Yesterday we received the newest issue of Maclean’s in the mail. It had George Bush on the cover, and the text read: The Worst President in 100 Years?*
Today I had a little time at work, so I leafed through the pages until I hit the article — 6 pages worth. I read the opening paragraphs which described “just another day in the life of the world’s last superpower under the leadership of President George W. Bush” which included the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq, the US Senate vote to increase the ceiling on national debt (to $9 trillion), the House of Representatives approving $92 billion in spending to support the war, and the Gallup opinion poll registering 37% approval of Bush’s performance.
I scanned the photos: one of Bush of course, another of soldiers and a flag-draped coffin, another was a homeless person begging for money, one of SUVs rolling out of a car assembly plant, and one of Jakarta protesters burning an effigy of Bush. Just under that photo I read the following pull quote:
“There is an old weakness in our foreign policy. We make the mistake of believing that inside every foreigner there is an American just waiting to emerge. It’s just not true.”
So I went back to the beginning and started reading.
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The article pulls together many of the issues that we have all read about here on the blogs — from the Iraq debacle, lies, blunders, looming financial crisis, Plame outing, misspending, incompentency, sinking poll numbers, and includes some interesting quotes.
I’ve selected a few paragraphs to highlight, but you can read the whole article online here: [link].
Bush’s constant battles at home and abroad are taking on historic proportions, hardening perceptions that his administration is defined by failure on multiple fronts. Just over 16 months have passed since George W. Bush was elected for the second term that eluded his father, but already historians and pundits are beginning to debate whether he just might be the worst U.S. president in a century.
With just a few years left in his mandate, historians say George W. Bush has no such achievements to offset the grievous cost of Iraq in blood and treasure. Despite the biggest federal spending spree in more than a generation, the Bush White House has produced no transformational vision for domestic policy.
[Bush’s] massive tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 have neither sparked the economy nor bolstered his popularity. They have, however, exacerbated a fiscal crisis that threatens to undermine the very basis of the American state. “It used to be a part of the American character to believe in delaying gratification, and saving for the future,” McElvaine [Robert McElvaine, a professor of history at Millsaps College in Mississippi] says. “But it seems the future is being ignored in spectacular fashion by this administration.”
Economists have been ringing alarm bells about this for years, and last week Treasury Secretary John Snow issued the government’s starkest warning yet. “While credit and credit cards are a boon to life in America today, they also present some potential problems if credit and credit cards aren’t used wisely,” Snow said. “People can get into trouble. They can cause themselves financial wrecks.” To financial analysts, Snow’s comments seemed like common sense, but they have fuelled speculation that he and Bush have parted ways with regard to the economy, and that he’ll soon resign from cabinet.
Jack Trout is a legend in the marketing business. He’s written several classic books on branding, and his firm, Trout and Partners, is adviser to dozens of huge clients, from Apple Computer to Xerox. In late 2002, he was hired by the U.S. State Department to develop a strategy for diplomats to polish the image of America around the world, casting the U.S. as a partner in peace. “I presented this idea and they loved it, but they said, ‘There’s just one problem,'” he recalls. “They told me, ‘I think we’re going to invade Iraq.’ And I said, ‘Forget it then. All this stuff goes out the window.'”
Last June, the Pew Global Attitude Project released its latest international survey on America’s image, carrying the remarkably optimistic title “American Character Gets Mixed Reviews.” This was technically true, though the “mix” ranged from hostile to scathing. (…) “This is the mother of all branding problems,” Trout says now. “What do you do to rebuild America’s brand and image? When a business has had a bad run and turned off a lot of its customers, they hang out a big sign that says ‘under new management.’ And we will get nowhere until we have that sign hanging out there.”
Robert Dallek, a presidential historian and professor emeritus at Dartmouth University, agrees. He has written books on John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, is now working on a biography of Richard Nixon, and says no other president has been so universally reviled around the world as Bush, with the possible exception of Johnson. “There is an old weakness in our foreign policy,” Dallek says. “We make the mistake of believing that inside every foreigner there is an American just waiting to emerge. It’s just not true. Woodrow Wilson made that mistake, and George Bush is making it again. The whole notion that you can export democracy at the point of a bayonet simply does not work.”
Observers say these foreign controversies would be easily manageable, if not for a steady stream of domestic missteps eroding confidence in the administration. The bungled relief effort following hurricane Katrina, Bush’s aborted attempt to appoint his close friend, the woefully underqualified Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court, and Scooter Libby’s revelations about the ongoing CIA leak affair, have all contributed to the President’s slide.
[Dallek] has spent years studying presidents like Johnson and Nixon, who were reviled in office and revered in retrospect, but when he looks at the trajectory of Bush’s agenda, he sees little hope that the 43rd President of the United States will ever be redeemed. “We are now deep into the wadi, and the majority of his term has been put in place, and what great achievements can he point to?” he asks. “He’s alienated so many peoples around the world. The war in Iraq is turning out to be something of a nightmare, perhaps the biggest foreign policy blunder since Vietnam. Historians will point to imperial overreach in terms of domestic spying. They will complain about him being anti-intellectual and far too evangelical. But ultimately it all comes back to Iraq. And if it continues to go as badly as it’s going, he’s in serious trouble.”
And after reading all the way through these 6 pages which have outlined Bush’s very obvious failures, and the declining support (both domestic and international), the final paragraphs are short but poignant.
For his part, the President is pressing ahead with his audacious Middle East gamble, appealing for faith, and chiding those who dare to bet against him. “We must never give in to the belief that America is in decline, or that our culture is doomed to unravel,” he said in his State of the Union address last January. “The American people know better than that. We have proven the pessimists wrong before, and we will do it again.”
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* Maich, Steve. (2006-04-17). The worst president in 100 years?. Maclean’s. Available online: http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics…. Date accessed: 2006-04-12.
Update [2006-4-13 8:27:29 by olivia]: Corrected spelling errors.
