Bush Derangement Syndrome(There would be no cure with W. in the White House)

I’ll organize my comments with reference to the distinctions I introduced yesterday, though the order will be different.

What I think is that the Iraq War ruined President Bush’s brand and President Bush ruined the Republican brand. I think that’s what sank us in 2006 and 2008. Sure, there were scandals, there was rampant spending and government bloat, there was a charismatic Democratic nominee, and in the final weeks of the ’08 campaign there was a financial crisis that sealed John McCain’s fate. But I think it was his fate. It probably would have been the fate of any Republican nominee.

Bush survived the ’04 election largely by running a national-security campaign. The memory of 9/11 was fresh and Iraq had not yet descended into the sectarian bloodbath that turned “We can’t police a civil war” into a pungent sound bite. (The Golden Mosque bombing, recall, happened in early 2006.) It helped in ’04 that the Democrats nominated a man with the warmth and charisma of Massachusetts cod. The WMD hadn’t turned up and there was a growing consensus that the war had been fought on a false premise, but the feeling was still: It’s a dangerous world, and now is no time to rock the boat.

Then Iraq really went to hell. A perceived mistake became a perceived catastrophe, and most people just wanted to be done with it. They wanted to be done, too, with the man and the party who had brought it to them.

These attitudes were not, in my opinion, the product of rational analysis, because the impulse behind them was more punitive than corrective, more backward- than forward-looking. Was the Iraq War unwinnable in 2006? Manifestly not, as the surge has shown. Was there serious discussion in 2006 of whether the war was unwinnable? Not really. A relative handful of specialists debated the question, but in the main one side asserted yes, the other no, and that was that.

To my mind, this was a frightening thing. It would have behooved us, amidst all the recriminations, to spend some time on questions like these: How does one recognize an unwinnable war? Should we be thinking in binary alternatives — winnable versus unwinnable — or should we be looking at things probabilistically? Should we be making, that is, a cost-benefit analysis — and what is the right analysis here? What are the consequences of this defeat? Does it embolden al-Qaeda? Does it destabilize the region further? How about Iran — will it not gain tremendously from our loss? And that’s not to mention the human cost: After what we have put the Iraqis through, should we not demand a very high standard of certainty that the war is in fact unwinnable before abandoning them? (If you would like to read my thoughts on this last question, you can find them here.) But that framework isn’t suited to vengeance — and we were out for blood.

Say what you will about Bush’s social conservatism, it was nothing new. In fact, it fell short of many social conservatives’ expectations. New was: Halliburton blood for oil torture Guantanamo domestic spying extraordinary rendition — plus ample (and amply televised) doses of death death death death death.

Consider the remarkable traction of the slander that “Bush lied, people died.” I had variations of it repeated to me by many well-educated non-extremists. None of them could justify it beyond pointing out that WMD stockpiles had not been found in Iraq. If you told them that the administration’s claims about Iraqi WMD were consistent with the views of just about every intelligence agency in the world, and that there is a difference between a lie and a mistake, they hardly cared. If you explained that, had the administration really been after Saddam’s oil, there were much cheaper ways of getting it, they hardly cared. They just knew Bush was a liar.

It is a special irony that the president who spoke in the most idealistic language since JFK has been branded a tyrant. Criticize his “freedom agenda” if you like, but don’t tell me he didn’t mean it. Decry his judgment if you like, but don’t tell me he is unmoved by suffering. Is there a president in living memory who cried more in public than Bush did? There he was with wounded troops, tearing up; there he was on TV talking about a 9/11 orphan, his lip quivering. Compassionate conservatism, expanded welfare state, funding for AIDS treatment in Africa on a scale that dwarfed Bill Clinton’s efforts — but it didn’t matter, because everyone just knew Bush was full of malice.

Then lo, who should appear but a messiah? It was Barack Obama’s genius to offer, not an alternative platform, but an alternative brand sold as a secular religion. “Hope” and “change you can believe in” would in other elections have been banalities, but in this election, context became content, and the content was contrastive: roughly, the Prince of Darkness versus the Light of the World.

The elites and intellectuals (as defined yesterday), far from being immune to Obama’s stylistic seduction, were uniquely susceptible to it. Much more than the public at large, they look down on Bush’s Texas twang, his dropped g’s, his “nucular,” his Evangelical Christianity, his lapel pin. They prefer the ethics of the ACLU and the English of law professors.

