Lame Legacy

Early on in his administration, George W. Bush decided not to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Did the president consider the problem too difficult to solve? No, that wasn't quite it. Too much of a domestic hot potato? Wrong again.

Instead, the 43rd American president had his eyes on the prize. And not in a good way. Bush just couldn't get psyched up to help mediate the conflict between Israel and Palestine. "There's no Nobel Peace Prize to be had here," he told his advisors.

The notion that our soon-to-be-ex-president coveted the Nobel Peace Prize is surreal, like Kim Jong Il waiting for an Oscar or Mugabe holding out for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. That didn't stop Bush's boosters from getting him among the 156 candidates for the prize in 2002. In 2004, both he and Tony Blair were in the running. But those dreams of Nobel Prizes are long gone. Instead, the ultimate lame duck and his circle of sycophants have fallen back on a more amorphous honor: legacy.

With only one week left in what 61% of U.S. historians have called the worst presidency ever, it is time for one last, squirming appraisal of the damage done.

You might think that something entitled the Highlights of Accomplishments and Results of the George W. Bush administration would be issued to the press on the back of a cocktail napkin, along with peanuts, a stiff drink, and an air-sickness bag. Instead, the 52-page document -- and these are only the highlights! -- focuses on the war on terrorism, increased military spending (including missile defense), the freedom agenda, foreign aid, and, sorry, I just couldn't get past p. 16. I must be suffering from budget deficit disorder. The nearly half-trillion dollar budget deficit that Bush is handing off to his successor -- it will climb closer to a cool trillion when the bailout bill comes due -- makes it impossible for me to absorb anything that links "Bush" with "accomplishments."

In their evaluation of the glossy, upbeat document, the folks over at The Progress Report conclude:

"The U.S. military is weaker now than it was five years ago, the State Department is suffering from staffing shortages and low morale, and Bush's approval of illegal interrogation techniques harmed the CIA's intelligence-gathering initiatives and threatened troops abroad."

I'd go further than that. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 73% increase in military spending over the last eight years, have practically bankrupted the country. The administration's embrace of missile defense and aggressive expansion of NATO have destroyed relations with Russia. The State Department is facing more than just low morale: the Middle East is in flames, North Korea has nukes, India and Pakistan are flirting with apocalypse, the global economy has tanked, and the icebergs are melting. Condi can't wait to get out of the hot seat and let Hillary try to clean up the mess.

As for torture, even Jack Bauer is having second thoughts. Howard Gordon, executive producer of the TV show 24, recently confessed, "We felt that we couldn't denounce Jack and wash away the last years of the show, but we do have him travel some distance on the subject and give voice to different points of view." Uh, why not denounce Jack? Send him to The Hague: it would make for good TV when U.S. Special Forces raid the International Criminal Court in an attempt to rescue him.

As for the two other items on the "Best of Bush" list -- the freedom agenda and foreign aid -- it's hard to find much evidence of success. On foreign aid, the Bush administration has done a bang-up job if you include all the military hardware it's given away like Santa Claus on steroids. But if you just look at overseas development assistance (ODA), the Bush team fell down on the job. In 2007, U.S. assistance dropped nearly 10%, and the United States tied for last (with Greece) for being the stingiest major industrialized country in a ranking of nations that looked at aid as a percentage of gross national income.

In terms of the "freedom agenda," the folks who pulled down Saddam Hussein's statue in 2003 aren't so pleased with their gift of democracy (not surprisingly, Iraq isn't listed in the White House's freedom agenda accomplishments). In Pakistan, the administration backed strongman Pervez Musharraf until the last moment; it continues to count undemocratic Saudi Arabia as an ally. Its "democracy promotion" efforts -- in Iran, in Venezuela -- have compromised authentic democratic forces.

And that leaves the "Global War on Terror," which the Bush team equates with the Cold War as a defining struggle for the United States. Having ignored several warnings about al-Qaeda and failed to prevent the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration shifted into overdrive for a crusade that has boosted the ranks of terrorist organizations, increased the number of terrorist attacks (14,499 in 2007, up from 11,156 in 2005, up from 199 in 2002), destabilized great swathes of the Middle East, and made U.S. citizens more not less of a target worldwide.

And they're saying that future generations will thank George W. Bush for what he has done? Don't give that man a hand -- give him a shoe. Not that he cares. Says Barton Gellman in a Washington Post roundtable on legacy, "I think he really, truly, as much as anyone who ever held a high office, does not care what we think." Unless we happen to serve on the Nobel committee, that is.

Crossposted from Foreign Policy In Focus

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Comments

[jinxed]

Please, anybody, give me one example of something geo. and co. have done successfully.

[Foreground]

TECHNICALLY, I suppose his administration sent a lot of money to Africa for AIDS relief. Of course, it was primarily for abstinence related education, which has a really crappy record, but its not exactly a *negative* accomplishment, I suppose.

[jinxed]

Just goes to show how out of touch with the real world Geo. W really is.

[liberal54]

Great commentary, enjoyed reading it.

[TooLooze]

Well said.

[eden4barack08]

Excellent sum of all John, even if the effect it has on me is to make me cry with anger.
Our country actually lived through, endured and is in shambles because of this......this......BUSH (I'll stick to civility), and yet he's still shamelessly parading around selling his arrogant revision of events.

Nothing short of appropriate criminal charges against this administration will set history right and subside this prevalent feeling of injustice, nothing! It doesn't matter how long it takes, or how arduous the battle, the country needs it as much as it needed the powerfully healing election of PE Barack Obama.

[fpie]

MISSION ACOMPLISHED! You betcha. And I'm not being snakey. The neocon ajenda has been the destruction of a functioning US government (or as they call it, "The Beast"). Stop government regulation, redirect public funds to corporations through privatization and disaster capitalism, destroy public support for all non military government functions and on and on ad nauseum.
Let's face it , you coulden't screw things up this badly by accident. It was a real big job and they undertook it with great seriousness. Nobody even tried to stop them. Nobody even seemed to have a clue what they were doing. And they know they have really done it. That's why they always have those big smirks pasted on their faces.

[Havnagudtim]

Agreed! It could not have happened without massive collusion.