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Halfway through George W. Bush's presidential
term, it's become fashionable to declare him a surprise and a
success. He's been widely praised for his reaction to devastating
terrorist attacks, and for his ability to sort through conflicting
visions within his cabinet. Those who wrote him off as a feckless
lightweight up until Sept. 10, 2001, appear mistaken. At this point,
the prospects for re-election in 2004 look good.
The problem with these apple-cheeked assessments
comes when you look at what Mr. Bush has actually done -- as opposed
to what he's talked about doing, threatened to do or stopped others
from doing. His list of achievements is remarkably short and, taken
together, make a tepid package.
Start with the environment. I don't mean the Kyoto
accord, but rather the assault on environmental regulation within
the United States. Senior federal officials have resigned in
frustration as clean-air enforcement and rules requiring impact
studies are relaxed. Mainstream conservationists warn that key
wetland habitats face destruction. National parks will echo to the
whine of snowmobiles. Loggers get more cutting rights in previously
restricted forests.
Most disturbing of all, if Mr. Bush has his way,
oil drillers will have free rein in fragile areas such as Alaska's
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Even Mr. Bush's major environmental
concession was hardly the sort of thing you'd want history to
remember you for. He killed a proposal to allow drilling in
Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve -- as his brother Jeb
battled for re-election as governor.
Still on the domestic side, tax cuts -- another of
those "achievements" that tend to play out poorly as
history unfolds. Ronald Reagan, whose strong similarities to Mr.
Bush are frequently noted, reveled in them, with serious
deficit-running consequences. Mr. Bush's proposals are similarly
both dangerous and largely beneficial to the rich. Against this, a
proposed boost in prescription-drug benefits for the elderly and a
modest increase in child tax credits -- hardly enough to offset the
rest of the laissez-faire legacy.
Internationally, Mr. Bush has taken a huge gamble.
Driven by an evangelical sense of morality, he has allowed his
counterterrorism effort to be muddied by a campaign against Iraq.
He's trying to promote the idea of America as humanitarian avenger
at the same time as the battle with militant Islamism forces him
into alliances with tawdry, autocratic Asian regimes. Not
surprisingly, it's a tough sell.
Meantime, Mr. Bush has allowed members of his
administration to stain his record by attacking the freedoms that
have made America a beacon to the world. They have pushed for secret
hearings, indefinite detention of prisoners, arbitrary definitions
of security threats and significant electronic invasions of privacy.
Yet Osama bin Laden is still at large, the anthrax mystery still
unexplained and actual achievements in the counterterrorism campaign
few on the ground.
Apart from Iraq, and a few domestic policies
designed to dismantle rather than construct, this is a presidency
marked not by bold initiatives but by a capacity for nimbleness
under fire. Mr. Bush had Trent Lott walk the plank over a racially
charged remark. But that didn't score too many points, since it was
unthinkable to do otherwise.
Similarly, when the Enron affair exploded, the
President reluctantly mustered a degree of outrage, but only after
months of ignoring the gathering corporate-accountability scandal.
There's a policy legacy here -- legislation toughening penalties for
corporate fraud -- but, in years to come, the close connections of
administration members to Enron and other accounting debacles will
be just as easily remembered.
Like Mr. Reagan, Mr. Bush is greatly admired as a
communicator, and rightly held to possess the common touch. In the
days after Sept. 11, he was masterful in rallying the nation -- but
to what end? For all the talk of a renewed national sense of
purpose, the lasting legacy is invisible, the economy in the
doldrums and the electorate unconvinced that taking out Saddam
Hussein is worth the potential cost.
At times, during the last century, it was possible
to look to the United States for innovative social and economic
policies -- bold programs designed to build infrastructure, or to
make life easier or better for millions. Somewhere along the line,
that has ceased to be the case. Greatness lies in acting, not
reacting. So far, by that standard, the Bush presidency has been
insubstantial.
© 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc
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