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The term was a handy way for the president’s supporters to respond to criticisms of him and his administration without addressing the substance of the criticisms.
Pathetic response to Katrina? Bush-bashing. Ballooning budget deficit? Bush-bashing. No exit strategy? Bush bashing. It was a get-out-of-jail-free card, easier to use than facts when the president’s critics based their criticism on facts.
I think the term has fallen from widespread use because the Bush “brand” has gotten so easy to criticize. Here are some recent news items about what some historians call America’s worst presidency:
n A former Environmental Protection Agency official said Vice President Cheney’s staff “censored congressional testimony ... on the health threats posed by global warming” because the testimony would’ve forced the administration to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. (July 9, Washington Post)
n June was the deadliest month for Americans in Afghanistan since our “victory” there, and more soldiers are needed to fight the resurgent Taliban — but we can’t send more soldiers because they’re tied down in Iraq. (July 3, AP)
n “A U.S. Special Forces counterterrorism unit ... reportedly killed a relative of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, potentially igniting a diplomatic crisis” that made Iraq’s government reluctant to sign an agreement governing the conduct of U.S. forces there. (June 29, McClatchy News Service)
n A history compiled by the U.S. Army itself documents “problems that hampered the Army’s ability to stabilize” Iraq in the 18 months after the self-proclaimed “Decider” declared “Mission accomplished.” The “lack of detailed plans before the war for the postwar phase (was) ... a deficiency that reflected the general optimism in the White House and in the Pentagon.” (June 29, New York Times)
n Even the so-called success of the surge is, according to the Government Accountability Office and Defense Department, “fragile, reversible and uneven” (Bloomberg News, June 24). We’re “winning” partly because we’re paying some factions not to fight and partly because Muqtada al-Sadr has told his Mahdi Army to stand down. The New York Times reported on June 21 that “successes in Basra and Sadr City were not so much victories as heavy fighting followed by truces that allowed the militias to melt away with their weapons. ‘We may have wasted an opportunity in Basra to kill those people that needed to be killed,’ said one U.S. defense official, who could speak candidly ... only if he was granted anonymity.”
n Locally, Winona State nearly lost funding for a Child Protection and Training Center because decisions in President Bush’s Justice Department were based on political cronyism rather than merit.
Such ineptitude andcontempt for principle and people is double-barreledbad: There’s the obvious damage it does to the human beings involved; worse yet, it serves as its own self-defense. When outrages are rare, they draw attention to themselves; but when they come so often that they become ordinary, they wear down our capacity for outrage. They sap our strength to say what we know we should say, and legitimate anger oozes out of us like air from a slow-leaking tire.
When ineptitude becomes the norm, it seems inevitable, and we give up on expecting a level of conduct we have every right to expect. When we complain about the foolishness dumped on us on any given day, we’re ignored for singing an old song that everybody’s tired of.
That’s the worst of the price we pay for lousy governance at any level.
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