New World Man

A nice appraisal of the reappraisals of Bush41 from TNR.

Bush, in response to such criticism, said he naturally felt “frustration and a sense of grief for the innocents that are being killed brutally, but we are not there to intervene … that is not our purpose. It never was our purpose.” Even when all twelve members of the European Community (yes, even France was tougher than Bush on this one) argued for placing humanitarian considerations above territorial ones–to create safe enclaves in Iraq, say, for those fleeing Saddam–Bush remained obdurate. “The objectives … never included the demise and destruction of Saddam personally,” Bush explained to reporters. Sorry if there was any misunderstanding.
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Moreover, legitimacy is not necessarily morality. It makes little sense for liberals who deplore the narrow legalism of right-wing judges here in the United States to applaud it in the context of the United Nations and foreign affairs. Poppy’s handling of the Persian Gulf War should never be held up as a moral example. For what is worse: telling the world that you are sure about WMD when you are only pretty sure–or telling a group of people that you support their efforts to rebel and then standing by as they get killed? Killing thousands in an attempt bring democracy to a brutal dictatorship–or allowing many thousands more to be killed in the name of holding together a coalition and maintaining regional stability by preserving a brutal dictatorship? If we are ashamed of the actions Dubya has taken in our name, why are we not even more ashamed of the actions Poppy took in our name?

Those who praise Poppy now are usually using him as a vehicle to extol a certain set of foreign-policy values–namely, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, and international cooperation. But Poppy isn’t even a good posterboy for these ideas: Whatever one thinks of such principles, they at least set out a coherent worldview; but Poppy always privileged convenience over coherence. International law mattered very little when he invaded Panama, for example, but it became important once Iraq loomed. Intervention looked fine when it came to goading on Iraqis to rebel, but non-intervention looked even better when it looked like the wrong rebels might succeed. There was a bloody price to Poppy’s incoherence. Sending mixed signals to the Kurds and Shiites caused vastly more devastation than simply keeping quiet would have caused. In terms of general human suffering, no harm done by George W. Bush is likely to surpass the harm done by his father during those months of 1991.

To be sure, Dubya’s values may not appeal to all of us–or at least not to 48 percent of us. But at least he brings a modicum of consistency to his moral outlook. If he has brought unnecessary suffering to Iraq, then he has also brought tremendous hope to what used to be a humanitarian calamity. If he is leading us astray in Iraq, at least his aims are unquestionably good and just. History has already spoken on Poppy’s actions following the Gulf War, and the verdict is deservedly harsh; whereas there remains–still–the possibility that history will someday vindicate Dubya’s decision to topple Saddam.

But that will take a while, and in the meantime we must brace ourselves for more odes to Poppy. A full length biography is overdue, and it will undoubtedly argue that Bush I was a seriously underrated president, as unjustly dismissed as Zachary Taylor. The book will be embraced as a slap in the face to Dubya, and it will join the bestsellers list. And, once again, liberals will look at Bushes and try to see something other than Bush. It will take the forceful slaps of friends to remind them: Dubya isn’t Churchill; and Poppy wasn’t John Kerry. There’s no need to muck around in such dregs looking for political gold.

For now, though, we can at least enjoy the ride of George W. Bush–incompetent, belligerent, and, maybe once in a while, insanely inspired–for what it is and be grateful for one thing: that we know we can get through this. Thanks to four years with his father, we’ve been through worse.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 29th, 2004 at 13:28 and is filed under politics, war on terror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.