Maclean's Magazine
August 30, 2004
Bush's Really Bad Year
The conventioneers will come to praise him. The voters should dump
him.
BOB LEVIN
IN THE LAST BLAST OF SUMMER, with the heat of the political high
season still ahead, George W. Bush stands an actual chance of getting
re-elected. This fact, like other oddities of American life -- Fox
News, say, or Paris Hilton -- is very hard to explain.
Next week the Republicans will gather in New York to laud the
President's policies, and his family values, and his steadfastness in
the war on terror, as if he were riding into the convention on a wave
of success. Even Democrats, replying from the sidelines, will be
mostly respectful, careful not to offend squeamish fence-sitters in a
country that's jittery enough as it is. Which is why Bush craves the
Manhattan backdrop: to remind Americans of the bold commander-in-chief
who grabbed the bullhorn at Ground Zero, back when a shaken nation
rallied 'round him and before his own boneheaded hubris blew it all to
hell.
And blown it he has -- "big time," to borrow Dick Cheney's phrase.
Huge time, like few before him.
A Babe Ruth story comes to mind. It was in the midst of the Great
Depression, and the Babe was demanding a whopping $80,000 salary --
which, a re****ter noted, was more than President Herbert Hoover made.
"I know," Ruth famously responded, "but I had a better year than he
did."
This year, most gainfully employed Americans can say the same about
Bush. He's turned a robust surplus into record deficits; he's lost
more jobs than any president since Hoover. He's miraculously
transformed global goodwill after 9/11 into fear and loathing of the
U.S.A. He's watched his justifications for his Iraq war -- WMD, an
al-Qaeda-Baghdad link -- vanish like a dream, leaving him clinging to
a we're-liberators line just in time for the Abu Ghraib horror show.
Even capturing Saddam Hussein only briefly stalled his sliding public
approval, as flag-draped coffins keep coming home from the mission he
deemed "accomplished" over a year ago. That Fahrenheit film hasn't
helped either. Never mind the caustic voiceover by Michael Moore (like
the Babe, a large, hard-swinging lefty) -- that classroom clip, Bush
looking befuddled for seven long minutes after learning the nation was
under attack, is damning enough. Hey: got a work crisis, deal with it.
Excuse me, children . . . How hard is that? As for his credibility --
what can you say about an administration when people even doubt its
terror alerts?
Little wonder that, last spring, 80 per cent of respondents to an
informal survey of historians rated Bush's presidency an overall
failure. Yes, historians tend to be liberal, and maybe it's too early
to pass judgment. But their indictments -- on integrity, foreign
relations, fiscal policies, civil liberties, health care, the
environment -- are striking nonetheless. Bush, said one, "is by far
the most irresponsible, unethical, inexcusable occupant of our
formerly highest office in the land that there has ever been."
Okay, so maybe you think that's over-the-top; maybe not. But to be
running neck-and-neck in the polls with John Kerry? What's going on?
Partly it's the old culture clash, the GOP preaching the
religious-right gospel on abortion and gay marriage. Partly it's the
Fear Factor -- don't change horses in mid-swamp -- and the intentional
blurring of enemy lines that left a majority of Americans seeing
Saddam's phantom fingerprints on 9/11. Then there's Kerry's charisma
gap and the Republicans' relentless attacks on him: flip-flopper,
undistinguished senator, liberal rich guy, not one of us. Something
funny about that Vietnam hero tale, as well. Forget his Band of
Brothers, the men who actually served on his boat -- we've got our own
Band of Bubbas who know the real story.
It's time for Democrats to play rough too. Make clear their opponent
can't be trusted, that he sent Americans off to fight and die on a lie
and has been flailing for rationales ever since; you want to talk
flip-flops, you could break your back doing Bush's Iraq contortions.
Drive home that his Saddam obsession motivated a new generation of
terrorists, while letting many of the real 9/11 bad guys get away --
that he's made America less secure, not more. As for the slams on
Kerry's record, an occasional reminder of Bush's past -- AWOL National
Guardsman, failed oilman bailed out by daddy's rich friends --
wouldn't hurt.
A lot can happen between now and November. If terrorists were to
strike on U.S. soil, would people rally 'round the Prez again -- or
turn on him for not keeping them safe? Hard to say. But unknowns
aside, my money's on Kerry: as in the recent Canadian election, the
polls may be tight till the end but the vote, I think, will be more
decisive. Friends in the States -- Canada is my home but not my native
land -- offer encouraging re****ts of Republicans who backed Bush in
2000 now saying, no, sorry, not this time. Nice to hear. Nice to feel
a cockeyed faith in America's collective wisdom, and in the simple
justice of the workplace.
He's done a lousy job. Fire him.
Bob Levin is Executive Editor of Maclean's.
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8/27/2004
11:50 AM [GMT-8]
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