“I would rather believe something and suffer for it than to slide along into success without opinion.”—President James A. Garfield (1831-1881), quoted in Allan Peskin, Garfield: A Biography (1978)
Calvin Trillin once wrote that every succeeding Presidential administration made people nostalgic for the preceding one. In the Reagan administration, he noted, this might take the form of people crying, “Come back, Bert Lance—all is forgiven!”
At last, that instant nostalgia is allowing for a partial rehabilitation of George W. Bush. It’s manifesting itself in the reaction to President Obama’s poll-driven, whiplash-inducing observations concerning the proposed location of a mosque near Ground Zero.
The commentariat are not only pointing out the differences between Dubya—who quickly announced that Islam was a “religion of peace” after 9/11—and today’s GOP, but even between Dubya and the candidate most perceived in 2008 as the un-Bush, Barack Obama. Some are even calling for the former President to speak out on the mosque and call his party back to its better instincts.
For God’s sake, even Maureen Dowd, whose Bushworld collected her daily (sometimes repetitious) attacks on “Bushfellas,” found nice things to say about the eloquence-challenged former President in her recent New York Times column, “Our Mosque Madness.” At least he understood, she noted, that “you can’t have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam.”
Amazed that the “misunderestimated” ex-President could be far more clear about this matter than Obama, she urges him to “get his bullhorn back out.”
Meanwhile, back in Texas, the former President is grinning. Why should he offer an opinion on this? What’s the upside?
Like Albert Brooks in Lost in America, so angry at his wife for gambling away their “nest egg” that he won’t allow her to say the phrase or even any part of it, today’s GOP doesn’t want to hear a peep from the man whose wars abroad and recession at home ensured the loss of their hegemony in the capital. Because losing makes you even more a pariah in politics than moral turpitude, Bush might be even more of a non-person for his own party than for the Democrats, most of whom will always know him, following the 2000 election, as the Commander-in-Thief.
Garfield’s comment above is a little unfair to other Presidents, slightly ironic in his own case (he was assassinated only a few months into his Presidency, so he had little time to be buffeted by public opinion), and somewhat myopic (most Presidents lead by steering public opinion as it's just beginning to coalesce, not getting out far in front of it).
In the fullness of time, Obama will be judged, as his predecessors have been, by how well he performed on one or two issues related to peace and prosperity rather than on the latest imbroglio of the 24-hour news-cycle. He’ll probably look better to his critics, whether Republican or Democrat, than he does now. He might even chuckle at his successor's troubles.
As dismaying as it may be to watch the President scramble for cover as the flak comes in over the mosque issue, it’s amusing to watch another set of true believers—just like those in previous administrations of both parties—bewail the unwillingness of their champion to, in Garfield’s phrase, “believe something and suffer for it.”
Profiles in Presidential courage may be all well and good, but no occupant of the Oval Office has ever wanted to be a masochist.
Calvin Trillin once wrote that every succeeding Presidential administration made people nostalgic for the preceding one. In the Reagan administration, he noted, this might take the form of people crying, “Come back, Bert Lance—all is forgiven!”
At last, that instant nostalgia is allowing for a partial rehabilitation of George W. Bush. It’s manifesting itself in the reaction to President Obama’s poll-driven, whiplash-inducing observations concerning the proposed location of a mosque near Ground Zero.
The commentariat are not only pointing out the differences between Dubya—who quickly announced that Islam was a “religion of peace” after 9/11—and today’s GOP, but even between Dubya and the candidate most perceived in 2008 as the un-Bush, Barack Obama. Some are even calling for the former President to speak out on the mosque and call his party back to its better instincts.
For God’s sake, even Maureen Dowd, whose Bushworld collected her daily (sometimes repetitious) attacks on “Bushfellas,” found nice things to say about the eloquence-challenged former President in her recent New York Times column, “Our Mosque Madness.” At least he understood, she noted, that “you can’t have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam.”
Amazed that the “misunderestimated” ex-President could be far more clear about this matter than Obama, she urges him to “get his bullhorn back out.”
Meanwhile, back in Texas, the former President is grinning. Why should he offer an opinion on this? What’s the upside?
Like Albert Brooks in Lost in America, so angry at his wife for gambling away their “nest egg” that he won’t allow her to say the phrase or even any part of it, today’s GOP doesn’t want to hear a peep from the man whose wars abroad and recession at home ensured the loss of their hegemony in the capital. Because losing makes you even more a pariah in politics than moral turpitude, Bush might be even more of a non-person for his own party than for the Democrats, most of whom will always know him, following the 2000 election, as the Commander-in-Thief.
Garfield’s comment above is a little unfair to other Presidents, slightly ironic in his own case (he was assassinated only a few months into his Presidency, so he had little time to be buffeted by public opinion), and somewhat myopic (most Presidents lead by steering public opinion as it's just beginning to coalesce, not getting out far in front of it).
In the fullness of time, Obama will be judged, as his predecessors have been, by how well he performed on one or two issues related to peace and prosperity rather than on the latest imbroglio of the 24-hour news-cycle. He’ll probably look better to his critics, whether Republican or Democrat, than he does now. He might even chuckle at his successor's troubles.
As dismaying as it may be to watch the President scramble for cover as the flak comes in over the mosque issue, it’s amusing to watch another set of true believers—just like those in previous administrations of both parties—bewail the unwillingness of their champion to, in Garfield’s phrase, “believe something and suffer for it.”
Profiles in Presidential courage may be all well and good, but no occupant of the Oval Office has ever wanted to be a masochist.
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