So the above image is making the rounds right now across the Internet, and even had a diary written about it recently.
First Lady Michelle Obama is hugging former President George W. Bush for signing legislation during his presidency that led to the construction of the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History and Culture.
That Michelle Obama would do so is not a surprising thing. The National Museum will undoubtedly make many important contributions to our understanding of history and culture moving forward. Michelle Obama is a lovely, gracious person who routinely chooses to focus on the good rather than the bad. Moreover, presidents and ex-presidents and their spouses have (as far as I’ve known) been at the very least superficially friendly to one another at public gatherings.
What bothered me, rather, were the reactions to Michelle Obama’s hug. Reactions like this:
Reactions that treat George W. Bush as if his being hugged by Michelle Obama, someone very much his superior, were a sign that he himself was a decent human being.
I’ve seen frequent comments here and on Twitter such as: “I’ve always believed George W Bush was a decent man” and that George W. Bush wasn’t responsible for the wrongs of his administration, because “his cabinet took over and ran America.”
More and more of this type of reasoning has appeared in center-left circles, as Democrats hasten to paint Republican nominee Donald Trump as an unacceptable “other” the likes of which neither the Democratic nor Republican Party has ever before seen.
Suddenly George W. Bush, one of the most widely despised presidents during his last year of office due to his disastrous tenure, is produced as an example of basic Republican decency. “Sure he was horrible,” is the common refrain, “but at least his administration was baseline competent.”
Part of this strange new rehabilitation effort includes lumping Bush together with presidents who were/are much better, as if he had the right to even breathe the same air:
Four presidents look appropriately sober and statesman-like. One president looks like he’s excited to be sitting at the big kids’ table.
The truth is that while Donald Trump is breathtakingly horrible, and never should have gotten within 10 miles of the Republican nomination, he has far more in common with George W. Bush and the modern Republican Party than many would dare admit. George W. Bush himself is an appropriate Trump antecedent:
In other words, look up from the rotten Trump apple lying on the ground and you find the decaying George W. Bush tree branch.
George W. Bush is very much a creature of the modern Republican Party. His administration used Fox News like a propaganda arm and Karl Rove, his senior advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff, later had a paid stint as a commentator (his reaction to Obama winning Ohio in 2012 being most memorable). Despite some grudging bipartisan gestures during his first year in office, Bush signed off on Karl Rove’s strategy of sowing division and motivating the conservative base above finding common ground.
Moreover, he embodied the anti-intellectual approach that was gaining acceptance in Republican circles, famously not taking time to weigh the right option when he could go with his “gut” instinct. The same Republican base that embraced him would later embrace Sarah Palin and an increasing number of extremist know nothings.
Some are quick to point out that it wasn’t George W. Bush, but rather Karl Rove or Dick Cheney or other malfeasants in his administration who were responsible for its dark legacy. That ignores Bush’s own role in choosing Rove to be his advisor (their relationship predates his presidency), or Dick Cheney as his Vice President, or the other members of his cabinet. It also ignores his willingness to take actions that were “strong and wrong” no matter what the consequences. Though an intellectual lightweight, Bush is not a simpleton, and the wrongs of his administration fall on his shoulders.
That’s why it’s a mistake to treat George W. Bush as though he’s a threshold respectable Republican. Bush and Donald Trump are part of the same continuum. In fact, it could be argued that without George W. Bush, there would be no Donald Trump.
I’d long assumed that Bush’s wrongs were widely understood in Democratic circles, but obviously they bear repeating. Here’s a review of some of the “respectable” George W. Bush administration’s greatest hits:
In August 2001, he blew off warnings from an intelligence briefer that Osama bin Laden was determined to attack the United States with: “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.” Even if you think this shocking lack of concern did not directly result in the inadequate protections in place on September 11, there is evidence that the Bush administration ignored repeated warnings from the CIA about the seriousness of Al Qaeda.
In 2002 and 2003, he led a mass effort to mislead both Congress and the American public in supporting invasion of Iraq through a campaign designed to stoke their worst fears. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” he said when asked about the thinness of his evidence connecting Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein.
Due to Bush’s decision to attack a country that never attacked us, nearly 4,500 American soldiers and an estimated 174,000 to 500,000 Iraqis were killed. For a war that has cost this country more than $2 trillion dollars.
Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security under Bush, admitted that he was pushed to raise the terror alert right before the November 2004 election, despite his objections. There is evidence that the terror alerts were manipulated at other times for political purposes. The result was to keep the public in a perpetual state of fear about Muslims and terrorist attacks, even while Bush himself did not personally attack Muslims.
In an unprecedented move, the Bush Justice Department fired seven U.S. Attorneys midterm for what appeared to be political reasons, in order to replace them with U.S. Attorneys sympathetic to the administration.
