Those old enough to remember Mad magazine's "Very Thin Books" will appreciate this image:
This is the cover from a honkin' 16,388,638 byte-sized PDF file, available for download from WhiteHouse.com (I kid!*) WhiteHouse.gov.
Here is Frank Rich's three-paragraph rebuttal:
Another, far more elaborate example of legacy spin can be downloaded from the White House Web site: a booklet recounting “highlights” of the administration’s “accomplishments and results.” With big type, much white space, children’s-book-like trivia boxes titled “Did You Know?” and lots of color photos of the Bushes posing with blacks and troops, its 52 pages require a reading level closer to “My Pet Goat” than “The Stranger.”
This document is the literary correlative to “Mission Accomplished.” Bush kept America safe (provided his presidency began Sept. 12, 2001). He gave America record economic growth (provided his presidency ended December 2007). He vanquished all the leading Qaeda terrorists (if you don’t count the leaders bin Laden and al-Zawahri). He gave Afghanistan a thriving “market economy” (if you count its skyrocketing opium trade) and a “democratically elected president” (presiding over one of the world’s most corrupt governments). He supported elections in Pakistan (after propping up Pervez Musharraf past the point of no return). He “led the world in providing food aid and natural disaster relief” (if you leave out Brownie and Katrina).
If this is the best case that even Bush and his handlers can make for his achievements, you wonder why they bothered. Desperate for padding, they devote four risible pages to portraying our dear leader as a zealous environmentalist.
* Well, that joke's passed its sell-by date. For those of you new to the Internets, WhiteHouse.com used to be a porn site. Now, sadly, it appears it no longer is. Another sign of the looming apocalypse impending American theocracy elevated discourse and return of decency to America, thanks to the election of Barack Obama, I feel certain.
5 comments:
I'll have you know that I got the WhiteHouse.com reference.
Will you hold Barack Obama and his team accountable if there's a terrorist attack in the first 8 months of the Administration? Could you extend that blame to Obama if 9/11 had never happened and it were to happen on September 11, 2009?
If the economic turmoil persists throughout Obama's term and his economic stimulus programs are ineffective will you blame him for the problems in the economy? I'm of the school that the President has virtually no control over the economy and that the credit they are given for its successes and failures is always way out of whack with what they can actually do to effect the economy.
President Bush's successes have been limited but I would say that since he will apparently leave without another domestic terrorist attack since 9/11 that that is his primary acheivement. I hope for all of our sake's that Barack Obama continues the streak. That said I think there will be a rough period of adjustment for Democrats when months and months go by with them in power without an Obama-based utopia arising; the Muslim world will still hate America, while our relationships with Europe may improve I'm not sure how important this will be; I'm alarmed by his choice of a CIA chief whose main qualification seems to be his anti-torture rep-- that seems like it would be more suitable in the UN Ambassador while I'd prefer competence in the CIA boss; I wouldn't be surprised if the Iranian nuclear genie gets out of te bottle on his watch; and most importantly despite the economic stimuli recovery is going to be very slow going.
This is not to say that Bush was a good President and certainly not to say that Obama will be a downgrade... but in talking about a Presidential legacy there is a sense that if Gore had won in 2000 that there wouldn't be problems with the economy, terrorism, foreign policy in the middle east, etc. And furthermore in looking at a Presidential legacy you must be setting the bar by which you will judge the next President; he will face many of the same problems as his predecessor and while he's promised "change" it's not clear that simply negating Bush's policies will equal success.
If a major terrorist attack on the US happens in September 2009, I will not be able to hold Obama responsible. I will be too busy ducking the gallons of ejaculate spurting from Greater Wingnuttia.
In the abstract beforehand, though, I will say this. George Bush is responsible for the heightened state of tension in the world and the increased anger towards the United States. That is, he is not responsible for all tension and anger -- that is due to a plethora of causes -- but the growth in both is on his head.
I will also say that Obama would not be solely responsible for any attacks, independent of the preceding. As you are arguing, the single man that is the president is not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent, nor does he have control over the hand he is dealt upon entering office.
In determining blame, much would depend on what choices he did or did not make in the time leading up. For example, if it appears as though the Obama Administration consciously dismissed pertinent input from the previous administration's people in the know, as Bush's people did with Richard Clarke and others, that would be on him.
Finally, Bush's claiming credit for "no attacks since then" is pretty weak beer, especially in light of the argument that's been being made since one minute after he was finally persuaded to put down his copy of "My Pet Goat" that he wasn't responsible for what did happen on his watch. And in any case, just about every president could claim "success" in "keeping us safe." Should we also thank Bush for the lack of major bolide impacts because he signed budgets that included funding for NASA?
On the possibility of a failed stimulus package and continued economic doldrums, I again agree with you that the president's ability to affect matters is not unlimited. I would also say that the structural problems may be too deep for any quick fix. I am inclined to believe, however, that the Republicans in Congress and the rightwing noise machine will likely be more responsible: for FUD-spreading, obstructing, and otherwise hamstringing what Obama wants to do. Sadly, I also predict that the Democrats in Congress and those who have clout with them will deserve blame, too, for spinelessness in standing up to the GOP and its propagandists, for failing to unify behind Obama when it counts, for infighting, for self-centeredness, and for attempts to lard up bills with pet projects.
