A Failed Presidency

If elections were solely a job performance review, President George W. Bush would lose in a landslide. He has been a reckless steward of the nation’s finances and its environment, a divisive figure at home and abroad. It’s fair to say that Bush has devalued the American brand in the global marketplace.

What keeps this a close race is voter discomfort with Sen. John F. Kerry and the success of Republicans in stoking concerns about Kerry’s fitness for office. But the thrust of the Bush campaign message -- essentially, you are stuck with me in this frightful time because the other guy is too unreliable -- is a tacit acknowledgment that he can’t allow the election to be a referendum on his record.

Bush says John Kerry is ill suited to lead American troops and allies in Iraq, given the senator’s doubts about the wisdom of going to war there in the first place. The president’s strongest moments during the debates came when he pressed this line of attack -- that you can’t succeed in a mission you don’t believe in. Kerry missed a golden opportunity to turn such reasoning to his advantage, for if there is an overarching theme to the Bush failure as president, it’s his inherent disdain for the role of the federal government and for the very act of governing. The mission of the presidency is not one Bush believes in. Though he may see himself as the man chosen by a higher authority to protect the nation, Bush spends a lot of time bashing Washington and, by extension, the government he leads.

Try to imagine Franklin D. Roosevelt being so disdainful of government while trying to rally the nation during World War II. It wouldn’t have worked. Nor would it have worked if he had starved the Treasury of the resources needed to accomplish the mission. That is what Bush has done with his reckless tax cuts and unabated domestic spending.

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the White House initially opposed the move to federalize airport security. Bush was also against creating the Department of Homeland Security, until he realized he was going to lose that fight too. Often forgotten, these were revealing moments.

Bush’s disdain for Washington may be one reason he has been so cavalier about his duty to keep the government’s finances in order. The Bush years have been a Vegas-style all-you-can-eat buffet for special and not-so-special interests. He is the first president in more than a century not to veto a single piece of legislation, and in the ensuing anything-goes environment, even recent legislation meant to end export subsidies declared illegal by the World Trade Organization somehow degenerated into a $140-billion corporate welfare program.

The administration’s cynicism was also apparent in its abandonment of its avowed free-market principles when politically expedient, as when Bush imposed tariffs on imported steel, or when he signed a farm bill that threatens to derail efforts to liberalize global trade.

Bush’s lack of seriousness -- and his stubborn refusal to alter course in the face of altered circumstance -- explains his administration’s notorious hostility toward expertise of all kinds. Whether it is his own Treasury secretary telling him his tax cuts are no longer affordable, intelligence analysts raising doubts about a supposed Al Qaeda-Saddam Hussein tie, or his proconsul in Iraq clamoring for more ground troops, Bush has a way of freezing out expertise he deems inconvenient. The terribly botched occupation of Iraq -- and the lost opportunity it represents according to the president’s own assessment of the stakes in that conflict -- is the price the United States pays for its president’s obstinacy.

Back in 2000, Bush was the quintessential Sept. 10 candidate, a president for an era of seemingly low stakes. His candidacy was all about downsizing the office of the presidency, the federal government and the American role in the world. Bush ran as the good-natured, back-slapping governor of Texas whose only worry in life seemed to be the prospect of all that surplus taxpayer money stashed away in Washington, getting wasted on such frivolities as Medicare and Social Security reform. He promised to curtail the regulatory state at home and promote a more humble foreign policy abroad. He was harshly critical of Clinton-era nation-building overseas and treated diplomacy as a nuisance once in office.

It’s unfair to blame Bush for not being able to get France to join the coalition of the willing, but it’s proper to point out that from early on this administration antagonized much of the world with its haughty dismissal of diplomatic efforts to combat global warming and weapons proliferation.

It’s no surprise that a presidency designed for a world of easy prosperity at home and quiet overseas would struggle to meet the challenges of the last few years.

Now, once again, the nation faces the possibility of a presidential election whose margin of error might exceed the margin of victory. The first President Bush was a better president than his son, but it’s George W. Bush who stands a chance of being the first member of the Bush dynasty to become a two-term president. That’s because he is a more effective campaigner than his father, the post 9/11 electorate (though not happy with the status quo) is understandably risk-averse, and Kerry is no Bill Clinton.

All along, this President Bush is one a solid majority of Americans wanted to like and wanted to rally around, but it’s his record that gets in the way of a reelection waltz akin to that of Ronald Reagan in 1984 or Clinton in 1996.

Tuesday needn’t have been a cliffhanger; the country is not immutably locked into a 50-50 blue-red divide. It’s the failure of the Bush presidency that has led us back here.

If he ekes out a victory, George W. Bush should think long and hard as to why the outcome was ever in doubt. That could help him be a better president the second time around, if he gets the chance.