deserve our respect, just as we deserve theirs.
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Unfortunately the Holland event was soured by the White House staff. It was intent on corralling reporters and keeping them from talking to folks at the rally. You have to wonder about a staff that doesn’t even trust its own supporters.
At the risk of igniting the rockets of the deep Bush haters, I would suggest that my western Michigan experience was a little version of the president’s big problem.
From the neocons (now gone) who ginned up the Iraq war to incompetents who couldn’t get water to New Orleans and at many other points, he has been deeply damaged by the behavior of his staff.
Why did Bush end up with such dubious people around him?
How did the atmosphere become so poisonous?
Those are questions historians should ask about this presidency and Bill Clinton’s before it. Clinton’s was a low point for comity as Republicans chased a semen-stained dress, sex lies and private behavior, transforming them into ammo for an impeachment that, to this day, seems ruinously political, foolish, vindictive and vicious to me.
For Bush, the war hasn’t worked. The intelligence plan hasn’t worked.
The domestic issues that confronted him when he first took office six years ago–health care, education, Social Security, immigration–are still sitting on the land like looming giants.
We have festering New Orleans as a constant reminder of one of the greatest failures of his presidency. We have 21,500 American troops lining up to go to who knows what in Iraq.
The big question now is how are we going to handle these challenges, this president’s failures.
We can back him into the corner and watch him scramble, or we can rise above that and look for common bonds, interests and values that advance a more noble cause, the interest of the United States, not just the passing interests of political parties.
That we have already seen in abundance.
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Charles M. Madigan is a Tribune senior writer and correspondent. E-mail: [email protected]