[NYT Op-Ed Contributers]What we'll miss about Bush

weslinder · Nov 2, 2008

Some pretty candid opinions by many who knew the President well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/opinion/02bush.html?_r=2&sq=bush&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all

What I Will Miss About President Bush

As the world knows, America will elect a new president on Tuesday. Barring unforeseen electoral circumstances, this is George W. Bush’s last Sunday to hold the presidential stage to himself. The Op-Ed editors asked six writers to reflect on what they have most admired about him.

Loyal to a Fault

One spring morning last year, I happened to be strolling through the Congressional cemetery east of Capitol Hill with the White House press secretary Dana Perino as she walked her dog. Ms. Perino was candidly describing the challenges of her job, which were only mounting as George W. Bush’s approval rating continued to drop. Then she looked directly at me and said, “But it’s all worth it, because I so believe in the president.”

It would have been easy for me to dismiss Ms. Perino as a bright and likable but ultimately Kool-Aid-stricken peddler of talking points, were it not for two things. First, my interviews with current and former Bush staffers constantly veered off into similar testimonials. Their belief in Mr. Bush transcended ideology: as much as anything else, they just loved the guy. They loved how he treated the elevator man with the same courtesy as a foreign leader; how he often picked up the phone to congratulate the bride of a junior staffer; how he never pointed fingers, harbored grudges, snubbed, publicly belittled or boasted. Above all, they loved how they never had to worry which George W. Bush would show up to the Oval Office. It was fitting that he worked at a desk carved from a British warship, the H.M.S. Resolute — clarity of purpose being the admirable flip side to his at times infuriating certitude.

I saw some of these qualities firsthand during my six interviews with the president between December 2006 and May 2007. When I asked him if he felt betrayed in any way by the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s errors relating to the war in Iraq, Mr. Bush refused to assign blame. “No,” he said. “See, every decision’s mine.” During my final interview with him, he told me that he held back his doubts and worries in front of subordinates because “I don’t want to burden them with that.”

President Bush has paid a price for his human decency. Seeking to buck up his Katrina-whipped FEMA director, he delivered the single most damning one-liner of his presidency: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” His sense of loyalty blinded him to the shortcomings of several senior aides — among them Scott McClellan, who rewarded Mr. Bush’s generosity with a lacerating tell-all book. He kept the press away from his two daughters, when their charm could have been deployed to buoy up his sagging numbers.

When the vault of the 43rd presidency is sealed, it will include, among many things, evidence of President Bush’s virtue.

— ROBERT DRAPER, a correspondent for GQ and the author of “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush”

A Clear View

I’ll miss President Bush’s moral clarity. The president’s critics hated his willingness to label things right or wrong, and the press used to bang me around for it, but history will show how right he was.

Shortly after 9/11, the president gave a speech in which he talked about the fight between good and evil, and that good would win. Afterward, I told him I thought he was being simplistic: “There are a lot of shades of gray in this war. I think it’s more nuanced.”

He looked at me and said, “If this isn’t good versus evil, what is?”

Then he reminded me that when Ronald Reagan went to Berlin, he called on Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” — not to put a gate in it or to remove some bricks. Mr. Reagan said to tear it all down.

Mr. Bush saw the presidency as the place to call the American people to big challenges — in morally clear terms. As his spokesman, I knew that many people would be uncomfortable with how easily he made such moral judgments. I also knew that many Americans welcomed his tough, direct and unambiguous moral clarity.

I’ll miss that direct talk. In the age of terrorism, the one thing we have to fear more than anything is moral relativism.

When Israel was attacked during the Bush years, the president always stated that Israel had a right to defend itself. After 9/11, he never referred to Israel’s counterattacks as a “cycle of violence.” He understood that when a democracy strikes back against terrorists, it’s not a “cycle.” It’s self-defense.

We haven’t been attacked since 9/11, Libya no longer has nuclear weapons, Syria was stopped from acquiring them, Saddam Hussein is gone, and Iraq is on its way to being a nation that fights terrorism — all on President Bush’s watch. His job approval may now be low, but he should leave office with his head held high. I hope his successors recognize the strength that moral clarity can provide.

— ARI FLEISCHER, the White House press secretary from 2001 to 2003

A Compassionate Conservative

During the last eight years, when I’ve mentioned to people that I’m completely fascinated by Laura Bush, most think I’m kidding. They see her as a traditional wife and mother, a gracious and well-mannered conservative. And while this might, depending upon whom you ask, be an admirable description, it doesn’t tend to prompt fascination. Oh, I say, but there’s so much more to her!

Among my favorite facts: She spent her 20s working at ethnically diverse, low-income schools and was a Democrat until she married George Bush at the age of 31 — after knowing him just 12 weeks. As first lady of Texas, she’d eat at hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants, shop at Wal-Mart and fly Southwest Airlines to visit friends. In the White House, in addition to organizing literary events that featured writers who have publicly disagreed with her husband’s policies, she has been far more politically involved than people realize — traveling to Africa and the Middle East to raise awareness for, respectively, AIDS and breast cancer, and advocating for the opposition leader of Myanmar, who has long been under house arrest.

Of course, what’s most intriguing to Democrats like me are the suggestions that Mrs. Bush might still be considerably less conservative than her husband: She has said that she does not think Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Asked in 2004 whether she and the president have gay friends, she told a reporter, “Sure, of course. Everyone does.” And earlier this year, Mrs. Bush spoke publicly of her admiration for Hillary Clinton’s “grit and strength.”