That preference is relevant to understanding the psychotic hatred many of them directed at Sarah Palin. Sure, she made mistakes — but weren’t they listening to Joe Biden’s gaffes? His making up of facts in the vice-presidential debate? Biden, however, has trained himself to talk like them. Palin bears the cultural markers of a W. — the dropped g’s, the “nucular,” the Evangelical Christianity. If you hated him, you hated her in equal measure, and then you hated her a little more for reminding you of him.

That the influencers tended to see Bush as a jingoistic, fundamentalist idiot rather than a worthy adversary with whom they had profound disagreements inevitably influenced their presentation of his policies. They are supposed to specialize in nuance and subtlety; the assessment of a war fought against an appallingly cruel autocrat, on the basis of flawed but sincerely believed intelligence, would seem to cry out for such virtues. Their narrative instead combined the nuance of an infomercial with the subtlety of a morality play. Again, think what you will of Bush’s policies — but don’t tell me you arrived at a thoughtful view of them by reading the fulminations of Paul Krugman and Frank Rich.

The influencers convinced the public that the war had been a mistake but failed to get it thinking about how the mistake should be managed. They convinced the public that the war had been wrong but failed to get it thinking about whether we could right the wrong. And when the tide turned — when Iraq stabilized, and we started to win after all — they offered the public a yawn.

I have much sympathy for our 43rd president. I think a good, maybe even a great man has been vilified. It’s fine with me if you disagree. But it is not fine with me, and it should not be fine with you, and it is not good for any of us, that the discourse surrounding this man has been so foolish.

I’ve dwelt on the foolishness because I think it is relevant to what I said yesterday about communication: about the need to justify our beliefs from the ground up, in a way comprehensible and persuasive to those who don’t already hold them.

I am fond of Bush’s colloquial, unpretentious English, and law professors bore me to death — but Bush is not a gifted extemporaneous speaker. Would the received wisdom about the war be quite what it is had it been justified with the suave articulacy and command of detail of a Mitt Romney? I can’t know, but I suspect not.

Bush also seems to have made a decision to put on an air of certainty, even as the public’s doubts grew. I recall his saying, in response to a question about this certainty, that the commander-in-chief must appear strong and confident for the sake of the troops. (I paraphrase.) That seems right, to a point. But the president must also reassure the people he leads that he understands their concerns. Here too I think Bush fell short.

After the failure to find WMD in Iraq, he might have done much more to control the terms of debate. He might have explained — again and again and again — that the war’s justification depended not only on what Saddam had done, but on what Saddam might do. He might have said this in regular press conferences, not occasional speeches. He might have personally announced the intelligence discoveries in post-war Iraq, which left no doubt that Hussein intended to reconstitute his WMD programs as soon as U.N. sanctions were lifted. He might have talked in concrete terms about the strategic stakes, the price of losing. He might have told the public: “Look, we’ve made some great big mistakes, but they were honest mistakes, and we still need to win, and this is how we’ll do it” — and he might have told them this long before the ’06 midterm rout.

In March of 2003, the American people had a very clear idea of why they were going to war, and that idea was: WMD. When the question became instead whether to stay at war, they never heard anything like the best possible affirmative answer. Giving the best answer is all the more important when you’re up against cultural gatekeepers who despise you and the policy you’re justifying puts a lot of blood on TV. Neutralizing those disadvantages would have been beyond the power of any president, but I think Bush could have done better, and I think we should learn from his mistakes.

All right, that’ll do for today. Return tomorrow, if you’d like, for the final installment of these ramblings, in which I’ll tell about my uncomfortable relationship with opinion journalism.

"He might have personally announced the intelligence discoveries in post-war Iraq, which left no doubt that Hussein intended to reconstitute his WMD programs as soon as U.N. sanctions were lifted."

The failure to communicate destroyed the GOP on too many levels. The GOP allowed the Dems and MSM to get away with the lie that only the rich got tax cuts. That was dumb, dumb, dumb. And has the GOP learned? Heck no! McCain nor the Republicans ever attempted to hang the subprime loan scam on the rightful owners: the Democrats.

It doesn't matter if the GOP becomes more Conservative, more moderate, or outright liberal, they will continue to lose if they cannot even get a simple message out to correct such lies as "only the rich got tax cuts!"

And it would not have hurt the GOP to say that the Iraq War was due to Hussein (Saddam, not Obama) continued breaking of the surrender agreement. Most Americans would understand that. But noooooo.... The GOP let the Dems and MSM frame the Iraq War on a single pointed issue: WMDs exist and Hussein is about to use them. Dumb, dumb, dumb...

