And the bush was consumed

Tonight is the last (full) day of the presidency of George W Bush, and in the bow to last week's parshat hashavua and the burning bush, this blog is dedicated to some thoughts on the change of government in the US (as well as taking a break from discussing the Gaza War).

With the inauguration of Barack Obama tomorrow, a new era will come to America and, hopefully, to the rest of the world.

It is as though divine intervention is involved this year in the changing of the American government. Today is Martin Luther King Jr Day (and also "National Community Service Day") and tomorrow is Inauguration Day. One day dedicated to the loss of a great American who dedicated his life to social justice and the betterment of all Americans, the next dedicated to the hope of seeing some of those dreams being put into action. The expectations of (and on) Barack Obama is enormous.

Before looking forward, it may be helpful to look back to establish a "baseline."

Many have commented on the Bush presidency like EJ Dionne "Bush's Biggest Mistake" (or "Why the Uniter Divided Us"), Dana Milbank and Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post. In The New York Times, Paul Krugman critiqued his economic policies, Mauren Dowd. Dan Froomkin's "The White House Watch" (a personal favorite) detailed the numerous foibles throughout his administration

For EJ Dionne Jr, the issue was

From the very beginning of his presidency, won courtesy of a divisive Supreme Court decision that abruptly ended his contest with Al Gore, Bush misunderstood the nature of his lease on power, the temper of the country and the proper role of partisanship in our political life. His win-at-all-costs strategy in Florida became a template for much of his presidency, reflected especially in the way the Justice Department was politicized.

Bush did not respect the obligation of a leader in a free society to forge a durable consensus. He was better at announcing policies than explaining them. He dismissed legitimate opposition and plausible doubts about the courses he wished to pursue. It is partly because of these failures that Americans reacted by selecting a successor with such a profoundly different political personality.

Eugene Robinson in turn opined:

Not to kick the president on his way out the door, but he was wrong when he told White House reporters at a wistful, nostalgic news conference yesterday that "there is no such thing as short-term history."

It's true that some presidencies look different after a few decades. But it's also true that presidential acts can have immediate consequences -- and that George W. Bush will leave office next week as a president whose eight years in office are widely seen as a nadir from which it will take years to recover. ...

Asked to identify the biggest mistake of his presidency, Bush gave a curious answer that had more to do with public relations than presidential decision making. He mentioned the "Mission Accomplished" banner that prematurely announced the end of major conflict in Iraq -- but not his decision to invade Iraq in the first place. He mentioned his failure to visit New Orleans at the height of the devastating, deadly flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina -- but not the decision to entrust the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the hapless and ineffective Michael Brown.In Bush's mind, the revelation of shocking prisoner abuse by U.S. military guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was "a huge disappointment" -- but he doesn't take any responsibility, as commander in chief, for the atmosphere of lax training and supervision that allowed the abuses at Abu Ghraib to happen. The failure by U.S. forces to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq qualifies only as "a significant disappointment" -- even though the administration's apocalyptic rhetoric about WMD was what sealed the deal for an invasion and occupation that never should have taken place.

Fareed Zakaria in "He Kept Us Safe, but..." writes:

"He kept us safe."

That has become the mantra to explain why George W. Bush -- contrary to the view of the American public, people abroad and historians -- is actually a great man. For Dick Cheney, unsurprisingly, Bush will rank "among the most decisive, determined and far-seeing leaders this nation has ever had." ...

At some level, it is not surprising that Bush's acolytes should focus on just this one issue. It is difficult to make the claim on other grounds, such as the economy, the traditional measure used by presidents. Bush inherited the most favorable economic fortunes of any president in two generations. In 2000, the Clinton administration presented the nation with a budget almost in balance -- a $17 billion deficit. The Congressional Budget Office was projecting $5.6 trillion in surpluses over the next 10 years. But within a year, most of those surpluses had been frittered away in an
extravagant set of tax cuts. At the end of eight years -- by common consent -- Bush is leaving the country in the worst economic and fiscal shape it has been in since the
1970s or the 1930s.