In both of these cases, though, the reality of life is that the buck stops with the president. That means that he gets both more blame and more credit than he deserves, whether we're talking about national security or the health of the economy. Nothing to be done about that, any more than there is with managers in baseball.
On Gore instead of Bush: I continue to believe that if Al Gore had rightfully been inaugurated in 2001, we would not be in anywhere near as bad shape as we are. It is possible that the 9/11 attacks would still have happened, but I do not believe he would have aggravated the shock the way Bush did in the aftermath. I believe he would have done a much better job at channeling the desire of the American people to come together and their willingness to sacrifice into constructive ends. To name one example: putting in a large new gasline tax and using the proceeds to fund a meaningful alternative energy strategy.
I believe Gore would have not spit in the eye of the global goodwill available beginning 9/12/2001, and would have done a much better job building a cooperative effort to combat terrorists. I believe he would have been far less arrogant regarding the Geneva Conventions, other international norms and laws, and the U.S. Constitution. I believe he would not have pursued a boneheaded tax-cutting policy or seriously compounded the US national debt, and I certainly believe he would not have invaded Iraq.
In re-reading your comments, I am unsure whether I am arguing against you here.
"Simply negating Bush's policies" may not be the complete answer, but it will be a good start. And if you include this to mean "do things Bush did not do," that'll be another big step.
"I am inclined to believe, however, that the Republicans in Congress and the rightwing noise machine will likely be more responsible: for FUD-spreading, obstructing, and otherwise hamstringing what Obama wants to do. Sadly, I also predict that the Democrats in Congress and those who have clout with them will deserve blame, too, for spinelessness in standing up to the GOP and its propagandists, for failing to unify behind Obama when it counts, for infighting, for self-centeredness, and for attempts to lard up bills with pet projects."
If Obama can't get the bulk of his agenda through the Congress with the largest Congressional majorities in 30 years then I'm afraid that you will be the one who is selling weak beer if you want to blame the Republicans who, if they don't lose any one Senator, can forestall cloture by precisely one vote. I agree that the Democrats in Congress don't appear to be dealt a strong hand; there is a lot of backbiting and there will be a lot of ass-covering; I'd imagine that many of Obama, Pelosi and Reid's more liberal plans will fail not because of a furious Republican defense but because Democratic Senators who are up for election in 2010 and House members who come from conservative states will be covering their asses not wanting to be seen as uber-liberals. If radical but lawfully passed legislation is overturned by the Supreme Court then I would be sympathetic to an argument that Obama was being interfered with by Republicans; Bush (no matter what you think of his agenda) was successful in enacting virtually all of his agenda (and that extends beyond laws that were driven by post 9/11 fear) including the largest Federal education reform in a generation, a massive expansion of Medicare benefits, huge tax cuts that while they in fact made the tax rates more progressive were widely seen as favoring the rich, an estate tax cut, and for good measure a second round of tax cuts a couple years after the first. If Obama can't get his agenda enacted during a time of national peril with an even larger, nearly veto-proof majority in the Senate and a historically large margin in the House that will be the Democrats' fault, although I can't say I'll be disappointed if many of Obama's campaign platform goals are somehow stymied.
"On Gore instead of Bush: I continue to believe that if Al Gore had rightfully been inaugurated in 2001, we would not be in anywhere near as bad shape as we are. It is possible that the 9/11 attacks would still have happened, but I do not believe he would have aggravated the shock the way Bush did in the aftermath. I believe he would have done a much better job at channeling the desire of the American people to come together and their willingness to sacrifice into constructive ends. To name one example: putting in a large new gasline tax and using the proceeds to fund a meaningful alternative energy strategy."
I'm not going to engage in a whole set of counterfactuals of what a Gore Presidency would have looked like (I'm willing to concede that it would have been better for the country if Florida had gone for Gore in 2000, even though I didn't realize it at the time.) I do however take issue with your idea that if Gore were President people would suddenly be willing to stomach higher gas prices. There has been plenty of bi-partisan bitching and moaning about high gas prices caused by exogenous market forces, let alone a Federal mandate. This is kind of tangential but I've outlined how I think Obama's green policies are flawed since they don't muster market forces, but that for greenhouse-gas pricing to be politically sustainable it must be implemented in full force only on big industries like big Agra and power generating utilities; if people see a massive new tax on their gasoline and heating oil such a law will not be sustainable. People need to drive their cars to get to a decent paying job or to pick up their kids at school. People will respond to price signals but I don't think that they would be willing to make the sacrifice of allowing their politicians to implement a large new gas tax. I think that people will be willing to pay slightly more for milk and beef and pork and maybe their power bills but big expenses like fuel and heating oil I don't think they'll stomach.
As for other counterfactuals I won't speculate as to what the world would look like, save to say I doubt that all the problems associated with the Bush presidency would be gone, although I do admit we would almost certainly be better off had Gore won in 2000 as I mentioned.
I meant to say that the majority in the Senate is nearly cloture-proof, not veto-proof, obviously.
Noted. I'm done debating hypotheticals for now.
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