I will miss Mrs. Bush not only for keeping me guessing but also for seeming like an intelligent and compassionate presence in a White House not widely recognized for its intelligence or compassion — for being the one person in there whom I’m pretty sure a lot of us would like even more if only we knew her better.

— CURTIS SITTENFELD, the author of the novel “American Wife”

Victory Speech

I was listening to George W. Bush speak at a rally in New Hampshire, in January 2000, when he came up with what remains my favorite of his miscues: “I know how hard it is to put food on your family.” This could be an amusing few months, I remember thinking.

The only slow period for Bushisms was right after Sept. 11, when the president’s inadequacies no longer seemed very funny. Then Mr. Bush declared that normality was returning: “I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport.”

The president’s critics see such flubs as proof of his idiocy. His defenders believe that calling attention to them is hostile. But the president’s verbal stumbles have only made me like him better. It’s hard to despise someone who just wants “to make the pie higher” or who says he won’t answer your question, “Neither in French nor in English. Nor in Mexican.”

Maybe the greatest expression of his befuddlement was something he said when asked to respond to an article by the writer Gail Sheehy claiming he was an undiagnosed dyslexic. “The woman who knew that I had dyslexia — I never interviewed her,” he sputtered.

Mr. Bush’s battle with English has enriched our political language. It is no longer possible to say a person or a factor has been underestimated. Thanks to him, that word is now misunderestimated. In trade negotiations, tariffs and barriers have become bariffs and terriers. Kosovo is the land of the Kosovians, Greece the ancient homeland of the Grecians, a Reagan-loving people with no gray hair. There is no strategy, only “strategery,” a term coined by the comedian Will Ferrell and adopted inside the administration.

Most politicians don’t care about language and abuse it through euphemism, vagueness and cliché. Mr. Bush is not so indifferent. When words won’t do what he wants, he tries to wrestle them into submission. His memorable coinages — Hispanically, arbo-treeist — express the frustration we all feel at those moments when language won’t go our way. In the face of defeat, Mr. Bush remains unbowed by grammar. You’ve got to admire that, kind of.

— JACOB WEISBERG, the editor in chief of the Slate Group and the author of “The Bush Tragedy”

In Good Faith

What I will miss most about George W. Bush as president is his sincere concern for promoting human dignity.

I was at his side when he met with defectors from North Korean forced-labor camps, listened to firsthand accounts of the unconscionable atrocities Saddam Hussein committed, shared the elation of women freed from the injustices of the Taliban, worked to dramatically increase government funding to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa, and pressed other world leaders to stop genocide in Darfur. The compassion President Bush showed for the oppressed and suffering in these moments was inspiring.

It also helped obscure his flaws to those of us who worked for him, making it difficult for us to realize that his presidency was veering off course.

While he did not always choose wisely in his efforts to advance human dignity, his motives were genuine. And in those somber moments when he visited wounded troops or families of those who’d made the ultimate sacrifice, I saw — ever so briefly — a glimmer of self-doubt.

President Bush bears responsibility for the consequences of the war he chose to wage in Iraq. But alongside his profound flaws and the mistakes he made, I can also see and respect his inner decency. Let’s hope the next president will share his passion for human dignity — and also find ways to express it with greater wisdom and judgment.

— SCOTT McCLELLAN, the White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006 and the author of “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”

Past Perfect

I feel nostalgic about the person I knew as Gov. George W. Bush. I miss that guy. He was the best politician I ever saw. He really was “a uniter, not a divider.” He refused to kowtow to the far right. He worked with Democrats to strengthen public education, while Republicans were pushing vouchers. He had four vacancies on the Texas Supreme Court and he filled them all with centrist judges. The extreme right wing of the Republican Party was his enemy, not his ally. His administration was untainted by scandal. Karl Rove remained an outside consultant rather than a gubernatorial staffer.

But when he reached the White House, Governor Bush vanished, to be replaced by President George W. Bush — a person I didn’t recognize. He was never to return.

— PAUL BURKA, the senior executive editor of Texas Monthly
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Master Baiter · Nov 2, 2008

Absolutely nothing. Good ****ing riddance. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Invisible Fan · Nov 2, 2008

Let's all drink with our buddy George while our other buddies at work are being laid off.

Boy did he make us laugh.

insane man · Nov 2, 2008

i love loyalty. it's something we don't see in politics anymore. but bush was blind, not just loyal.

durvasa · Nov 2, 2008

In my opinion, loyalty is the most overrated virtue.

DonnyMost · Nov 2, 2008

he gave us some good SNL skits and Daily Show material

Thanks George!

weslinder · Nov 2, 2008

DonnyMost said:

he gave us some good SNL skits and Daily Show material

Thanks George!
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If Obama's elected, Biden's going to make Georgie look like a smoth master of the language. SNL and the Daily Show will have plenty of material for the next few years.

Rocketman95 · Nov 2, 2008

I'm still waiting for that beer.

Astockmarketgod · Nov 2, 2008

weslinder said:

If Obama's elected, Biden's going to make Georgie look like a smoth master of the language. SNL and the Daily Show will have plenty of material for the next few years.
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says a guy who probably voted for Bush twice...

I dont blame Bush... he was a idiot before he was voted in...

so there was no suprise there...

the real idiots were the people who voted Bush in... because "you could have a beer with him"

especially the ones who voted him in the second time...`what did Bush call it...

"political capital"

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[NYT Op-Ed Contributers]What we'll miss about Bush

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[NYT Op-Ed Contributers]What we'll miss about Bush

weslinder Member

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