Good-Cop, Bad-Copping Obama

With a decade of rehearsal, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have their act down pat--the regular guy who never raises his voice and his hair-trigger partner who chews the scenery. After weeks of shaking up by the Snarler, here is the former Decider to sooth our nerves.

Defending his torture policy as unequivocally as his vice president has done, Bush gave an audience of business people yesterday a spoonful of sugar with the reheated argument that, after checking with the lawyers, he only did what was legal and necessary and that "the information we got saved lives."

If Obama differs, Bush insists, he is not going to blame him (implicitly for not saving lives). "Nothing I am saying is meant to criticize my successor," he said. "There are plenty of people who have weighed in. Trust me, having seen it first-hand. I didn't like it when a former president criticized me, so therefore I am not going to criticize my successor. I wish him all the best."

Such fake "generosity" is even more grating than Cheney's outright attacks on Obama for making the country less safe, but it's par for the course in Bush's act as the good cop in their collaboration.

Asked what he would like his legacy to be, the 43rd president had a ready answer:

"The man showed up with a set of principles, and he was unwilling to compromise his soul for the sake of popularity."

Or reality.

The Abbott and Costello of Presidents

Life after the White House is always problematic for former occupants. Jimmy Carter devoted himself to hammering up houses for poor people and monitoring elections in faraway places, Reagan retreated into Alzheimer's and Bush 41 started parachuting out of airplanes, but none ever put together a vaudeville act as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are doing.

The two will appear together at the Metro Toronto Convention Center on May 29th to, as a flier for the event promises, “discuss the challenges facing the world in the 21st century” for 90 minutes that will include audience questions.

How much they are being paid, why they are previewing their routine in Canada and what on earth possessed them to do it in the first place, the flier sayeth not.

For two men who presided during the impeachment of one for lying about sex in the Oval Office and the other for lying the country into an unnecessary war, it might be more seemly to leave 21st century challenges to Barack Obama and go off together and build houses or jump out of planes holding hands, if they crave joint activities.

But the lure of show biz is apparently irresistible. Who's on first, Bill? I don't know, George. No, he's on third...

Bush's Mellow Farewell

Nobody threw shoes (or rice either) at his farewell press conference this morning, but George W. Bush was blowing kisses at the assembled reporters and even his critics.

“They are not angry, they are not hostile people,” he said. “I view those who get angry and yell and say bad things and all that kind of stuff as just a few people in the country.”

The Decider is easing out the door by deciding not to ask for the second $350 billion of the bailout bill unless Obama asks him to do so: "I don't intend to make the request unless he specifically asks me to make it."

Meanwhile, the new President's transition team is reassuring Congress that they won't shovel the money out without transparency or accountability as Henry Paulson's people have.

Bush's appearance behind the podium today was a final reminder of the difference between a president posing as an affable guy and one who knows who he is and is listening carefully to substantive questions and thinking as he answers them.

The White House press corps will have to get back on its toes and into its running shoes next week to start reporting some actual news from the briefing room.

Will Obama Be Bad For Blogging?

Over two years and 2000 posts ago, George W. Bush made a blogger out of me. I was coasting along in octogenarian ease, writing an occasionally lofty OpEd piece or irate letter to the editor, when my reactions to what Bush was doing--rage, ridicule and disbelief--demanded a more immediate and unbuttoned outlet.

Now, with Barack Obama on the horizon, a different set of responses seems to be in order. The new president, unlike Bush, is familiar with the connections between words and actions, and what he does and says is likely to prompt more serious and prolonged thought than raw emotion, analysis rather than upset, not the best aphrodisiac for blogging spontaneity.

If so, that would be a social loss. As Andrew Sullivan noted in his recent Atlantic piece, "The wise panic that can paralyze a writer—the fear that he will be exposed, undone, humiliated—is not available to a blogger. You can’t have blogger’s block. You have to express yourself now, while your emotions roil, while your temper flares, while your humor lasts. You can try to hide yourself from real scrutiny, and the exposure it demands, but it’s hard. And that’s what makes blogging as a form stand out: it is rich in personality."

This melancholy mood is inspired by Jon Swift's now-annual collection of the best blog posts of the year. Reading these self-selected outpourings of estimable minds and hearts is a reminder that the most effective criticism is inspired by boobery rather than brilliance (see John Mason Brown's classic review of a Hamlet performance: "He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace").

Will next year's collection be as much fun to read? Will Obama, with his elegance and (please God) effectiveness, subdue us into nodding our heads in agreement and interjecting the occasional, tentative "Yes, but..."? Will a literate Leader of the Free World enslave our critical savagery?

