Speaking of classic opening sentences, William Kristol takes the unusual step in a Washington Post piece of anticipating mockery: “I suppose I’ll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush’s presidency will probably be a successful one.”
Kristol’s argument is surprisingly weak, but he got one point exactly right: he exposed himself to ridicule. Here’s his pitch:
Let’s step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let’s look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? First, no second terrorist attack on U.S. soil — not something we could have taken for granted. Second, a strong economy — also something that wasn’t inevitable.
And third, and most important, a war in Iraq that has been very difficult, but where — despite some confusion engendered by an almost meaningless “benchmark” report last week — we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.
It’s probably not necessary to highlight Kristol’s errors in too much detail, but let’s take a moment to point out some of the more glaring problems with the basic pitch.
First, Kristol credits Bush with preventing a post-9/11 terrorist attack. That’s false — about a month after 9/11, someone sent weaponized anthrax to two Democratic senators and several news outlets. Five Americans were killed and 17 more suffered serious illnesses. If the administration has made any headway in bringing the terrorists to justice, it’s been awfully quiet about it.
For that matter, while the U.S. has thankfully not suffered any major terrorist attacks since 2001, Kristol neglects to mention that terrorist attacks around the world have gone up every year since.
Second, Kristol touts a “strong economy.” His timing could have been better — Kristol’s boasts ran on the same day the New York Times highlighted the modern-day “Gilded Age,” in which the United States has the most dramatic concentration of wealth at the top since the 1920s. All the while, poverty has increased, Bush has run the largest budget deficits in American history, and economic growth has been sluggish, at best.
And third, Kristol, of course, believes we’re “on course to a successful outcome” in Iraq. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
If the handful of Americans who still approve of the president’s job performance hope to persuade others to their way of thinking, they’ll have to do better than this.