Late in 2008 — I can’t recall now whether it was shortly before or shortly after Election Day — a group of us serving as speechwriters to President George W. Bush were with him in the Oval Office for one of our regular meetings when the conversation turned to Barack Obama’s relentless campaign trail attacks on the administration’s national security policies.
As was usually the case, there was more umbrage from amongst the president’s staff than from the man himself. He was a political veteran who had long ago become unmoved by the steady torrent of criticism directed at him (attacks trained on his father or other members of his family, however, were a strikingly different matter). This late in his presidency, he was, if anything, removed and philosophical about the point.
I’ll never forget his response, which, like so many of his insights, drew on American history (those who think the 43rd president didn’t take something away from his history major at Yale have never heard the man behind closed doors). Gazing into the distance and talking to no one in particular, he said (and here I paraphrase from memory): “He’ll say whatever he needs to on the campaign trail. And he may actually believe all of it. But when he gets into this office and sits behind the desk, he’ll understand why we’ve done what we’ve done and he’ll just trim at the margins. It’s just like the early days of the Cold War. He’ll be the Eisenhower to my Truman.”
That brief monologue always stuck out in my mind. There was an ease with history that was breezy without being facile. There was a deep and relentless concern about national security above all else, which was the hallmark of his thinking during my time in the White House (when prompted for what he wanted to say in his farewell address, the president’s immediate response was characteristically simple and direct: “We kept the nation safe”). And there was a faith that Barack Obama, whatever his ideological predispositions, was of sound enough judgment not to undo mechanisms that had proven vital for defending the homeland.
I note all of this because this flashback was triggered earlier this week when I stumbled across this passage in a post from Walter Russell Mead at his Vea Media blog at the American Interest:
Arguably, the Obama administration has played Ike to Bush’s Truman. President Truman was essentially driven from office by public unhappiness with his foreign policy. (Like Lyndon Johnson in 1968 he gave up his quest for re-election in 1952 after a stinging failure in the New Hampshire primary.) President Eisenhower campaigned against the failed policies of the Truman years, and once in the White House he moved swiftly to bring an end to the Korean War even as he institutionalized most of the major features of the Truman policies. (Like Obama, Eisenhower also attacked his predecessor for not doing enough in Asia — though here too his policies were visibly a continuation of the key Truman themes.)
Then as now American politics were bitterly polarized; Republicans attacked Democrats as, literally, a party of treason (for sheltering Alger Hiss and other Soviet agents real and imagined). Ike’s strategy of harshly attacking the failed policies of the Truman administration while implementing most of their key features helped make those policies acceptable to the American center — and the public perception that Eisenhower was a strong and capable foreign policy leader did wonders for his poll numbers.
President Obama has institutionalized the key features of Bush’s war on terror strategy even as he unceasingly denounces his predecessor. In Iraq and now in Afghanistan he wants to end unpopular wars while preserving the essence of Bush’s grand strategy. Just as Eisenhower denounced “containment” while pursuing a containment policy, President Obama has ditched the “war on terror” label while fighting a war on terror that is recognizably Bushesque.
A pretty fair reading, I think. And a reminder that President Bush often had a far better view of the horizon than his critics.
“Miss me yet?”
Class tells. I love GWB.
This hypothesis wil be tested. I have in mind Iran.
What a great story. The media-created Bush caricature is so far from the man in this story. Thank you.
You won’t get any arguments from me that Bush was a class act as President.
However, his Christian humility had the effect of damaging his cause. Bush knew Obama would have to continue to carry out most of his policies, but so did most of us who are not utopian dreamers.
What many of us knew that apparently Bush didn’t, is that if you allow ugly memes and false charges to go viral in the media with no defense other than saying “well, that’s just partisan politics”, your supporters, and your policies of keeping America secure, will suffer badly. And they did. There is something horribly concieted about Bush taking the high road on these attacks, and interesting that he bristled at charges at his dad. He doesn’t seem to understand that it was his job to defend himself for our sake and for the sake of the cause.
Oh sure, all those mechanisms are still in place, whoop-de-doo! Who would argue that our security has improved, or even stayed the same under Obama.
His recent statement on the “Arab Spring” proves Bush is more clueless than prescient.
Obama isn’t Eisenhower. Eisenhower ended the war Truman got in to.
I agree entirely with Franco.
