The George W. Bush Fixation

The George W. Bush Fixation
By Victor Davis Hanson
11/18/2010

Barack Obama remains fixated by George W. Bush. For nearly two years, President Obama and his team have prefaced their explanations for the tough economy, tough finances and tough situation abroad with a "Bush did it" chorus. Apparently, they believed that most of our problems, here and abroad, either started with George W. Bush, or at least would not transcend him.

At first, it was an easy enough habit to fall into. Things were not in great shape in January 2009 when Obama took over. More importantly, Obama's started out with a nearly 70 percent approval rating. In contrast, Bush, like the punching bag Harry Truman, left office with an approval rating in the low 30s.

Obama's serial fixation with his former predecessor made little sense when he first took office -- and has now become a disastrous misreading of political realities.

Recent polls reflect that Bush and Obama are now just about even in popularity. Obama's supporters in the House have suffered the worst Democratic shellacking since 1938. The president got out of Washington on a foreign tour immediately after the election -- only to be cold-shouldered by fair-weather foreign leaders who sensed weakness. Bush, in contrast, is basking in endless media exposure as he expounds on his best-selling memoir -- appearing above the partisan fray, past and present.

Voters two years ago elected Obama for a variety of reasons -- from unhappiness with Bush and Iraq to the landmark novelty of seeing our first African-American president. The financial meltdown of September 2008 ended for good John McCain's small lead in the polls. That panic also reminded voters of their unease with the Bush deficits and his expansion of government.

Unfortunately, Obama misread all that, and ended up trumping many of the things that Bush did to alienate voters.

Deficits of $500 billion soared to $1.4 trillion ones. Vast but unfunded Bush programs like Medicare prescription drug benefits and No Child Left Behind soon were overshadowed by even bigger ones like ObamaCare. An initial Bush bailout evolved into a gargantuan stimulus and multifaceted takeovers.

The result, fairly or not, was that Bush's financial felonies began looking like misdemeanors in comparison. Tea Party voters saw the Obama medicine as worse than the original Bush disease.

There was the same obsession with, but misreading of, Bush in foreign affairs. The public was turned off by the violence and costs in Iraq -- but otherwise not especially concerned about Bush's largely traditional foreign policy or his anti-terrorism protocols. Too bad a Bush-obsessed Obama was again blind to that simple fact. So when Iraq became largely quiet as Obama entered office, the entire "Bush did it" refrain was rendered obsolete and should have been dropped.

The antiwar Obama had campaigned on closing Guantanamo, ending tribunals and renditions, and critiquing the Patriot Act and Predator drone attacks. But once Iraq was taken out of the equation, Obama quickly discovered that these old bogeymen Bush policies were both useful and relatively popular. So he was forced to keep or expand them. Obama's flip-flop only confused Americans: Why, in hypocritical fashion, was he now embracing the Bush legacy that he used to constantly demonize?

When Obama tried to chart a new and much-heralded "reset-button" foreign policy in loud opposition to Bush's, the irony continued. Most Americans did not want to try the accused architect of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in a civilian court, replete with legal gymnastics. They did not think that announcing artificial deadlines for troop withdrawals in wartime was an especially bright idea.

They also did not expect that the much-heralded antidote to Bush's swagger and "Dead or Alive" Texanisms would include bowing to Saudi princes and Chinese dictators, apologizing abroad for America's purported sins, or spreading mythologies about the Islamic world's contribution to the Western Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Just because Bush turned off Europe over Iraq did not mean that an "I'm not Bush" Obama could not turn it off even more by printing billions of dollars, urging European countries to borrow more in reckless American style, and downplaying old alliances with everyone from Britain to Poland.

So here is a polite suggestion for President Obama: After nearly two years of governance, free up your own policies to either succeed or fail on their own merits without chaining them to the Bush past. In a word: Let go of a now-smiling and relatively rehabilitated Bush -- before such a fixation consumes you and your presidency.
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Kathy Griffin: Bush is a liar over his fetus in a jar story
posted at 1:55 pm on November 18, 2010 by The Right Scoop

Let me first say that this is chocked full of expletives. The hate meter is pegged on this one. Kathy Griffin seems to think former President Bush is lying on what influenced his decision to become pro-life:

George W. Bush’s pro-life stance solidified when he was a teenager in Texas — after his mother suffered a devastating miscarriage and showed him the fetus in a jar…
“She said to her teenage kid, ‘Here’s the fetus,’ ” the shockingly candid Bush told NBC’s Matt Lauer, gesturing as if he were holding the jar during the TV chat…
“There’s no question that affected me, a philosophy that we should respect life,” said the former president, who had to drive his distraught mother to the hospital at the time.

Kathy Griffin talks as though this is an impossibility because she says the fetus wouldn’t easily fit in a jar. But President Bush never said how old the fetus was or at what point during the pregnancy his mom miscarried. I would assume that the fetus was pretty small to have the impact on him that it did, and could see that easily fitting into a jar. After all, what’s revelatory about seeing a nearly full-size infant and realizing that it is a person.

And besides, what reason would Bush have for lying? He’s done with politics and couldn’t care less what people think. This is nothing more than just sheer hatred for the man by the far Left. It’s the same kind of Lefty hatred that leads to the “Trig truthers” and the whole “Bush lied about WMD’s” myth.