Bush’s tendency to promote yes men, like Michael Brown, to important positions over those who were actually qualified led to FEMA’s catastrophic mismanagement of the before and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, leading to the deaths of an estimated 1,833 people, many of which could have been prevented.
Despite the Senate being split 50-50, Bush took his win in the Electoral College as a mandate to ram through enormous tax cuts that he was warned would cause a huge deficit. He didn’t listen, and the result: the deficit exploded, income inequality increased substantially, and the tax cuts mainly benefitted the wealthy.
Bush’s tax cuts and deregulation were a substantial factor in the crisis that led to the economy plunging into the Great Recession.
There are so many other examples I could mention. The damage George W. Bush did to this country can never be overstated. That we’re in any sort of recovery right now is due to the incredible intelligence and dedication of his successor, Barack Obama.
But at least now that Bush is out of office, he realizes he did wrong and is atoning… right?
Not necessarily. As recently as 2015, it was noted that has Bush spent most of his post-presidency earning millions giving speeches to hedge funds and other private groups. He had no choice but to “replenish the ol’ coffers,” which were down to a mere $6.5 million to $20 million following his presidency. “No big deal,” you might say, “so did Bill Clinton.” Yes, but in the meantime, Bill and Hillary Clinton founded an amazing foundation that has improved the lives of millions all over the world. Bush has done… what to help the world, exactly? Other than disappear?
He wrote a best-selling memoir called Decision Points, where he acknowledged individual decisions he could have made better (like moving more aggressively to secure Iraq once security started failing… duh), but glossed over or ignored his more catastrophic actions, such as ignoring warnings about bin Laden, choosing to link bin Laden to Hussein despite a lack of evidence, and condoning torture.
He’s raised millions, too, though only to invest in his presidential library at Southern Methodist University, which includes a full-scale replica of the Oval Office. Undoubtedly a spot of great humility.
This year, Bush’s big contribution is to release an art book. At least for this one, the profits are supposedly intended to benefit veterans.
Other than that, there’s little to no indication that Bush has made a serious effort to reflect or atone. If anything, his family continues to push the line that he kept America safe despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. During the primaries, Jeb Bush even tried to pin the blame for bin Laden on Bill Clinton. Notably, there was no public push back from George W. Bush or the rest of the Bush family.
To me, George W. Bush comes across like the cat who swallowed the canary. He quietly rakes in millions while allowing Trump’s horribleness, and Democrats’ willingness to turn the other cheek, to rehabilitate his reputation. And he does it without ever having to stick his neck out or do anything that would remotely inconvenience him.
Which is why, in our effort to tear down Trump, we can never treat George W. Bush like a normal president.
A Donald Trump presidency would likely be a disaster of unheard of proportions. Yet in seeking to prevent it, we make a major mistake if we treat the Bush administration as if it were borderline acceptable. It was not acceptable. It was horrifying.
Some have pointed out that such condemnation of Bush is unfair, as he did some decent things— such as sign the legislation leading to the creation of the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History and Culture. That’s true, and Michelle Obama rightly recognized this action. At the same time, such complaints ignore the fact that in even the worst governments, there are occasional sparkles of good.
Even a Donald Trump presidency would likely contain nuggets of genuinely good government. Yet if Donald Trump authorized fully paid universal preschool, would that make up for his decision to nuke the Middle East, forcibly deport 20 million people, and return parts of the western United States to Russia? By the incredibly low standard that some suggest should be applied to Bush, the answer would be “Yes!”.
To treat George W. Bush as if he were a decent man because he’s not Donald Trump erases what made Bush so objectionable in the first place. It also blurs the line between George W. Bush and presidents who were flawed, but actually were smart, dedicated public servants, like Bill Clinton and (God willing) soon-to-be President Hillary Clinton.
It means that we Democrats have learned to see an absolute extreme as acceptable.
We cannot afford to have another George W. Bush administration, let alone a Donald Trump administration. Both are awful. That a Donald Trump administration could be worse does not mean George W. Bush’s presidency was not absolutely abysmal.
We must demand that Republicans move away from the base coddling extremes that came into vogue during the Bush administration. We must demand competence, and leaders genuinely dedicated to public service. If we treat George W. Bush as acceptable, it makes it too easy for our collective memory of his horrible presidency to fade, and for us to forget how badly he damaged this country. Which might make us more willing to view the next Bush-like Republican candidate as a “reasonable” Republican.
So what does the above photograph say? It says that Michelle Obama is a warm, gracious person willing to give George W. Bush credit for doing something right. It also says that George W. Bush is lucky to receive her kindness — not that he is worthy of it.
It will take a lifetime of genuine gestures of atonement for George W. Bush to make up for his sins.
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