"the Iraq War ruined President Bush’s brand and President Bush ruined the Republican brand. I think that’s what sank us in 2006

I wonder sometimes if I live in some alternative universe-lol. Did everyone forget Foley? Look back at the news from those times. In early 2006 the dems and MSM were talking about the dems taking back both houses of congress. As time went on they dropped "both houses" and starting talking about winning "the house". As the election got closer, the dems changed the tune to "picking up seats in both houses with a good shot at winning the house". Then some polls came out showing the republicans might even increase their numbers just a bit.

THEN CAME FOLEY

Homosexual emails to underage pages, no quick action by hastert or the pubs. Unending daily rehashing of the event over and over and over AND OVER again. THATS why we lost in 2006.

Had it not been for Foley, the Republicans may very well have held onto both houses.

Is it just me? Am I alone in bizaro world? lol

Foleygate was a result of collusion between the DNC and the MSM. They BOTH knew more than the GOP and used the scandal to beat the GOP leadership over the head. Subsequent congressional investigation showed the truth.

THERE is your culture of corruption.

And the “moral” Democrat who replaced him was also an adulterer.

The media’s implication was that Mark Foley was a child molester. He committed no crime. The Democrats celebrated another Congressman (on the ocassion of his death) who DID engage in criminal sodomy with his staff and REMAINED in office despite public outrage. This was DURING the Foley thing that they celebrated the dead congressman.

The media also colluded with the Democrats on Abu Ghraib and the National Guard memos.

Any bets on this banking crisis that came to a head as an October Suprise and was orchestrated by Democrats like Louis Freeh and Jamie Gorelick?

Alrighty then, here’s a question for you: If Bush did such a lousy job communicating, how come he got elected then re-elected?
Why was his re-election a far more convincing victory than his first election?
Because he was such a poor communicator?
Hardly!

Face it folks: the failure of a solidly GOP Congress to distinguish itself in any respect from the *other* tax-and-spend party was the Party’s downfall, that and running a candidate for President that only his mother could get excited about.
And then not very much...

RE :”It doesn’t matter if the GOP becomes more Conservative, more moderate, or outright liberal, they will continue to lose if they cannot even get a simple message out to correct such lies as “only the rich got tax cuts!”

Finally someone else who picks this up too! Too many republicans think if our side stuck to a set of positions ,that they personally happen to like, that we would win without selling the ideas. And when that doesnt work, it’s all the media and voters fault, we will just lose for ever, BOO-HOO-HOO. You know, back when democrats were losing they were saying that they need to learn how to send simple messages like republicans do. Then they started poll tested everything they did, and attacked GWB from right, left, middle, and here we are.

This goes back to the point that the GOP needs a fighter at least to counter the lies put forward from the MSM. Bush did not take up the home battle and the left had a field day defining him. Most people are not as politically astute as Freepers so they need a source of information outside the slant of MSM. Aside from knowledge and rational thought, the MSM and Hollywood have fed the people a steady diet of emotional crack that sends them off screaming at Bush. It’s emotional manipulation: an addiction to the need for a Savior just as bright and glorious as Bush was dark and evil. The GOP has to counter this media and Fox isn’t the answer.

"Had it not been for Foley, the Republicans may very well have held onto both houses."

Nor should we forget Larry Craig, he of the "wide-stance," and crooked Stevens, the Senator from Alaska with his massive ego who surely deprived the GOP of another Seat by not doing the right thing and dropping out.

Let's remember the victories too: Tom DeLay's old seat was won back for the GOP this fall, and decisively too.

I don’t really care what this guy says, Bush was destroyed by the MSM, not by his own actions. I’m almost interested to see what the MSM, particularly the deranged left like Olberboy, will have to rant and rave about when The Chosen One is in command. I suspect they will react to the coming disasters like the most loyal Nazis reacted when they were obviously losing the war, blaming the middle men and telling each other “if only the Fuhrer knew what was happening”.

Face it folks: the failure of a solidly GOP Congress to distinguish itself in any respect from the *other* tax-and-spend party was the Party’s downfall

Correct. The so called failure to communicate resulted from the failure to act (nothing to communicate). The GOP congress people were busy looking out for themselves and keeping their heads down as they went about the business of enriching themselves and trying to get re elected rather than doing anything good for the country or distinguishing themselves from all the other crooks in Washington.

