An Un-American Presidential attitude

One of my hobbies on here is an attempt to dissect the Bush administration and see what I can find to define it in larger terms. How does he differ from his predecessors? Aside from policy, what will be remembered about the 2001-2009 years?

There are a lot of threads, bits and pieces to try and put together into a bigger theory. Cronyism, dishonesty, condescension towards anyone outside of his circle, etc.

First, a bit of a look back. Prior to George Washington’s tenure as president, it was suggested that he might be king of America. Washington himself rejected the idea, largely due to his desire to live a peaceful life at Mount Vernon. There’s more to the story though, and it goes back to why the United States Constitution was written with its checks and balances, its layered and intricate ways to prevent any one branch from running roughshod over another.

One thing the founding fathers understood was that while any one president may be a truly magnanimous and selfless man, dedicated solely to the welfare of his nation, they certainly all won’t be. Ours is a country that is only as good as those who lead it, and a greedy and corrupt president, given a long enough leash, will have little qualms with exploiting his power for personal gain.

A quote from the 1997 movie Men in Black springs to mind: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” While some presidents, perhaps many or even most, won’t take advantage of legal permissions and an expanded executive branch, it’d be just naive to think it can’t happen.

That’s where the divide happens between Mr Bush and the others.

A video over on Crooks and Liars has Weekly Standard editor and noted idiot Bill Kristol wondering aloud why Democrats won’t give Bush the “benefit of the doubt” over the spy bill nonsense. In that moment, we see all that we need to know about the president’s attitude, his supporters’ attitudes, and why they’re a danger.

More history. Recall the fuss that popped up when people found out that in 1996, president Clinton had tried to expand his wiretapping authority and the Republicans fought to shut it down. Orrin Hatch and others commented on their concerns about giving Clinton extra surveillance powers.

A decade later and suddenly the argument has turned around. A flip-flop? Not exactly.

Often times when speaking, Bush likes to speak by referring to himself as his office rather than with “me” or “I”. He says things like “The president needs to be able to…” or “The president must have the ability to…” and so on. When he says it, though, he doesn’t mean “the president”, at least not in the abstract. He means “me”.

Bush’s attitude, and that of his more vocal supporters, is that of “hey come on, I’m not gonna do anything wrong” as though they were high school students asking to be allowed out of the building to head to McDonald’s for lunch. They aren’t looking at the wider implications, only themselves.

The life of George Bush Jr can best be explained as one where he gets to do whatever he wants and when it doesn’t go well, he gets bailed out only to trundle off to his next adventure while everyone else worries about the details. He’s the “I wanna” president, thinking only of himself.

It’s true that most on the left wouldn’t trust George W Bush with our pets over the weekend while we head out of town, but that’s not the point. Even were it true that Bush had given us no reason not to trust him, that he was an honest man who we believed would do exactly what he said and would not take advantage of our trust, could we give such expansion of powers?

Of course not. Just like those high school students, even if it’s true that they’re just going to get a Big Mac and come back before 5th period, if we change the law to allow them to run around without oversight it would be downright idiotic to believe that everyone is going to act so honestly.

The question that must always, always be asked when the prospect of making a permanent expansion of powers comes up is “do I want every president to have this capability?” Maybe you think Bush should be able to round up prisoners and spy on people with absolutely no oversight or checks, but would you trust a Hillary Clinton or, down the road, an even further left liberal a la Kucinich? The reverse is true for the lefties, maybe we wouldn’t mind Clinton or Obama to have them, but what about McCain?

That’s just not how Bush and the others look at things. They view things through the narrow scope of Bush Himself. They aren’t looking at things through the scope of 2008, 2012, or 2060. When they talk about “the president” needing to be able to spy on whoever he wants, whenever he wants, they just mean “President Bush”.

These are the people who would have insisted that George Washington become king, and had Washington himself had Bush’s attitude, realizing that he certainly would have been a good king, he might have taken the post. Imagine how different the United States would be today had things panned out that way.

So we’ve found the Bush legacy. A selfish lack of regard for the fate of the nation itself and presidential responsibility beyond his own two terms. He wants to do what he wants, when he wants, and insists that because he’s a good guy he should be allowed to do it.

Neither he nor his cheerleaders seem to give any thought about what happens after his presidency. Maybe they think they’ll just attempt a similar gambit, and rather than having actual set-in-stone laws and limitations we’ll just mold the office to whomever’s occupying it.

Washington, Jefferson, et al set up the country to provide safeguards against corruption. The Constitution splits up power to make sure good presidents can do good and bad presidents can’t mess things up too badly. Bush, on the other hand, wants us to turn a blind eye to such things, ignore laws and limitations just for him.

Don’t worry, he’ll be responsible about it.