Under Bush, America has been put on a quasi-war footing, has spent billions on "homeland security," has massively complicated its immigration and visa system, has put friction into the gears of trade, has retreated from its open attitude toward foreigners, and has seen its Constitution circumvented. But Bush has kept us safe. I hope that when Barack Obama thinks about the challenges he faces -- the economy, health care, energy, Iraq and Afghanistan -- he does not obsessively focus on the metric of "keeping us safe."

Dan Froomkin in "The Bush Verdict is in" (WP January 13, 2009) summed up the Bush presidency by writing,

He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses -- and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11.

He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policy making process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government.

From a different perspective, see Maureen Dowd in "The Long, Lame Goodbye" (NYT January 17, 2009) who in offering a more psychological analysis in comparing the out-going Bush with the in-coming Obama wrote:

As Barack Obama got to town, one of the first things he did was seek the
counsel of past presidents, including George Bush senior.

As W. was leaving town, one of the last things he did was explain why he never sought the counsel of his father on issues that his father knew intimately, like Iraq and Saddam. ...

W. lives in the shadow of his father’s presence, while Obama lives in the shadow of his father’s absence. W.’s parlous presidency, spent trashing the Constitution, the economy and the environment, was bound up, and burdened by, the psychological traits of an asphyxiated and pampered son. The exiting and entering presidents are
opposite poles — one the parody of a monosyllabic Western gunslinger who disdains nuance, and one a complex, polysyllabic professor sort who will make a decision only after he has held it up to the light and examined it from all sides.

W. was immune to doubt and afraid of it. (His fear of doubt led to the cooking of war intelligence.) Obama is delighted by doubt.

Bush fancied himself the Decider; Obama fancies himself the Convener. Some worry that a President Obama will overdo it and turn the Situation Room into the Seminar Room. (He’s already showing a distressing lack of concern over whether his cherished eggheads bend the rules, like Tim Geithner’s not paying all his taxes, because, after all, they’re the Best and the Brightest, not ordinary folk.)

W., Cheney and Rummy loved making enemies, under the mistaken assumption that the more people hated America, the more the Bushies were standing up for principle. But is Obama neurotically reluctant to make enemies, and overly concerned with winning over those who have smacked him, from Hillary and Bill to conservative
columnists?

Whatever goodwill America generated in its history and immediately following 9/11 were lost and burned in the "bush fire" of the last eight years. For the Phoenix to rise again, the lessons of the Bush years must be identified, internalized and 'operationalized' in the running of the Obama White House.

Bob Woodward in last Sunday's (18 Jan 2009) Washington Post using his experience observing and writing about the Bush years, and believing that Presidents live in the unfinished business of their predecessors, presented the 10 lessons Obama needs to take away from the Bush experience if he hopes to correct "the errors" of the last administration.

1. Presidents set the tone. Don't be passive or tolerate virulent divisions.
2. The president must insist that everyone speak out loud in front of the others, even -- or especially -- when there are vehement disagreements.
3. A president must do the homework to master the fundamental ideas and concepts
behind his policies. (The president should not micromanage, but understanding the ramifications of his positions cannot be outsourced to anyone.)
4. Presidents need to draw people out and make sure that bad news makes it to the
Oval Office, (including specifically asking their opinions and not assume or rely on second-hand information).
5. Presidents need to foster a culture of skepticism and doubt. ...While Presidents and generals don't have to live on doubt. But they should learn to love it.
6. Presidents get contradictory data, and they need a rigorous way to sort it out.
7. Presidents must tell the public the hard truth, even if that means delivering very bad news ... A president is strong when he is the voice of realism.
8. Righteous motives are not enough for effective policy.
9. Presidents must insist on strategic thinking. ... a willingness to pay a short-term price for the sort of long-term gains that go down in the history books ... [as a] President will probably be judged by the success of his long-range plans, not his daily crisis management.
10. The president should embrace transparency. (Some version of the behind-the-scenes story of what happened in his White House will always make it out to the public -- and everyone will be better off if that version is as accurate as possible.) ...
[To do so t]hey should run an internal, candid process of debate and discussion with key advisers that will make sense when it surfaces later. This sort of inside account will be told, at least in part, during the presidency. But the best obtainable version will emerge more slowly, over time, and become history.

Let's hope and pray that Obama takes the lessons to heart and the rest of world allows Obama to be himself and not the "Second Coming". A mere correction will also go a long way to setting the world straight.