Then Iraq really went to hell. A perceived mistake became a perceived catastrophe, and most people just wanted to be done with it.

All very nice, some good thinking in there, but an awfully long way to go. The simplest explanation is that what happened in 2008 is what always happens when a nation with representative government wins a war: The ruling party gets voted out, barring peculiar circumstances. Why? Because the crisis is past, it's off the front pages, and all people have to think about it how tired they are of the same old faces.

I say that it hurt the GOP that Iraq was no longer in play. If the Dems had gone into the election promising to leave Iraq while the situation was dicey, they would have cursed as surrender-monkeys and lost. If they had promised to stay the course and not surrender, they would have been seen as irrelevant, and lost. Victory alone was sufficient to make a GOP defeat at the polls likely.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691129428/marginalrevol-20
The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (Hardcover)
(recommended reading)

There is a constant debate in politics. Those who set the rules of the debate, win. The results of 30 years of indoctrination explains the hysteria of the 2000 election. How could they lose?
Concerning President Bush, he was marginalized from the start. The ‘progressives’ maintained a constant drumbeat of destruction his entire administration.
The public should have known the other reasons in the Iraq resolution, but WMD became the focal point. If you use ‘international legal standards’ to define WMD, no one actually has WMD’s until they use them.
The UNMOVIC report concerning precursors, accelorants, and dual use materials would have vindicated the argument with a populace capable of critical thinking but we don’t have that. Slogans and dust from the opposition is all we get.
You can fix ignorance but you can’t fix stupid.

Hastert definitely blew it ~ what he should have done is BAN homosexuals from the Capitol Building immediately.

That would have taken the issue away from the Democrats, particularly as the MSM would be interviewing Barney Frank and a couple of other Representatives every night thereby reminding the public how far Republicans were going to protect House pages ~

That would have gotten Republicans virtually 100% of the Hispanic vote and at least 70% of the black vote.

End of story.

Regarding the Republicans lack of message and lack of ability to get a message out to the American public:

About a week after Tom DeLay resigned my sister called me and asked if I wanted to have dinner with Tom and his wife. I told her yes, especially since I wanted to present FReeper 'jveritas' translated Iraq documents to him. One of the questions that I asked DeLay was how come that even though the entire federal income tax rates were lowered giving all income levels reduced taxes, the earned income tax credit increased for low income, and the child credit doubled for all incomes, that the Republicans allowed the Democrats and the MSM to continue to say that the tax cuts were only for the rich?

I wasn't pleased with his answer which was: "We give out press releases but if the MSM doesn't pick it up there is much we can do."

So with that, I have been thinking. I think the RNC and other Republican groups need to run commercials on national TV and other media weekly or monthly regardless of it being an election season that clarify issues. Don't let the Democrats make a lie become the truth because come election time we are already screwed and there isn't much that can be done.

I would start today running a commercial once a week that says: "Ever since the Democrats took control of Congress in Jan 2007 unemployment has risen, the deficit has increased in size not seen under the Republicans, foreclosures have increased, etc..."

We need to get the message out now, today, that keeps the American public up to date on the screw ups of the Democrats. In the Democrats first complete budget cycle of 2008 they had a deficit of $455 billion and in 2009 it looks to be over $1 trillion dollars. Will any Republican say anything about it? Do you think the MSM will report that deficit and explain that the Democrats control the money and the budget and just ran up a $1 trillion dollar deficit? Of course not. And come election 2010 we'll be screwed again and it will be too late to undo what the Democrats hang around our necks.

In recap, we need to buy commercial time on national TV and other media and keep the American public informed of the failures of the Democrats every step of the way.

Bush lied to, used, abused, manipulated, took advantage of, BETRAYED, conservatives.

The writter notes several areas when mentioning his compassion. BTW - compassionate conservative is doublespeak for Republican Socialist.

Bush pushed the largest transfer of wealth and signed the bills to boot.

Gave away American working taxpayer money by the train load. One mentioned here AIDS in Africa. Recently $400 million to Mexico, doubled the size of the Department of Education. I think he actually the size of the government, as well as signed every spending bill sent him.

Tried to appoint two libs to the USSC,

And McCain is no different then George Bush, both are big government socialosts.

McCain lost because he is a socialist and 20 percent of conservatives stayed home.

President George W. Bush, Republican Socialist. Despised by the left, despised by the right and hated by moderates.

He has reaped the harvest he has sown.

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