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January 16, 2009

A pathetic recap from Bush and more of the same

by PM Carpenter
So there he stood last night, pleading for a reduced sentence by history.
"There are things I would do differently if given the chance," said the outgoing president amid his 13
minutes of pursued mitigation. "Yet I have always acted with the best interests of our country in mind.
I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right."
What irony. Because that, in so many other words, is what his erstwhile archnemesis, Saddam Hussein,
declared repeatedly and, finally, with succinct poignancy just before they sprang the trap door. It is
truly the last, most desperate, and by far the most overused plea from unrepentant scoundrels.
And here, in George Bush's own words and without so much as a dram of reassessment or reflection
reconsidered, is what did him in -- not to mention thousands of innocents: "I have often spoken to you
about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world,
and between the two there can be no compromise."
Yet regarding the latter that's never been the case and never will be the case. Unfriendly and
competing nations routinely cast the other as "evil," especially for domestic consumption, and then
compromise with the other's existence till the cows come home.
The alternative is perpetual, global war; an alternative that has lain the necessary foundation for
diplomacy since heads have been crowned, societies organized and armies mobilized.
How George W. Bush managed to miss this essential truth is beyond comprehension. That he indeed
missed it is of course explained by his ideological intoxication, but that still fails to explain how such a
spectacularly manifest truth and the fundamental lessons of history so steadfastly escaped his bubbled
little world.
Nevertheless they did. Somehow -- and this is more a matter, I suppose, for psychiatry and the child
development field than politics and international relations -- Mr. Bush managed, in his mind, to trump
certain universal realties with mere, ideological wishfulness.
With, that is, fantasy -- the very kind of fantastical delusions that mark doctrinal religious fervor. For
ideology is the church, the temple, the mosque of politics gone mad; a mental construct designed
purely for the purpose of shutting out reality and embracing a self-contained mantra, no matter the
cost to God-given Reason.
Oh my, what an intolerably lengthy introduction to the principal point I wished to make. Let's just say George Bush
got the better of me. My preliminary remarks as derived from last night's spectacle were only intended as a bookend:
Bush is now the past, but what of his GOP's future?
If David Frum's thoughts are any indication -- and, I submit, they are; Frum is a powerful and influential voice of the
GOP's increasingly populated libertarian wing -- then I further submit we're about to see more of the same.
Frum, as you'll recall, is a former Bush II speechwriter, prolific author and member of what the right considers its
intellectual elite. He both molds and reflects current thinking of the reactionary sort, and it's for those reasons I like
to keep in touch, readingwise.
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What lesson has Frum learned from Bush's tenure? By way of an answer, here are selections from what he wrote,
recently, in The Week [1]:
Republicans can plainly see that in the name of "fiscal stimulus" Barack Obama is planning to do a lot of things that
will in no way help alleviate the downturn....
Obama seems cleverly determined to adopt a less polarizing style than his two immediate predecessors....
At the same time, Obama’s views and instincts seem further left of center than Bill Clinton's, especially on
economic matters....
We still don’t know whether Barack Obama sincerely shares [liberals'] nostalgia for the unionized, regulated
economy fastened upon the United States by the New Deal. My guess is no. But if I am wrong, then Republicans
will have no choice but to resist. Sometimes you have to risk being rolled over rather than play dead.
You can, and you should, read Frum's article in its entirety for yourself. But when you do, you know what you'll find
missing? Any factual analysis of our present condition as well as factual analysis of how best to pull out of it.
What you will find, instead, is more of the quoted-above: political platitudes, a written detachment from reality, a
fundamental negligence of street-level analysis.
What you will find is loads of ideology -- right on the heels of a near national obsession with ideological rejection.
What you will find, in short, is determined irrelevance.
For political partisans who so eagerly dwell on the traditional past, they sure don't learn much from it.