The legacy of the Shrub

Remove all ads!

That is true, Clinton's choices for service heads were not based on strategic ability (or even tactical for that matter).

 

This thread has helped to prove a notion I have: Supporters of GWB have very little to point to regarding the "Great Accomplishments of the GWB Presidency." I suppose GWB' s "legacy" shall be an ongoing debate about the successes or failures of Bill Clinton. What else can they talk about?

 

I don't think T2 counts as a GWB supporter, but I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm mistaken.

The one thing I can point to that BII should get credit for: aid to Africa. Those folks love him, with good reason.

 

AM - I was not only referring to T2, but to the lack of discussion about what specifically GWB has done that can be pointed to as a genuine accomplishment on this thread - by anybody.

 

Chandos you started the Tomahawk derailment-- don't confuse the issue by getting back on topic.

As far as Bush's legacy -- very simply put: the first 90 days or so following 9/11 will always be the crowning achievement for Bush. In those first few weeks after the attack Bush was everything we would ever hope a president could be. Unfortunately, the remaining 7 years and nine months have not been quite to the same standard.

 

Well, yes and no, T2. I was responding to an earlier post by someone else who brought up Clinton trying to "derail" the topic of Monica by attacking BL. The odd comment about a tomahawk missle was something I remebered a Republican commenting on at the time. I don't think the Republican cared much about whether it was a missle or a +3 longsword - he was just hoping to impeach Bill.

 

T2,
as for the 'crowning achievement', I know this is about perception, and that Bush played very well on the symbolism lute. I think your memory kindly puts lipstick on the metaphorical pig.

In the first days after 9/11 it was Cheney, demented as he is in his obsession to avenge Watergate's infringements of presidential power, who ran the show and made the decisions.

You're aware that it was with great probability in those 90 days post 9/11 that Bush decided to invade Iraq to transform the Middle East into Freedomland (tm)? On September 20, 2001 that British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with President George Bush at the White House. According to former British Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer, who also attended the dinner, Bush indicates that he is determined to remove Saddam Hussein from power: "We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."

And with just as great probability it was in those 90 days that they decided to "take the gloves off in interrogations" (= officially order violations of the ill treatment clause in the CAT, a criminal act under US code), leading to the (after that imo inevitable) excesses. The motivational mix was: them a**holes don't deserve better; they don't deserve rights; it's for a good cause; wonderful precedent for the unitary executive theory - not to mention the delusion that it is effective. Only shortly after, in January 2002, Bush famously went further and decided that in his GWOT the Geneva Conventions don't apply. Unsurprisingly, that view is false, but it is consistent in it's falseness, and the hitherto unknown 'enemy combatant' was conjured up as a justification (legend has it that it manifested from a burst of hot air out of David Addington's behind).

 

That may be true Ragusa, but it is still conjecture on your part (along with some opinion that has no factual basis). Any president is only as good as his cabinet and advisors. Dick Cheney would count there. The president, in time of crisis, should allow experts to do their jobs, put people in charge of key area that can excel at the task, and restore the faith of the people in their government. Bush did all that.

I've already conceded the rest of the two terms as mediocre (and at times dismal) -- surely, you can concede a few months when Bush did things right.

 

T2,
I strongly object to 'no factual basis' and 'opinion'. While my post is fact based, attribute my choice of words to sarcasm rather than opinion. It's a verdict.

Cheney's and Addington's intent to roll back the perceived infringements of presidential authority after Watergate is an established fact and has been widely reported on.

As for the meeting with Blair and the ambassador, that is also a fact. Why not accept it? They wanted war with Iraq, not so much because Saddam posed a threat, but rather because he did not. "Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just al-Qaeda?" as Paul Wolfowitz so memorably put it, adding that Iraq was a "brittle, oppressive regime that might break easily — it was doable". I do not read great fear of Saddam's WMD out of that.

As for the intended aim of that attack, Bush's ideas about transforming the Middle East are established facts as well. What you apparently refuse to accept is the possibility, nasty as it is in its implications, that Bush attacked Iraq just to make a point, or rather, to make Iraq a starting point for revolutionary change in the region.

