GW is a Smart Man
by Mike Kimel
GW is a Smart Man
A few days ago, Keith Hennessey, who worked in GW Bush’s administration, wrote that the former president is a very smart man.
Now, a smart person doesn’t have to be smart at everything. There are plenty of examples of very smart people doing very stupid things, particularly outside their field. However, since living creatures don’t like negative outcomes, smart people, people capable of reasoning out the consequences of their actions, will tend to minimize the number of things they do that have negative outcomes. Sure, sometimes choices are limited, as many circumstances might remain outside a person’s control.
But GW was President of the United States. For much of his term, he had a supportive Congress behind him. For his entire term, he had a supportive Supreme Court behind him. And he had a very compliant Federal Reserve at his side. By definition, he was the most powerful person in the world, and he had very few constraints on his actions.
Which raises the question… why were outcomes so negative during the Bush administration? One doesn’t have to be a political supporter of say, Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton to point to notable successes that occurred in those administrations. But I’m having a hard time coming up with nontrivial things that went as well or better than the GW administration expected or promised.
That isn’t to say he wasn’t successful in implementing policy. In fact, he got his way on a lot of things. He got his signature tax cuts, but once he did, the economy never went past lukewarm, and after a few years of that, we had the worst collapse in decades. When Bush took office, the Fed was concerned that we were going to pay off the national debt. Well before 2008, it was apparent we weren’t going to see so much as a surplus again for a long time. The only real beneficiaries of the Bush economy seem to be those who do God’s work.
On the international front, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Is the region safer? Are we? It is obvious Iran has benefited, as have a number of Iraqi flim-flam men and Americans with connections. (This article in the American Conservative from 2005 is definitely worth a read today.) But those were definitely not the stated objectives of the assorted military operations carried out, and presumably “benefiting Iran” wasn’t even among the unstated objectives.
As to the third of the big issues under GW – the response to Hurricane Katrina – the less said the better.
Back to my question from earlier – if GW was as smart as Hennessey and others claim, given how much power and flexibility he had, why did so many important things turn out so badly? I guess there are a few options:
1. Actually, the economy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the reaction to Katrina, not to mention a whole host of other issues, went swimmingly.
2. The economy, the war in Iraq, and Katrina weren’t actually all that important so he didn’t put much effort or resources into dealing with them. The important issues, the ones to which GW paid attention, turned out well.
3. GW wasn’t actually all that powerful, and he fell victim to a cabal of enemies who deviously allowed him to implement his policies but worked hard to make sure those policies produced lousy results. Perhaps a super advanced race of space aliens.
4. The people in the GW administration were qualitatively different than the people in previous administrations such as that of Reagan and Clinton. GW and his appointees are not very smart at all and had no idea what they were doing. Their arrogance and incompetence inflicted a terrible price upon the rest of us.
Any one of those options would explain what happened in 2001 – 2008. And any one would explain Hennessey’s assessment of his former boss too. Toward which of these options do you lean?
I am leaning towards one of two possibilities:
One : He is an evil space alien from the planet “Bush”
or
Two: He really didn’t care about outcomes at all he just enjoyed playing “The Decider”
Mike, You wrote an entire blog about Bush’s brain without one reference to Cheney or Rove.
As to the question at hand. I agree with Jenning’s number 2 above but with more gaming roles than just “The Decider”. That one was, perhaps, his favorite but I think he enjoyed being “Drown it in the bathtub deficit spender” almost as much, especially if there was a lot of excess waste to absorb. And, from personal observation, he dearly loved playing the “WMD President”.
Anna Lee,
I was thinking the same. GW was playing as he imagined being the president would be. I think Cheney and those in the secretary positions were the real “power”. Rove’s job was just to keep the elections going the “right” way.
To me the most significant evidence of just what GW’s presidency was is found in the moment when Cheney insisted that GW not be questioned by congress without his presence.
Cheney, Papa Bush and the rest of the clan need a place holder. They looked around, asked GW if he would like to take a ride to the white house adding: We’ll even let you drive”. That’s all GW had to hear, that he would get to drive the white house…sort of.
My big question is if there was no 9/11, what would that have meant?
You make the mistake of supposing that any of W’s goals had to do with increasing the common good.
During his admnistrations, his friends the ultra-wealthy:
+ greatly increased their share of the nation’s wealth and income, accelerating away from everyone else
+ consolidated their hold on control of the nation’s political machinery
+ became effectively immune to prosecution, above the law
This his a huge success for W and the 0.001% whose interests he tirelessly represented.
What Joel Hanes said. And you know, this is really pretty darned obvious.
GW enacted policies that in times past would have been called trickle down. Such policies tend to benefit high income individuals directly under the theory that low income folks will benefit indirectly. But regardless, even those who got the bulk of the benefits are worse off because the economy underperformed. GW thought he would cut top tax rates and the economy would boom. He didn’t anticipate he would cut those tax rates and have an economic collapse.
I think my previous comment got eaten, so one more try…
I think all of us, GW included, can agree that he tried a number of policies that more directly benefit the “haves and the have mores” (to use his term) than the have nots, from reducing top marginal tax rates to reduced regulation. The idea there was trickle down – help those at the top and the benefits trickle down to everyone else. But even if his goal was to push more of the pie to the wealthy, his policies still failed.
After all, even those who benefited from the new outcome would have benefited a lot more if the economy hadn’t tanked. And he clearly hadn’t intended for the debt to explode. His stated goal in February 2001 was for almost the entirety of the debt to have been paid down by now.
He truly believed that he could cut taxes and reduce regulation and that would cause the economy to boom and the debt would get paid down. That the economy tanked and the debt grew so much was another failed outcome that occurred after he got to run the economy his way.
well, i would try to make a distinction between the “ultra wealthy” whoever they are and those who got very rich by financial fraud, who seem to being pretty well served by Obama also.
coberly,
I suspect in a few years, someone will be able to write a very similar post about Obama. Unlike GW, he didn’t inherit a good situation and make a mess, nor has he had a supportive Congress/Supreme Court behind him, but he does have the keys to the car and even if the car isn’t heading deeper into the cave, it isn’t going in the right direction either.
And yet, his supporters are still pretty convinced he’s a smart guy.
Mike
you might want to read Charles Ferguson “Predator Nation.”
Toward the end of the book he lists Obama appointees… the same people who created “the mess” he inherited.