Bush's Farewell Address

I think the most fateful decision of the past nine years may well have been George W. Bush's selection of Dick Cheney to head his vice presidential search team once W locked up the Republican nomination in 2000. If he had chosen another of his father's old hands, say somebody like Brent Scowcroft, the history of the past eight years would be considerably different. We would still have had some of Bush's "born again" domestic initiatives. We would still have had a corporate-friendly domestic slant. The fiscal foolishness would have been a bit more benign. Most importantly, the neoconservative foreign policy nonsense would likely never have happened.

Bush ran almost entirely on domestic issues. He had no foreign policy experience whatever. To the extent he spoke of it, he said he opposed "nation building," a reference to Bill Clinton's actions in such places as Bosnia and Kosovo, and talked of conducting a "humble" foreign policy, as he put it. He was about cutting taxes, rolling back environmental protections and expanding faith-based programs. The heck with foreigners.

The Cheney decision changed all that. Before long the veteran bureaucratic infighter informed his less than astute boss that he'd found a superbly qualified running mate--himself. Once the Supreme Court ruled Bush the general election winner, Cheney brought in the whole crew from the Project for a New American Century. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and company moved into the power vacuum created by Bush's ignorance. They convinced him of their millennial theory and flattered Bush that he was the anointed to carry it out. 9/11 expedited things by providing the useful pretext.

We heard yet another defense of this ridiculous and now demonstrably failed academic construct last night. As Bush would tell it, he had acted to bring democracy and freedom to the Middle East through the barrel of a gun. As a result the region is currently on track to usher in an era of lasting peace. If American constitutional principles had to be abridged, so be it. One could argue with his decisions, but not with the fact that he had the guts to make the tough calls, he told us.

It is astounding how the path of events have failed to disabuse Bush of his illusions. The attempt to occupy Muslim countries in the Middle East has not created stable, friendly, peace-loving nations there. The abandonment of the rule of law has not proven effective in garnering supporters or defeating enemies. People in the region do not like Israel or the United States. When given the vote they tend to elect people like Hamas, Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad and Iraqi Shi'ites who cozy up to Iran.

This was the vision he sold a frightened American public seven years ago. The majority bought it because they were scared and they presumed a president had to know what he was talking about. Very few people in the rest of the world bought it. The American people themselves stopped believing in it three years ago. Rather pitifully, Bush was still selling it last night in his last speech to the American people as President. These days, no one is buying and few are even listening.

One can foresee him appearing at future Republican conventions, every four years making one more effort to reclaim that day when he stood in the rubble at ground zero with his popularity at 91%. Retiring at the age of 62, Bush will be like Herbert Hoover, who haunted and embarrassed Republican conventions into the 1960s trying to peddle the absurdity that his Depression policy was working and that it had really been Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal that prolonged the suffering.

As a former president, Bush will be shown due respect for the office he held. His reputation, however, will never be rehabilitated. It is not enough to have made tough calls. A president has to get them right. That is his tragedy, and ours.