I don’t know how many of you regularly read Slate’s William Saletan, but for a moderate Republican, this guy’s written two pieces this week that are some of the best, most important, items I’ve seen in a while. I can’t recommend them strongly enough.
Yesterday, Saletan had the guts (and the wisdom) to explain what many of us have been thinking for years — Bush’s “handling” of 9/11 doesn’t actually tell us anything.
Now the Republican National Convention is showcasing Bush’s own heroic moment. As John McCain put it last night: “I knew my confidence was well placed when I watched him stand on the rubble of the World Trade Center with his arm around a hero of September 11 and, in our moment of mourning and anger, strengthen our unity and our resolve by promising to right this terrible wrong and to stand up and fight for the values we hold dear.”
Pardon me for asking, but where exactly is the heroism in this story? Where, indeed, is the heroism in anything Bush has done before 9/11 or since?
Hallelujah, someone gets it. The events surrounding the 9/11 attacks have, thanks to a massive spin campaign, created the faulty notion that Bush is some kind of hero, demonstrating unprecedented leadership in a time of crisis. As Saletan explained, Bush didn’t do anything to deserve such high praise.
Bush talked to rescue workers, “endured” a few hugs, offered financial aid to Giuliani, and delivered a quick speech that his aides wrote for him. Heroism? I can’t begin to imagine what the man did to deserve such acclaim. Indeed, I can’t imagine what any other president, from either party, would have done differently, except perhaps take the terrorist threat more seriously before the attacks actually occurred.
Saletan also noted the GOP argument that Bush’s “heroism” lies in his vision.
Maybe Bush’s courage is moral rather than physical. Maybe it lies in the conviction Giuliani extolled last night: “President Bush sees world terrorism for the evil that it is.”
Calling terrorism evil? Answering a deed with a word? This is courage?
If so, we’ve set our expectations too low.
Saletan’s other must-read piece ran this morning, in response to Schwarzenegger’s convention speech, which Saletan loved — he called it “the best speech I’ve seen at either of this year’s conventions” — but which had no connection to the Bush presidency. Indeed, in response to the speech, Saletan calls himself a “Schwarzenegger Republican” who “can’t vote for Bush.”
He makes the case as well as any one I’ve seen in a while. The whole thing is worth reading, but here are the key graphs:
There’s a curious gap in Schwarzenegger’s speech as he segues from his litany of Republican principles to the case for Bush. Essentially, the principles vanish. He stops talking about accountability and starts talking about faith. He asks for “faith in the resourcefulness of the American people, and faith in the U.S. economy. To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don’t be economic girlie men!” The audience roars — it’s the loudest moment of the convention — but the descent from logic into grade-school humiliation is unpersuasive and revealing. The American economy is performing far below par. Bush got the tax cuts he wanted when he came into office. He said they would fix the economy. They didn’t. He will be the first president in Schwarzenegger’s lifetime to preside over a net loss of jobs. Accountability means that a president who gets his economic program and delivers results this bad gets fired.
Instead, Schwarzenegger resorts to the very un-conservative tactic of inventing excuses. “America’s economy is moving ahead in spite of the recession [Bush] inherited and in spite of the attack on our homeland,” he says. Actually, the pace of growth has slowed again in recent months. And if every president can blame a bad economy on his predecessor, even three years after he has reversed the predecessor’s policies, then no president is accountable. Schwarzenegger implies that giving up on Bush would be un-American. “We may hit a few bumps, but America always moves ahead. That’s what Americans do,” he says. But remember that Republican principle about the government being accountable to the people. The suggestion that giving up on Bush means giving up on ourselves — which is essentially the argument of the Bush campaign—directly subverts this principle. Bush is your employee. You don’t have to vote for him just because he’s in charge and represents the spirit of the nation. That’s communist talk.
Same goes for Bush’s Iraq policy. It’s a betrayal of everything Republicans claim to stand for — fiscal prudence, the reservation of U.S. military resources for the protection of the national interest, and skepticism of government’s ability to shape society. The weapons of mass destruction that Bush touted as the reason for spending our blood and treasure in Iraq are simply not there. We were not greeted with sweets and flowers as the administration suggested. We have lost nearly 1,000 soldiers. We have sunk about $200 billion into this mistake, and there is no end in sight. It’s a complete failure.
Unable to defend the policy, Schwarzenegger defends Bush as “a man of inner strength. He is a leader who doesn’t flinch, who doesn’t waver, who does not back down.” But “inner strength” is exactly the kind of New Age pap no hard-headed Republican should fall for. Accountability means judging a president by visible results. Schwarzenegger says leadership is “about making decisions you think are right and then standing behind those decisions.” Fine. But standing behind your decisions means taking responsibility at election time. This is election time, and Bush’s decisions have turned out to be disastrously wrong.