As a pre-emptive addition: What you wrote about that work of chosen aidees applies here as well: When it reads that 'some in the Bush administration' hoped that the fall of Saddam Hussein would be followed by a "democratic domino" effect across the Middle East — Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Cheney, whoever else — note that they got their way, and that means a presidential signature — which means Bush, the decider, signed off on it. Bush shares their laurels as much as the rotten fruits of their follies. I don't need to tell you about command responsibility.

I have already lined out why the Bush line on the Geneva conventions is nonsense (somewhat old, but nevertheless actual in it's legal aspects) and decyphered the mythical enemy combattant. We ended with you saying: "You're entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine," and me saying: "You're entitled."

As for the violation of the ill-treatment clause (that's my conservative take on the issue btw), Bush didn't seek retroactive immunity in the detainee treatment act for nothing. Amusingly his success in getting it in the US, signals to everyone that there will be no prosecutions of this in the US, and sets up up the very people he is trying to protect for prosecution abroad. Blowback, eh?

 

Wesley Clark said as much, though he didn't name his source.

 

Someone, I don't know who, was so kind as to call the content of my old thread-links in my last post "discredited & tired old crap". I ask him or her to indulge us into what exactly is so discredited about them, if he or she is capable of spelling that out.

That said, the Bush administration's elaborations (to put it friendly) on Geneva and the CAT with respect to detainee treatment have been consistently false without any notable changes, and the Geneva Conventions and the CAT didn't change too, so there was no need for me to modify the points I made then.

 

Your "opinion that has no factual basis" was:

It seems that you simply cannot talk about this administration (or pretty much any US government agency) without personal attacks on members of the administration.

 

T2,
that is because the good things don't hit the news so much recently, and considering the extent to which Bush has politicised the executive branch the good things get fewer and, unsurprisingly, tales of incompetence get more frequent. That happens when you eliminate experienced career administrators and replace them with politicos. I see that with regret and some concern.

Try to treat the information you get from me independent from the source. There's my sarcasm and my well deserved mockery, and then there's the facts I bring up. That are two things I am sure you can handle separately. It is up to you what you do with it. As for 'demented' reflecting purely opinion, no, and I insist, it does not.

Why demented? That is my conclusion based on Cheney's view on executive powers. It isn't exactly so as if president Reagan has suffered from a lack of power when he faced the Soviets. I would argue that, to the contrary, US power was on its zenith - but presidential power was at it's nadir! Probably that is why the US didn't 'win the cold war' decisively! And as Bush Sr.'s SecDef, Cheney must have suffered greatly from having his hands so bound (sarcasm alert).

Take Cheney and Iran-Contra, to him Iran-Contra was just a consequence of the president's rights having been infringed upon. What you find there is one of the first incarnations of the unitary executive doctrine. For Cheney Iran-Contra never was about the lawbreaking of the administration members. For him the law that was broken 'reflected a boundless view of congressional power' and could thus be ignored. Selling arms to Iran, that was then under US embargo, to finance a covert war explicitly prohibited by congress is perfectly fine, because congress must not restrain the president anyway. That is the logic of a zealot.

What Cheney and Addington invoke is eventually something non-American. It originates from the theories of the German legal scholar Carl Schmitt on the state of exception. I find this enthusiasm for Schmitt-ian theory as exhibited by Cheney and the federalist society seriously troubling, after all Schmitt was the chief legal ideologist for the German Nazi regime. Schmitt, living in the tumultuous Weimar Republic had witnessed first open civil war and then a tenuous democracy, finally with open clashes between reds and brown shirts on the streets. It certainly informed his view that promotes a strong executive because he sees democracy as unstable in emergencies and crises. Legislative bodies are just too slow and cumbersome to effectively and efficiently address contingencies. Thus, a strong, unrestrained leader is called for. Cheney's view of the presidency has a dark core. Scott Horton has an excellent summary on this somewhat esoteric subject, put into the context of the Yoo and Bybee memos that 'breathe Schmitt' (here's another one, on his own blog). Both articles are strongly recommended.