And comparing Ike to Mr Obama is like comparing Filet Mignon to dog.
I have to admit to feeling some jealousy about your access to President Bush. I grew up in and around Midland, Tx, and having Bush as president was a source of pride. It’s refreshing to read of his candid moments and the goodness of a man so despised in “polite society.”
Before Obama took office, I expressed the same thought as Bush. But not being a history major, my words were more like, “He’ll get into office and he’ll get inside information that will make him realize that things are more complex than they seem. Experience will quickly teach him. He will not be able to follow through on his campaign promises about foreign policy.”
If I came up with that, I’m sure thousands of conservatives more well-rounded than I did as well.
Isn’t it interesting how we remember and judge Presidents mostly on the basis of foreign policy even though that is rarely the most important factor in electing them. Bush did the right thing but failed to sell it and now we’ve got this bloody mess of a community organizer. As Ken Langone said on tv yesterday, “we elected this guy who never did anything but go around making speeches so why should we be surprised that that’s all he does”. I think he continued Bush’s policies, more or less, because it was easier and he didn’t know what else to do.
Oh, I don’t remember Bush by his foreign policy. I remember how horrible it was for people of conservative temperament to support him when he encouraged us to deal with financial hardship by spending. I remember him compounding our entitlements fiascos by adding more kindling to the furnace. I remember him abandoning the free market to save the free market. In many of these aspects, Obama has also trailed along nicely in Bush’s path.
(end grumble)
Thanks for this post, Troy. I have been telling my lefty friends that same thing since mid-2008. It’s really great to hear the insider’s view.
I’d love to hear you speak more about your experiences with President Bush on a Young Guns. What memorable interactions did you have with him that defy the received view?
(end grumble) ·8 minutes ago
Bunk. He was the first president to seriously try to reform entitlements in a productive way- both SS and Medicare.
And regarding “selling” his policies, I also say “bunk”. It makes no difference how many cute speeches you give during wartime. The public eventually gets tired of it and wants “out”. I predicted that the GWOT would crater in public opinion by 2006 (5 years) unless there was a second successful attack after 9-11. The American public was ready to declare peace in late 1943 as well, during the “real and good war.” That is the reason that nations and empires die out after a few years.
If speeches and selling policies were the magic solution, Obama would be extremely popular right now. He is not.
Not bunk. Bush abandoned SS reform after the first headwind, and doing so abandoned all those that tried to support him.
Bush expanded Medicare..
Bush knee-capped his supporters on all domestic policies and saddled our personnel in the field with ridiculous constraints overseas. He filled our CIA and the DoD with the politically-correct, nonsensical types that make the world a more dangerous place, now. Bush created Homeland Security and filled it with the same types of people.
We are where we are, precisely because Troy is correct; Obama is following upon Bush, while blaming him.
Now, we are insolvent, less well-respected, and pumping out a generation of cynical public servants/military.
I don’t miss him. Our country is a complete mess, thanks to George Bush, long before Obama.
I tried my best to convince a centrist friend to vote Republican in 2008, and he pointed out to me everything the Republicans had done during the previous few years. I don’t miss defending a reckless spending, sort-of war-time president.
The world we live in is real and it is not the world George Bush lives in.
I’d love to hear you speak more about your experiences with President Bush on a Young Guns. What memorable interactions did you have with him that defy the received view? ·6 hours ago
I second that. Actually, I’d like to see more written, since I don’t get to listen to the podcasts.
Yep.
The very modest proposals for Social Security reform were promising, but didn’t get very far. The reforms didn’t seem that radical at the time and certainly not in retrospect.
I’m still envious you got to hang out with W in the Oval Office. Green. Green. Green.
Where was all that support for SS reform? I don’t remember the GOP Congress even introducing a bill for a vote. As for expanding Medicare, yes he did. He said he was going to push for a prescription drug benefit when he campaigned in 2000 and that’s exactly what he did. I guess you weren’t paying attention back then.
And yes, the country’s a mess but blaming it all on W isn’t a very persuasive argument. I both blame and credit Bush for the things he did and didn’t do. But guess what? He wasn’t all powerful. That’s not the way Washington works. The mess we’re in has many authors and current occupant of the oval office supported then and STILL supports many of the same policies that put us in this mess.
… I don’t miss him. Our country is a complete mess, thanks to George Bush, long before Obama…