For those of you who truly hate the “liberal media” today’s above the fold editorial by Ross Douthat in the New York Times should change your opinion.
Rarely have we seen such an early attempt to re-write the history of the Bush Administration in such a bold place. Douthat admits the poll numbers might make Mr. Bush a “failed president” but then goes ahead to point out two situations he says the President caused – and then “corrected.”
The cases in point? First, the disasterous decision to start the war in Iraq. Secondly, helping to continue the housing bubble which has just about destroyed the economy. Douthat says Mr. Bush solved the first problem by employing the surge strategy suggested by General David Petraeus. He then says Mr. Bush solved the economic problems by creating the bailout. Funny, it seemed to us that conservatives were crediting Mr. Obama with the bailout program.
There’s enough disingenuous thought in that alone to keep up going for half an hour, but what really grabbed us was what followed.
Douthat said that Bush’s REALLY inventive and “best” initiatives came after he’d lost support of both the public and his own allies. Among those “best” initiatives?
By contrast, Bush’s best initiatives often lacked a constituency outside the White House: His AIDS-in-Africa program; his insistence, vindicated by subsequent scientific breakthroughs, on seeking alternatives to embryo-destroying research; his failed second-term proposals for Social Security and tax reform.
We’re still scratching our heads after that paragraph. Seems all of these had sizeable constituencies to begin with. The AIDS program still has active advocates in former President Clinton and his foundation, along with the entire UN. The stem-cell research program had plenty of supporters among Catholics and the evangelical Christian set.
As for any of these ideas being his best? We’d like to think that the collective wisdom of Americans worked on these ill-conceived notions in the proper way. AIDS funding continues to work, though we’d like more of it. The stem cell program was done away with on the power of a new, saner administration, to the delight of researchers and patients everywhere. Social Security “reform” consisted of private accounts that would most likely have been wiped out when mortgage-based derivatives collapsed the markets. Tax reform? We’re still waiting to see that happen – especially with more taxes levied on the rich, at least back to the level we saw during the Reagan years.
We’re not sure if any of Mr. Bush’s attempts at reforming healthcare did anything but enrich big pharma – and we’re not sure if the current plan will just do more of the same.
In all, we’d say to Mr. Douthat and the Times that next time they try to whitewash the former administration, they do a better job of it and use some facts we can agree on, short of the census bureau data which Douthat cites as showing Americans are considerably worse off now than they were eight years ago.
That’s one fact upon which we can all agree.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Self-Correcting Presidency - NYTimes.com
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