Cheney sending the GAO asking him what he did with taxpayer money on the Energy Task Force pizza receipts, that is just telling them and the constitutional order FU writ large - and that was when Cheney had a friendly and compliant GOP controlled congress, that then promptly threatened to cut the budged of the GAO. To me that indicates a problematic attitude towards democratic process in general. Cheney is judging by his actions antidemocratic and by tendency authoritarian. He's a man on a mission to roll back the post-watergate legislation, namely any oversight that has been put in place after the abuses of presidential power had been uncovered after Nixon - something I sum up as 'demented', not so much because I want to insult Cheney, but because I do not see a notable weakness in US presidential power with oversight that has to be rectified: Cheney is like Don Quichote charging at windmills.

 

I do. That's why I didn't argue against any of your points of conjecture. They could very well be true. However, your feelings about Cheney are opinions -- I find it hard to understand how everyone can think Cheney is in charge. Bush is the President, he is making the decisions, his advisors (including Cheney) are ensuring his decisions are carried out. Cheney is bulldog, deeply loyal to this country; he is also a Washington powerhouse -- both of these things Bush needed. Cheney is filling a role, not doing Bush's job (I personally think Cheney would have been a better president, but that's opinion).

 

For anyone wondering I just felt the need to express this opinion. From what I know of Ragusa and I have followed his posts for quite some time he is rather right wing by European standards. So basically his critique of the Bush administration is a European right wingers critique, the left is generally unable to get past comparisons of Bush with the devil or possibly Hitler.

I apologize to Ragusa if I have misunderstood him completely and it might be presumptous of me to explain his motivations but I do find it relevant if only to again highlight the difference between the American and European political landscape.

 

Cheney is as the VP Bush's executive officer. That is the deal he has with Bush and what Cheney meant when he said he had a different understanding with Bush.

That's quite a step from what the VP used to be. Cheney has turned the office into something altogether new. I do not deny Cheney buereaucratic savvy and skill. Cheney had an excellent staff, and a brilliant chief of staff in Libby - the guy ran circles around Condi and Powell. Addington is a capable lawyer. It's just that the whole buch are hardcore ideologues with crazy ideas. How crazy exactly their ideas were you can judge by looking at the all trouble they got Bush into, when he followed their advice (which he did more often than not).

I have no doubt that Bush has the last word. Bush is the decider. No doubt, Cheney is smart enough to let Bush sign off on all the things he does.

 

Yes, yes, yes....

Cheney: Big supporter of Vietnam - and with draft deferments out the wazoo. He has always claimed that it was "to attend college" but that's just a cop-out. He worked with none other than Donald Rumsfeld in the Nixon adminstration where he learned how to use the Justice Dept to further the political agenda of the presidency.

It is little wonder that the Justice Department is left in a state of shambles after the current adminstration attempted to further its own poltical agenda with the Department in never heard of before ways and that the late Nixon could have only dreamt.

The destruction of credibilty and the politicization of almost every aspect of the executive departments within the administration are probably GWB's biggest negatives, IMO - Rank incompetence and cronyism have been the tradmarks of failure in Washington for as long as I can remember, but this is an adminstration that has reveled in them and taken them to new heights.

Ragusa has often referred to the Bushmen as "kids who need adult supervision." But he is far too kind, because for me they are plunderers of a great nation, who have demonstrated the worst of those who become "drunk on power," and who are vastly loyal to each other, but with not much loyalty to their high offices, nor to the People to whom they owe that power.

 

To clear up what I think about Cheney's role in the administration: Cheney is the president's counterweight to the professional departments, especially State, Defense and Justice. He is Bush's wild card.

What do I mean with that? The Bushies like to babble about 'all options being on the table'. It appears Cheney managed to convince Bush that the departments withhold him options. It has been Cheney who took care that those options always included the most ideological and kookiest ones that were refused by the professionals as outright crazy - like insisting that nuclear options remain on the table, or a maximalist view of presidential powers usually brought forth by Addington, or the most hard line view on foreign policy.