Not to worry. Right from the start, with his choice of Rick Warren for the Inaugural benediction, the new President has indicated he will show clemency for bloggers. He will, at a minimum, provide enough mistakes and miscalculations to inspire us to keep saddling up and riding to the republic's rescue with our wit and wisdom.

Even Obama's most fervent admirers should not "misunderestimate" his capacity for the kind of folly that keeps life interesting and bloggers blogging.

Debriefing Bush

"I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." That, in a nutshell, is George W. Bush's valedictory thought about invading Iraq, in interviews with Charlie Gibson on ABC this week.

"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is [sic] a reason to remove Saddam Hussein," Bush added.

But the historical record shows that the "lot of people" consisted mainly of Dick Cheney and his henchman, relying on a swindling Ahmad Chalabi and torturing CIA intelligence into a false case against the Iraqi regime he was salivating to replace.

"We've really got to make the case" against Hussein, Bush told Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, "and I want you to make it" at the UN.

A few days later, according to the Washington Post, Powell was "taken aback" by "a 48-page, single-spaced compilation of Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, replete with drama, rhetorical devices and a kitchen sink full of allegations. The most extreme version of every charge the administration had made about Hussein, the document had been written, Powell concluded, under the tutelage of Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who shared all of his boss's hard-line views and then some."

In blaming faulty intelligence for a misbegotten war, Bush is exposing himself to history's choice of branding him either a fool or a lethal liar.

He would have done much better by looking back to George Washington's farewell words as he left the presidency:

"The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."

Wisdom of the Aged

Andrew Sullivan cites her for commentary "that knocks your socks off," but with the restraint more seemly for age, I just tip my hat to 82-year-old Helen Philpot of Texas and her college friend, Margaret Schmechtman of Maine, who have started an octogenarian blog that really rocks.

Ms. Philpot does not mince words:

"I am surprised that some of you are up in arms about my calling Sarah Palin a bitch, or John McCain an ass or even George Bush a jackass...Some of you are actually praying for me...

"Well this old broad is hurt...I am so sorry if I have offended any of you...

"New rules:

"I will stop calling George Bush a jackass when he stops calling me a terrorist: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

"I will stop calling John McCain an ass when he stops calling Barack Obama a socialist at every dog and pony show on the Straight Talk Express tour.

"I will stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops calling Obama a terrorist sympathizer. And I will stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops calling the parts of the country where I don’t live more Pro-American than the part of the country where I do live. And I will definitely stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops acting like a bitch.

"I’m old enough to remember the Republican party of Barry Goldwater--when the party stood for fiscal responsibility, small government and personal freedoms. I remember when I could talk with friends about politics and just agree to disagree. And then religious nut cases decided that if you didn’t agree with them you were immoral. So they went and elected George Bush President so he could take the Republican Party from being a party full of respectable people to a party filled with asses, jackasses and yes--bitches like Sarah Palin."

Ms. Philpot has a good memory and a salty tongue that makes some of her contemporaries (like me) sound timid and lame.

Fear-Mongering to the Finish

George W. Bush's political epitaph will read: "From first to last, he scared the hell out of the American people."

Starting with fabricated forebodings about Saddam Hussein's imminent plans to nuke us into oblivion, his Administration played the fear card all the way to this week's deadpan televised alarm about financial panic. At the White House meeting the next day, he warned Congressional leaders and the presidential candidates in his usual elegant phrasing, “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.”

In 2002, we had a president who made us want hide under our beds and, six years later, he was inspiring us to hide our money under the mattress.

Franklin D. Roosevelt started his tenure by telling Americans, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In a new century, when the new president came to office, political prophets should have told us, "The only thing we have to fear is Bush himself."

Even the most diehard horror-movie lovers will find eight years of being terrified too much. For the next White House movie, they will be looking for a new theme. Hope, perhaps.

The Iraq Time Bomb

As a lame duck president announces a minuscule withdrawal of several thousand troops out of more than 140,000 by next March, the rising suicide rate of active-duty soldiers and returning veterans offers a glimpse of the time bomb George W. Bush is leaving behind in American life with a misbegotten war that has killed 4155, wounded more than 30,000 and psychically scarred who-knows-how-many young men and women for years to come.

For what? To fulfill the pipe dreams of armchair Neo-Con warriors who never wore a uniform, drain more than half a trillion dollars from a sagging economy and allow John McCain to campaign for president wearing a Navy cap and prattle about "victory" in an occupation with no end in sight.

