 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
July 2, 2001, U.S.
Edition
Time to Make
Room for Daddy
To succeed
abroad, George W. Bush needs to be less Reaganite and more, well, Bush-like.
By
Fareed Zakaria
Most politicians learn their craft not from abstract theories but from history. Usually their own history. As a young man, Ronald Reagan admired Franklin Roosevelt's infectious optimism and developed his own sunny style. Lyndon Johnson learned what he called the "political facts of life" by watching the Texas Legislature at work. As vice president, Richard Nixon closely studied his boss, Dwight Eisenhower. George W. Bush is no exception to this pattern. The president greatly admires his father. Through much of his life, he has quite literally followed in his footsteps: Andover, Yale, Skull and Bones, Texas, the oil business and, finally, politics. His political instincts were shaped watching, at close quarters, his father's presidency. And the central lesson he seems to have taken from it is, Don't do what Daddy did.
Ever since he became a candidate for president, Bush and his advisers have laid out a set of rules: keep close to the conservative base; don't compromise on big issues like taxes; take bold positions based on principle and ideology; always use political capital. They don't add the final phrase, but it's obvious: "unlike the first President Bush."
In these beliefs, W's team is hardly alone. For many conservatives--particularly neoconservative intellectuals--it is an article of faith that George H.W. Bush's presidency was an utter failure. It betrayed the heroic legacy of Ronald Reagan. It is the Gipper's path that true conservatives want to follow. But this mythology is in need of revision. Reaganism is the right strategy for the wrong age. If Bush is looking for a political style for our times, he should embrace his own family values.
The fiery leadership of a Reagan or a Churchill, crucial for the challenges that they faced, is out of place in a world that America dominates, in which capitalism and democracy are on the march, and in which conservative policies are triumphing every day. What once seemed bold now seems divisive. What once seemed heroic now seems vindictive. Where once we confronted the Soviet Union and international communism, now we are battening down the hatches and manning the barricades against... er, North Korea?
One of the measures of the country's shift in mood is its newfound appreciation of Bush pere. Last year Gallup asked people to rate all past presidents since 1960. George H.W. Bush came in second, ahead of Reagan. Since the first place went to Kennedy, who was president 40 years ago and is remembered through a gossamer haze of nostalgia, it is fair to say that of all the presidents of whom people have an actual recollection, George H.W. Bush ranks first. The poll was not a fluke. The same question was asked in 1998 and 1999, with the same results.
In fact, Bush Sr. was a pretty good president. In his four years in office, he cleaned up the savings and loans mess (which he inherited), effected a peaceful transfer of power in Nicaragua and deftly handled the collapse of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany and the gulf war. He also moved the United States toward fiscal solvency with the budget deal of 1990. As Jonathan Rauch has pointed out, Bush reduced the deficit by more in his four years than Clinton did in his first term ($482 billion vs. $433 billion). If deficit reduction was a key to the prosperity of the 1990s, then George H.W. Bush deserves much credit for setting the train in motion.
What his right saw as appeasement, Bush Sr. saw as politics. He believed that politics is about trade-offs and cooperation, that America cannot function abroad without its allies and that in a democracy compromise is honorable. When campaigning, George W. Bush seemed to embrace the new age we live in. He spoke in warm, centrist tones; invited independents to his cause; criticized conservatives for being too hard on America, and declared that the United States had become arrogant abroad. In office, however, particularly in foreign policy, he has reverted to a phony Reaganism--phony because it lacks the cold war to give it meaning.
But it's not working. The administration has had to shift gears on almost every initiative it has announced--North Korea, the environment, the Middle East, China, the Balkans. Often it is not that Bush's policies are wrong but that they are announced with an attitude that says to the rest of the world, "Screw you." The world has returned the compliment. And so have many Americans.
For the first time in decades, polls suggest that a Republican president is not trusted to handle an international crisis. Conservatives used to believe that no policy was right or wrong for all eternity but all depends on the context. Recognizing a changed world, Reagan himself adopted a very different tone in his last years in office and later, something conservatives conveniently forget. (Those who noticed at the time called him a "useful idiot.") Bush's instincts are making him pull back from this pointless posturing. But
within his administration there are many who think that the lessons of the 1980s apply for all times--stand firm and history will vindicate you. These warriors without a cause--who spoke ill of Bush until his nomination became inevitable--will tell the president not to "give in," to stay the course, disregard the moderates, disregard the media and disregard the world. I have a line the president might try on them. "Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent."