President George W. 'Gut Feeling' Bush

The problem with Bush is not that he relies on his gut feelings but that his gut feelings are so frequently wrong. Styles of operating have varied among presidents whether they're Republican or Democrat. We've had presidents who worked mostly by gut feeling—FDR's intuition is an example—and presidents who mostly worked things out analytically—Lincoln's legal reasoning behind some of his decisions comes to mind. Unlike Bush, however, both Lincoln and FDR listened to a wide range of advice. In fact, both Lincoln and FDR had coalition governments in a time of war which guaranteed a united effort and range of advice that covered a broad majority of Americans.

I have no idea how long or how much George W. Bush thought about the world before he became president but the evidence suggests: not much. Molly Ivins has a column that examines the different between Bush's 'gut feelings' and Colin Powell's broad experience and knowledge:

I know next to nothing about North Korea, but I know how to find out. People who do know the weird country have been worrying about it in print for six years now. (See articles in The New York Review of Books.) Eric Alterman picked this bit up in "The Book on Bush": "The tone of Powell's tenure was set early in the administration, when he announced that he planned 'to pick up where the Clinton administration had left off' in trying to secure the peace between North and South Korea, while negotiating with the North to prevent its acquisition of nuclear weaponry. The president not only repudiated his secretary of state in public, announcing, 'We're not certain as to whether or not they're keeping all terms of all agreements,' he did so during a joint appearance with South Korean President (and Nobel laureate for peace for his own efforts with the North) Kim Dae-Jung, thereby humiliating his honored guest, as well.

"A day later, Powell backpedaled. 'The president forcefully made the point that we are undertaking a full review of our relationship with North Korea,' Powell said. 'There was some suggestion that imminent negotiations are about to begin -- that is not the case.'"

This was pre-9/11, when Bush's entire foreign policy consisted in not doing whatever Clinton had done, and vice versa.

Colin Powell must have been dumbfounded that Bush was giving up sixty years of foreign policy for the sake of political expediency and 'gut feelings.' And irritated that during Bush's first term many promises were made but with no follow-up. We are almost into the seventh year of Bush's presidency and he has very little to show for all that effort. According to CNN, a majority of Americans are finally noticing (I'm hoping a majority of voters this November are also noticing):

A poll conducted for CNN over the weekend suggests support among Americans for the war in Iraq is dwindling to an all-time low. Just 34 percent of those polled say they support the war, while 64 percent say they oppose it.

Women led the opposition, with seven in 10 saying they oppose the war. Twenty-eight percent say they support it, which is the lowest support among women in any CNN poll taken since the invasion more than three years ago.

I've given up trying to understand why we went to war in Iraq or why we failed to finish the war in Afghanistan before racing off to Iraq. It's not even clear that Bush knows the reason for his own war or that he knows where he's taking us or what might happen if he keeps blundering. Tom Raum of the Boston Globe offers the latest reminder of Bush's changing rationales for the Iraq war:

President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now.

Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader's weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.

But 3 1/2 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, the justification has become far broader and now includes the expansive "struggle between good and evil."

(snip)

When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Bush shifted his war justification to one of liberating Iraqis from a brutal ruler.

After Saddam's capture in December 2003, the rationale became helping to spread democracy through the Middle East. Then it was confronting terrorists in Iraq "so we do not have to face them here at home," and "making America safer," themes Bush pounds today.

"We're in the ideological struggle of the 21st century," he told a California audience this month. "It's a struggle between good and evil."

Vice President Dick Cheney takes it even further: "The hopes of the civilized world ride with us," Cheney tells audiences.

Every time one of Bush's rationales fall apart, he seems to get more desperate to save not the situation, but his presidency. He's going to be remembered as a war president all right, but not in the way he wanted. Some argue that Lincoln was the greatest president of the 19th century, if not the greatest in American history. And some argue that FDR was the greatest president of the 20th century. Despite his enormous opinion of himself, George W. Bush is likely to be remembered as the most failed two-term president in all of American history.

We need to elect a Congress that can tap Bush on the shoulder and disabuse him of his dangerous delusions. And then we need to begin the repair of our foreign policy and our nation.