As the Army suicide rate threatens to surpass that of the general population, the Secretary of the Army admits, "Army leaders are fully aware that repeated deployments have led to increased distress and anxiety for both soldiers and their families. This stress on the force is validated by recent studies of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression."

How did this abomination of a war that led outraged voters to take away Republican control of Congress less than two years ago recede into an abstraction that barely registers on their list of concerns now?

How did all the blood and emotional distress of the past five years and the pain of years to come suddenly fade from consciousness.

As we mourn the victims of 9/11 tomorrow, we should give some thought to those who have died since and those yet to die from a failure of American leadership after that trauma.

McCain's Answered Prayers

The candidate's faith in a Higher Power must be stronger today with news that Hurricane Gustav will keep George W. Bush from raining on his parade in the Twin Cities this week.

Three years late, the President will be heading to Texas to cope with possible devastation by Nature, thereby sparing the Republican Convention reminders of his failures during Katrina as well as seven years of wrong-headed war and economic storms.

For a conclave with nothing to celebrate, the hurricane emergency will allow Republicans to take the solemn, prayerful tone that suits them best instead of concentrating on made-made political problems that can be solved by policy decisions and good judgment in the White House.

President Bush relied on the guidance of a "Higher Father" in deciding to invade Iraq. For such believers as John McCain and Sarah Palin, it may be a blessing that divine guidance is taking him South this week instead of Minnesota.

A President From Nowhere

After Barack Obama or John McCain leaves the White House, where will future generations go to tour the boyhood home that shaped a president? Hawaii? Indonesia? The Panama Canal Zone?

For a long time, I lived near Hyde Park, where FDR was born and spent his years before moving into the White House. "All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River," he said as he was making history, and American generations can still visit, see and touch the reality that formed him and told him who he was and could be.

For the candidates in this election there is, as Gertrude Stein said, no there there. "Obama and McCain," Peggy Noonan writes, "are not from a place, but from an experience" and the "lack of placeness with both candidates contributes to a sense of their disjointedness, their floatingness."

This 21st century identity gap started with George W. Bush, who was born in Connecticut, grew up in Texas and spent most of his life before politics trying to figure out who he was and where he belonged. No matter how often we see him cutting brush, our sense of who he is and where he came from remains hazy.

For Obama, lack of a geographical label may even be an advantage, George Packer claims in the New Yorker, asserting that "a black man who, unlike Obama, is deeply rooted in America is probably unelectable today. His rootedness would be inseparable from his blackness, an identity that has to recede far into the background for a black candidate to have a chance."

And yet, anxiety about both candidates today may have much to do with the voters' sense that, as Noonan says, one of them is "from Young. He's from the town of Smooth in the state of Well Educated. He's from TV" and the other "from Military. He's from Vietnam Township in the Sunbelt state."

In the past century, Warren G. Harding campaigned from the front porch of his Victorian house in Marion, Ohio, which is still there for anyone who pays $6 to look at and wander through as is the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan in Dixon, Illinois, complete with a bowl of the popcorn he liked to munch before he went to California and invented himself first as an actor and then as a politician.

Our next president's defining home will not be geographical but a set of images on the Internet from all over the world, and we can only hope that that lack of a specific locale won't keep him from being grounded in reality.

This Bud's for You, Mrs. McCain

The impending sale of Anheuser-Busch, brewer of Budweiser, to a Belgian conglomerate will make Cindy McCain much richer than she already is from her inherited distributorship, and the Wall Street Journal is busy toting up how much.

If her husband makes it to the White House, he won't be the first president with family money from the booze business. JFK's father, son of a Boston saloon keeper who went into politics, built his fortune on importing Scotch after Prohibition and, according to rumors, even during the period it was illegal.

Bluenoses who find such alcoholic connections objectionable may want to remember that all our current problems come from the fact that George W. Bush gave up drinking, found God and became intoxicated with presidential power.

In January, whether or not the McCains move into the White House, we can all raise a toast to his departure.

Paternal Politics

Now that Jesse Jackson has reassured us about Barack Obama's genitals, it's time to consider what prompted the Reverend's rage--the candidate's criticism of African-American fathers for failing their children--as part of a larger subtext of this election.

On all sides, it involves issues about American manhood in the 21st century and the troubling rites of passage from one generation to the next.

Start with George W. Bush who was moved to take up a war left unfinished by paternal prudence and turned toward "a higher Father" for guidance.

Enter John McCain, son and grandson of Admirals who, after writing "Faith of My Fathers," is campaigning for the White House based on the premise that the Head of State in an age of terror should be a reassuring paterfamilias.

