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Bush’s Misgovernment
 The
Princeton historian Sean Wilentz has caused a
stir by arguing, in Rolling Stone magazine, that George W.
Bush may be the worst president in American history. Of course you have to
bear in mind that Wilentz, as a good liberal,
ranks  Lincoln
and Franklin Roosevelt among the greatest.
Still, he has uttered a judgment
with which fewer and fewer people are disposed to disagree. Last week a
seemingly apolitical young woman stunned me by confiding, on our first
meeting, that she would like to do something more than vote against
President Bush. She had just watched a young veteran, his leg smashed in
Iraq, painfully board the airplane on which we were riding. It was an indiscreet
remark that, had it gotten back to her employer (not to mention the
Department of Homeland Security), could have cost her her job and then
some.
Polls show upwards of 60 per cent
of respondents saying they “disapprove” of Bush’s job
performance. But such figures fail to convey the amazing fury the man
inspires. Hardly a year into his second term he is effectively finished. Some
are irritated by gasoline prices; others are inflamed by illegal immigration;
still others are outraged by the Iraq war and by his evident eagerness to
widen it to Iran. He is blamed for things that may not really be his fault; he
seems to invite judgment for his response to everything from Hurricane
Katrina to the corruption in his party. And of course he is spending trillions
and trillions of dollars.
With midterm elections looming,
Republicans are in terror. On the bright side, to call it that, the Democrats
remain a dismal lot, whose only “new idea” is the same New Idea
they always offer: more government. And that’s the same New Idea
Bush always offers. Maybe the best we can hope for in November is that the
Democrats will gain enough seats in Congress to produce gridlock.
Impeachment? A utopian hope,
perhaps. And I say it reluctantly, but Bush, though he has much to answer
for, really isn’t to blame for all that ails us. He just happens to be the
focus of myriad discontents that have come to a head during his presidency.
As the old saying has it, if you
claim credit for the sunshine, you’ll be blamed for the rain. By
pretending to be in control of events, Bush has fairly begged us to curse him
for events he has no control over.
![[Breaker quote for
Bush's Misgovernment: The dollar and the peso]](2006breakers/060425.gif) Consider those gasoline prices. Around 1970 or so, I was
shocked when the price of gasoline soared to 35 cents a gallon. Where would
it all end? At that rate, we might wind up paying as much as 50 cents a
gallon! Or more! The mind reeled.
Now we are looking at prices ten
times as high. Is that Bush’s doing? Well, war in the Middle East
hasn’t helped. But the war isn’t the main reason for the
soaring price of oil. The steady debasement of money is, and Bush is only
marginally responsible for the Federal Reserve System.
Obvious, really, but try explaining
that to the livid driver paying fifty bucks to fill his gas tank. The inchoate
rage at what government has done to all of us sees only that Bush is at the
apex of the pyramid of power, and if he wants all the credit, welcome to it.
The Democrats will be only too glad to assume the role of innocent
bystanders at election time.
Or consider the fantastic influx of
what are officially called “undocumented workers” —
upwards of ten million from Mexico alone. Here again Bush is being widely
blamed for failing to stop them. But this is rather like blaming him for failing
to stop Katrina. I don’t mean to idealize the immigrants or to minimize
the dislocations they sometimes bring, but these are poor people who have
been driven out of their native country by misgovernment, in the form of an
inflation so severe that you wonder why all of them don’t leave.
Yet little of the fury over
immigration is directed at the Mexican government. When a government
destroys the value of money, it impoverishes almost the entire population,
except for the few who know how (and are able) to take advantage of the
situation. If the peso had remained strong as the dollar eroded over the last
generation, today American workers would be sneaking into Mexico to get
jobs.
One thing all governments do is
misgovern. Every government misgoverns in its own way. Bush’s way
is but one of many, so as we properly condemn his misdeeds let’s
keep a sense of proportion.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2006 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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