So what Bush does is to use Cheney to play out Cheney against Gates, Rice and Mukasey, and thanks for his savvy Cheney often carries the day. Bush occasionally also plays out Gates, Rice and Mukasey against Cheney, probably just to remind Cheney of his place (like when he sent out a minion to undermine policy when Bush had decided against Cheney's advice). Bush has the last word. I don't know how Cheney managed to persuade Bush on giving his VP office such a role. Probably he played on Bush's narcissism and pre-existing resentment towards the establishment (I read that for example out of Bush mocking reporters because they speak proper french). Anyway, no matter how savvy Cheney's crew is, where they wreak havoc on the nation is in the internal power struggles in D.C.

What strikes me as silly in all this is that it is not a collegial working climate but an adversial one. Other conservative administrations didn't need that, and the only reason I see why Cheney might have wanted this adversial climate is because it is the only way for Cheney to push through his ideological hard line, since experienced and knowledgeable people tend to refuse such crazy policies (that are the dreaded 'realists', traitors to the will of the president as right-wing lore has it). Think of Cheney and Telecom spying on Americans - that was so crazy that not even Ashcroft (!) wanted sign it off (the hospital episode).

That organisational approach generates friction and results in inevitable contradictions in the resulting policies that can be easily observed under Bush's reign on many policy fields - Bush pushes through one of those crazy, ideological ideas, like breaking the law on intercepting domestic phonecalls, the pros get disturbing nightmares because they understand the implications from that, namely looming prosecutions (apparently a view they and federal judges hold because they lack Addington's ... transcendental understanding of presidential authority, they are ... conservative in this respect). They go to Bush and point out the problem - and he pardons them and himself. Now everybody calls Bush a hypochrite, even though all he did is blundering into this situation by ordering an ill-advised and half-assed policy that left him no choice but to eventually use his pardon powers to save his butt. Pitted against each other in eternal infighting, this is really the crew that can't shoot straight, and that is in part due to Cheney's disruptive role as a wild card (and in part due to Rove conducting the 'eternal campaign' on behalf of the GOP, but that's another subject). Both factors put an overriding emphasis on ideology in policy, to an extent that I would call almost Stalinist.

The resulting dysfunctionality, and here I don't even address his policies per se, is probably one of the single most important factors for why Bush's policies have often generated so disastrous results, domestically or in Iraq. In the infighting between the Cheney/Rumsfeld crowd and the others Bush royally dealt out favours and enjoyed watching his minions savaging each other - without having an apparent interest to make than work as a team (as in "collaboration", and as opposed to being loyal and obedient to the decider guy after he has spoken). Obvious blunders like having no post invasion plan for Iraq are easily explained that way: Bush never was able to do that in his entire reign, which suggest to me that he doesn't mind because he likes it that way.

EDIT: Bush is the decider guy who gets to decidify. But that's all he does. He is the COC, the 'Chooser of Options in Chief'. He doesn't lead. He decides on conflicts between the factions in his administration in that he decides in favour of one or the other on the policy options they present, but he doesn't govern his administration. That is significant, and Bush's primary and fatal flaw as president because that is the only duty he cannot and must not delegate. That's what's worse than a crime ... /EDIT

What concerns me as a foreigner directly beyond the damage this does to the US itself, and the fallout of it's awful foreign policy that damages us, is that this made Bush an unreliable partner and the US an unpredictable nation.

It turned assessing the current political wind in D.C. into Kremlinology. The results? It happened a lot to foreign nations that their diplomats worked hard and undertook great efforts to reach an agreement with a nation they negotiated with on US behalf, only to see their efforts thwarted by internal D.C. power struggles in the last minute. That of course cost them credibility and goodwill with their negotiating partners. The US did this routinely to all their allies and it cost their diplomatic services time and effort, not to mention taxpayer money, that could have been constructively spent on something that benefited their nations. It certainly explains the quiet exasperation when little Miss Condi comes around to ask them for their participation in another one of her ill fated diplomatic initiatives.

 

...And how the Bushmen "savaged" Colin Powell. It was both a fascinating and horrific spectacle to see such a widely respected American used as the "sacrificial lamb" for the neocon altar...and Americans remained very compalcent while it happened.

 

Chandos,
as for savaging, what they did to Powell and how they did it is of secondary importance to me in this context. I was using the term to describe the intensity of the infighting.