Then there is Obama, searching for a father he never knew in "Dreams from My Father" and, in his presidential campaign, calling out men who aren't there for their children and challenging them to take up their responsibilities.

Add to the oedipal mix the outraged reaction of Jesse Jackson's son at his attack on Obama for raising such questions, and there is an overarching issue about American manhood in our time.

Aside from all else, voters will be choosing between John McCain's macho approach and Barack Obama's nurturing, protective style at the head of the national table.

Hillary Clinton's candidacy would have raised the question of whether such gender stereotypes are the only choices, but the answer to that will have to wait for another time.

Separation of Church and State, Sort Of

Barack Obama is promising Americans another faith-based presidency but asking us to trust him not to pervert it, as George W. Bush did, "to promote partisan interests."

That may take a leap of faith on the part of those drawn to Obama's new politics as an antidote to eight years of seeing Bush-Rove, to use a JFK era phrase, "pour God over everything like ketchup."

In his speech yesterday, Obama was tightrope-walking between his understanding of church-state separation, "as someone who used to teach constitutional law," and the yearnings of those "bitter" Americans who "cling to religion" as a result of their frustrations.

Declaring that "the challenges we face today--from saving our planet to ending poverty--are simply too big for government to solve alone," Obama on-the-other-handed, "I’m not saying that faith-based groups are an alternative to government or secular nonprofits. And I’m not saying that they’re somehow better at lifting people up.

"What I’m saying is that we all have to work together-- Christian and Jew, Hindu and Muslim, believer and non-believer alike--to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Now, I know there are some who bristle at the notion that faith has a place in the public square. But the fact is, leaders in both parties have recognized the value of a partnership between the White House and faith-based groups."

Obama has understandably been working hard to reassure the gullible that he is not a threat to mainstream American ideals, and only the most rabid of his admirers would take issue with his doing that. But zealotry is something else.

"I came to see my faith," he said yesterday, "as being both a personal commitment to Christ and a commitment to my community, that while I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I went out and did the Lord’s work."

As a reflection of his character, that's good to know but, for those who see separation of church and state as a bedrock American principle, it has haunting echoes of George W. Bush.

The Genius of George W. Bush

In an era of information and ideas moving at the speed of light, the rehabilitation has begun on both sides of the Atlantic.

Over here, David Brooks celebrates Bush's "stubbornness" and asserts that "when it comes to Iraq, Bush was at his worst when he was humbly deferring to the generals and at his best when he was arrogantly overruling them. During that period in 2006 and 2007, Bush stiffed the brass," took the advice of such strategic geniuses as Dick Cheney, John McCain and Lindsey Graham and, lo and behold, the Surge "has produced large, if tenuous, gains."

Before long, Brooks concludes that "the more honest among the surge opponents will concede that Bush, that supposed dolt, actually got one right." If playing nursemaid to a dysfunctional government, having American troops patrol Baghdad in rolling steel fortresses and spending billions of dollars with no end in sight is getting it right, Brooks may have a point about his "supposed dolt."

On the other side of the ocean, Andrew Roberts of the Telegraph sees Bush as a latter-day Harry Truman "who set the United States on the course that ended decades later in the defeat of Communism.

"If the West wins the modern counterpart of that struggle, the War Against Terror, historians will look back in amazement at the present unpopularity of George W Bush, and marvel at it quite as much as we now marvel at the 67 per cent disapproval rates for Truman throughout 1952."

If, as the saying goes, wishes were horses, we would all be riding in style and George W. Bush would be leading the parade. It's comforting that we may be "misunderestimating" him, but there will be plenty of time to think about that when he is out power and has stopped saving the world.

Bush Breaking New Ground in Lawbreaking

In the annals of presidential crime, George W. Bush is setting records again, this time violating a law he signed into existence less than a year ago.

By failing to appoint a White House coordinator for preventing nuclear terrorism, as required by Congress in a bill passed by a wide bipartisan margin last August, the Decider is going beyond using signing statements, as he has in the past, to invalidate legislation he doesn't like.

This time, according to the Boston Globe, he is just ignoring the requirement for an "adviser focused solely on organizing the government to prevent terrorists from acquiring catastrophic weapons, such as a nuclear device, a radioactive 'dirty bomb,' or biological agents."

The new law, advocated by national security experts since before 9/11, was prompted by a recent Pentagon finding that the current practice of Defense, State, Energy and Homeland Security departments going their own uncoordinated way to prevent nuclear proliferation "risks creating gaps and redundancies."

The White House apparently disagrees but, in the face of veto-proof passage, the President signed on and is just ignoring the new law.

