It's easy to talk over here in 'moonbat' territory about the failed presidency of George W. Bush, and how he is totally disconnected from reality. I've joked his nickname should be "Passion Fingers" because everything he touches, he fucks up. (h/t to A. Bertram Chandler for using that line in a short story where I picked it up.)
While we congratulate ourselves on our perceptiveness however, we should recognize that that is not the entire story. Bush has some solid accomplishments to his record and we ignore that at our peril. Why this isn't more widely acknowledged is part and parcel of the difficulty we've had getting things turned around. The problem is, success is something that needs to be considered in context.
We're operating in a context where Bush has been an unmixed disaster. We have an idealized view that we should have a government of, by and for the people. All the people, with everyone allowed to be heard. That is not and never has been the context Bush has operated in, nor the Republican Party either despite all the pseudo-populist rhetoric they've spewed. He's said so, as in that moment in Farhenheit 911 where he says "You are my base - the Haves and the Have Mores."
If you consider success in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number, Bush has been an unmitigated disaster for the country and the world. If you consider his record in terms of who he really represents, Bush has been wildly successful. Consider:
- Economic policy: Bush has been able to turn a Federal budget surplus into a gaping deficit through tax cuts that have made the rich richer and stuck everyone else with the bills. The vast deficits have been used as a reason to cut back or eliminate social programs. Social Security is under threat because we supposedly can't afford it now, even though relatively trivial changes would shore it up. Corporations have been getting huge tax breaks and a slap on the wrist when they cheat on taxes. The concept of any kind of social contract between individuals and society is fast disappearing as companies walk away from pensions, economic disparities expand, health care becomes unaffordable, and education a luxury. Bush champions policies that make all of these problems worse - because his base benefits from them.
- Energy Policy: Does this one even need to be spelled out? Subsidies to energy companies already making huge profits, energy leases given away and revenues owed to the government not collected, lands opened up for exploitation with reckless abandon, global warming issues completely ignored, and conservation/alternative energy put on the back burner. Environmental concerns have been abandoned, for this and also as part of point 1 above. Again, Bush is completely on the side of those who benefit from all of this.
- The War in Iraq: Forget over 3,000 dead in a conflict of choice. Forget the failure to justify the war or establish peace and democracy. Forget the increasing instability in the region, the damage to America's world standing, and the weakening of our armed forces. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been transferred into the pockets of corporations and Bush supporters. Billions more will go to them to rebuild the military they broke, and for weapons systems that don't work, defenses that don't defend. The principle that the U.S. reserves the right to attack anyone who doesn't follow our orders has been firmly established - even if it is becoming increasingly clear we can't quite pull it off as easily as the neocons thought. Nonetheless the idea that all you need to rule the world is a big stick and nothing else matters has been thoroughly embraced by Bush. (Thanks Dick Cheney)
- The destruction of civil rights, rule of law, habeas corpus, representative democracy, etc. Again a string of Bush successes. Those who have always wanted to keep the masses under control have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. People can now be spied on, arrested, locked up, tortured, driven insane or killed - and there is no recourse if the government decides it wants to do this. All they have to do is decide who to declare an enemy. All the people who regard the government as THEIR property, to protect their interests and keep the rabble in line, and who never expect to be called to account have what they want. The U.S. is now an authoritarian paradise. The decider decides (once they tell him what to decide) and the rest of us put up or shut up. The "dirty fucking hippies' that troubled Richard Nixon so will never be a problem again. The Cheney doctrine that the President is the supreme authority over the other branches of government remains unchallenged in any effective way. Goodbye checks and balances.
- The neutralization and co-option of the Fourth Estate. Laid out above, the indictment of Bush by the press would seem inevitable. It hasn't happened and won't because Bush and the people behind him have largely rendered the press irrelevant. Years of spin and framing from right wing think tanks have been internalized by the press so that every story is automatically reported in a way that tends to bolster the Repubican line. Media consolidation has reduced the number of competing/alternate voices reporting the news. Corporate ownership has imposed censorship of views that don't fit with corporate goals. Talk radio and the punditocracy has been turned into a vast right-wing echo chamber. Members of the press who might have been expected to fight this trend are silent because they are now invested in this incestuous interlocking filter on what were public channels of communication. Access is used as a reward and as a club to keep them in line. The money doesn't hurt either. It's an integral complement to point 4 above, because the MSM - who should be sounding the alarm - instead smooths over those issues, provides distractions, practices deliberate amnesia, and looks the other way. Again, Bush has presided over this as the public face of those who benefit, and he has been largely successful.
- Every time Bush screws up something, like Katrina, or Homeland Security, or the Drug Plan, he still wins. The larger objective of Bush and those he represents is to discredit the idea of government as a responsible, effective tool which can be used for the greater good. Every failure makes it harder for those who would believe otherwise, even those who would benefit most from a government that actually was Of, By and For the people. The people behind Bush have always hated FDR for making 'little people' think government was something intended to serve their interests. They fear a government strong enough to rein them in - and rightly so. They want what Bush has given them in point 4, and people convinced it can't be anything else. Again, this has been a success for the president.
All of this is only a partial list - there's plenty of other issues to add to the bill. Any one of these should be sufficient in itself in a just world to call the president to account - but then that's not where we live, is it. I've simplified and omitted some details above, but the broad outlines are correct even if the real world failures of their fantasies are starting to be more than even they can paper over.
What we tend to forget is, what reads as a bill of indictments above is nonetheless something that directly benefits a lot of people with a lot of power. Some of it they embrace openly. What they dare not acknowledge, they still avidly desire because it is to their advantage. Bush is their public face. They have an agenda and they will not abandon it just because it is finally becoming obvious that he is a disaster for the rest of us. They'll prop him up as long as they can, ready his replacement when he inevitably goes, and work to subourn whoever might oppose them.
What matters for us is to remember that as much as Bush needs to be stopped, it is those behind him and their goals we are really fighting. They have everything at stake (just as we do), vast resources, and long practice in pursuing their ends. For them, Bush has been a great success. It's all a matter of context, and that's a bit of reality WE need to face.