Bush Seeks Answers

"He still acts as if he were master of the universe, even if the rest of Washington no longer sees him that way."

That sentence fairly leaps out at you from Peter King's recent Washington Post article on President Bush. The story, which has gotten a fair amount of press (King was on Charlie Rose this week to discuss it) portrays a president who seems to be torn between the psychotic self-confidence of a dry drunk and the jejune intellectual searching of a college freshman stumbling his way through Philosophy 101:

At the nadir of his presidency, George W. Bush is looking for answers. One at a time or in small groups, he summons leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to the White House to join him in the search.

Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing? How will history judge what we've done? Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?

Now, I'm not an author (not having published a book yet) or a historian (in spite of having an interest in history that began when I was a small child, the legacy of a father obssessed with American history) or a philosopher (in spite of the fact that I've read a fair number of philosophers) or a theologian (in spite of the fact that I've certainly read more theology than the current president), but I nonetheless believe that I have answers to the questions that Bush is, very belatedly, raising. I'll get to my answers in a minute.

King continues:

Not generally known for intellectual curiosity [a masterpiece of understatement], Bush is seeking out those who are, engaging in a philosophical exploration of the currents of history that have swept up his administration. For all the setbacks, he remains unflinching, rarely expressing doubt in his direction, yet trying to understand how he got off course.

As you can see, Bush, once again, wants to have his cake and eat it too, which is a hallmark of his administration. Think of Rumsfeld's desire to achieve overwhelming victory in Iraq on the cheap, or Bush's desire to fight a full-scale war without asking the American people to sacrifice much of anything, contrary to the practice of America in almost every previous war it's ever waged.

So it is now with Bush. He wants the American people (or that pathetic remnant of it that still supports him) to believe that he is "staying the course," but at the same time, in private, he is asking intellectuals, the same kind of intellectuals he has poured scorn on his entire life, to explain to him just how he could have fucked up his presidency so badly.

Typical.

So here are my answers to Bush's questions -- with some commentary.

1) What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world?

The very fact that you still think of this as a Manichaean question shows the extent of your intellectual limitations. The great problem of our age is the conflict between a secular modernity and the more reactionary religious elements -- of all three monotheistic religions -- as we inexorably move into a secular century. The very extreme nature of their pushback indicates how intractable this struggle is. My own opinion is that mankind will have to slough off monotheism if we as a race are going to be able to move forward and, you should pardon the expression, evolve. And you, Mr. President, with your brain-dead evangelical version of Christianity, are as much a part of the problem as Osama bin Laden. Quite possibly worse, as you've been responsible for far more deaths than he has.

2) What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing?

Don't go to war for petty personal reasons, for one thing. If you had been able to look at the world in general and that region in particular with the strategic eye of, say, a Richard Nixon, you would have known that destabilizing Iraq was like opening Pandora's box. As bad as Saddam Hussein was, what's come after him is unquestionably worse for the vast majority of Iraqis (the Kurds in the north being an exception). What history has to tell you now is that there are times, as with Eisenhower in Korea or Kennedy with the crisis in Berlin in 1961 that resulted in the building of the Berlin Wall, when you have to get out of a bad situation the best you can -- and then be man enough to deal with the consequences.

3) How will history judge what we've done?

To quote Tonto in that old joke about the Lone Ranger: what's all this "we" shit, white man? It's what you've done. And barring a miracle (such as democracy suddenly blooming in a part of the world where it's never existed before), you will go down as quite possibly the worst president in American history. Worse than Harding. Worse than Grant. Worse than Buchanan. The worst president ever.

4) Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America?

The key word in that sentence is "seem." The rest of the world does not hate America. It resents us sometimes -- justifiably so, because of the way we throw our weight around and don't pay attention to the opinions and interests of the rest of the world -- but I don't really believe they hate us.

5) Or is it just me they hate?

Of course it is. And can you blame them?

Tom Moran