"Congress," the Globe quotes a law professor specializing in separation of powers, "has the authority to create by statute different responsibilities in executive departments. You can't ignore a valid statute. I don't think he has the authority to do that."

But George W. Bush is doing it, no doubt to the delight of the terrorists we are fighting over there so we don't have to fight them back here.

Bravely Facing the Bushless Years

The keyboard keys are soggy with tears at the thought of no more Bushes in our national life after almost three decades, but George W. and Laura are consoling us with the prospect that Jeb may save us.

In interviews this weekend, the departing President and First Lady tried to ease our sense of loss.

"Well, we've got another one out there who did a fabulous job as governor of Florida, and that's Jeb,” W. said. “But you know, you better ask him whether or not he's thinking of running. But he'd be a great president."

Mrs. Bush was just as sensitive to the emptiness we are all feeling. "One of the reasons George and his brother, Jeb, served in office is because they admired their father so much," she said and when asked whether that meant her husband was not the last Bush, responded: “Well, who knows. We'll see."

Those with long memories are still nostalgic over grandfather Prescott Bush who entered the Senate over half a century ago, starting a tradition of public service for the family whose banking activities helped finance Adolf Hitler’s war machine for World War II.

What will we do without another Bush to pull us all together in a profitable effort to defeat the nation's future enemies?

John McCain's Wish

The Republican nominee disclosed his heart's desire today.

"I am intrigued by a man on Mars and I think that it would excite the imagination of the American people if we can say, 'Hey, here's what it looks like," John McCain said.

Was he thinking of sending George W. Bush sometime before November?

Bush's Last Crack at bin Laden?

Unredeemable as his tenure may seem, George W. Bush could leave office on a high note with, to borrow his cowboy terminology, Osama bin Laden's scalp.

After 9/11, Bush said of the al Qaeda mastermind, "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'"

Now, according to an Arabic TV network, "in the past few days US security and military officials had a top-level summit at a military base in the Qatari capital, Doha, to plan an operation to hunt for the al-Qaeda leader.

"General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq and the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Petersen, were reported to have attended the summit...

"Reports say that the CIA has located the Saudi terrorist in so-called 'rooftop of the world.' the area of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan to the west, in particular the chain of mountains of Nurestan and China to the north."

We have heard all this before and from more reliable sources, but what could salvage Bush's legacy more--and bolster McCain's chances to succeed him--than finally "getting" bin Laden?

Earlier this month, after the President's Middle East tour, the al Qaeda leader was shifting his emphasis away from Iraq and Saudi Arabia by proclaiming, "We will continue, God permitting, the fight against the Israelis and their allies...and will not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on earth."

In the past seven years, our Commander-in-Chief has failed to silence that taunting voice. Will we be seeing a last-ditch effort to do that now?

A Grateful Nation Turns Its Back

Returning from World War II, my generation was welcomed home with open arms, gratitude and a GI Bill to pay for our college education.

For its counterpart today, a New York Times editorial points out, "the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break."

Luckily, His Lame Duckness will be overruled by a Congress facing reelection and more sensitive to the popular will, but what does all this say about George W. Bush and his wannabe successor, the warrior patriot, John McCain?

According to the Times, "Mr. Bush--and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain--have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put."

Even worse, McCain has used the issue to attack Barack Obama, who supports the bill: "I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did," he huffed, overlooking the small point that his antagonist was six years old when McCain was taken POW in Vietnam.

In the Bush-McCain worldview, the citizen soldiers of the Greatest Generation have morphed into personnel whose lives come second to the needs of a military that has been stretched to the breaking point in Iraq

Responding to McCain's attack, Obama said, "It's disappointing that Senator McCain and his campaign used this issue to launch yet another lengthy personal, political attack instead of debating an honest policy difference."

"Disappointing" is a mild word for what the proprietors of the Iraq war are doing with their opposition to the 21st century version of what the Times says "became known as one of the most successful benefits programs--one of the soundest investments in human potential--in the nation’s history."

Bush's Ultimate Indecency

Anyone looking for a new definition of "obscenity" should consult George W. Bush's remarks today at the 60th anniversary celebration of the birth of Israel.

The man who set off needless bloodshed in the Middle East five years ago chose to lecture survivors of the Holocaust about appeasement.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush told the Israeli Knesset.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is--the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

This President may not know much about appeasement, but he is the model of those who have been and will be discredited by history.

Barack Obama, who now seems America's only hope to begin to undo the Bush damage to America's moral standing in the world, had an answer:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel.

"George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

It's sad that we have to wait until next January to rid ourselves of Bush's ignorant indecency.