The Reactionary Utopian
                       May 9, 2006


BUSH'S PLACE IN HISTORY
by Joe Sobran

     Back in 2000, candidate George W. Bush described 
himself as "a uniter, not a divider." If we didn't all 
remember that, you'd think I'd made it up. Now Bush has 
dubbed himself "the decider."

     Well, things change, people change, and our 
perceptions of them change; but with Bush, everything has 
changed, and in the most startling way, beginning with 
his election. The electoral vote was so close that it 
came down to a single state where the popular vote was 
virtually even -- and the governor of that state was 
Bush's brother!

     This set the tone for what I can only call the most 
improbable presidency in American history. Today the 
country is so bitterly divided, and Bush's poll ratings 
are so abysmal, that it takes an effort to recall how 
successfully he did, at times, unite the voters. After 
the 9/11 attacks his popularity approached unanimity. He 
had a lock on patriotism. Support for his War on Terror, 
wherever he might choose to take it, was so impressive 
that one usually skeptical liberal pundit, Michael 
Kinsley, pronounced him "a great leader."

     Then, during the 2004 campaign, the polls strongly 
indicated that America was evenly divided again. It 
looked as if the Bush-Kerry vote might be as close as the 
Bush-Gore vote had been. But then Bush won a decisive 
victory, leading a Republican triumph and boasting of his 
"political capital." Only a few months after his second 
inauguration, that capital was exhausted. As the war in 
Iraq went bad, he committed blunder after blunder. Gaffes 
like (to name just one) his nomination of the pitiful 
Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court made him look 
ludicrously incompetent.

     Today Republicans are afraid to be associated with 
him, and the Democrats are murmuring hopefully about 
impeachment. Even his hard core is shrinking, as 
conservatives belatedly notice that Bush is, to say the 
least, a very odd sort of conservative. Under his rule, 
big government is bigger than ever, and is committed to 
even more explosive growth in years to come.

     Another liberal pundit, E.J. Dionne Jr., rejoices 
that the country is reacting against "the failure of 
conservative policies and the declining appeal of 
conservative rhetoric." Really? And just which 
"conservative" policies would those be?

     Bush's policies have in fact been so confusingly 
miscellaneous that it's hard to know just what to call 
them. He has given us monstrous increases in government 
power with heavy doses of conservative rhetoric. The 
rhetoric, until recently, has assured conservatives that 
he is "one of us" at heart, which is the way Republicans 
usually snare conservative hearts.

     Conservatives also rally to any politician who can 
make liberals hate him, as Bush has done more 
successfully than any pol since Richard Nixon. Like 
Nixon, Bush has a way of enraging liberals even while 
trying to appease them. On top of that, he must hold the 
record for irritating mannerisms, from smirks to swaggers 
to defiantly inept English.

     Seldom has one man gotten on so many people's nerves 
for so many different reasons. Some think he's a war 
criminal, others think he's just a boor. He's 
miscellaneously annoying, like an unusually smug ax 
murderer with bad breath who can't tell a joke and 
attends a weird church. When you try to put your 
exasperation into words, you hardly know where to start.

     Some of the credit must go to Bush's supporting 
cast, starting with his vice president. Dick Cheney is 
another source of miscellaneous irritations. John Nance 
Garner, one of Franklin Roosevelt's veeps, once said the 
vice presidency "isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit" 
(though he actually named another bodily fluid), but 
Cheney seems to think that if you have a pitcher of warm 
spit, you should make lemonade. If Garner had a lesbian 
daughter, she kept it to herself and didn't do books and 
interviews about it. I'm not sure what the moral is here, 
but I do know this: the Bush era makes even less sense 
than the Clinton era did.

     It's a crazy time, when the old verities don't seem 
to apply anymore, except that Kennedys are still being 
arrested. Bush and his people have only aggravated the 
situation. One small consolation is that the Bushes are 
unlikely to have airports, schools, and stadiums named 
after them. It looks as if their place in history is 
already secure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read this column on-line at 
"http://www.sobran.com/columns/2006/060509.shtml".

Copyright (c) 2006 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate, 
www.griffnews.com. This column may not be published in 
print or Internet publications without express permission 
of Griffin Internet Syndicate. You may forward it to 
interested individuals if you use this entire page, 
including the following disclaimer:

"SOBRAN'S and Joe Sobran's columns are available 
by subscription. For details and samples, see 
http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml, write 
PR@griffnews.com, or call 800-513-5053."