Vindicating Bush — Again
Obama is being forced by reality to admit that policies adopted by George W. Bush were in fact wise.
A mere 48 hours following his swearing-in, President Obama had already redefined his stance on our most politically-defining policy matter. On January 22, I predicted a coming vindication of Bush-era security procedure:
For all the vitriol that has been coming from the left, and specifically out of President Obama’s mouth during the campaign, there’s a difference in tone coming out of the Obama camp over the last several weeks. There has been an abandonment of the hot rhetoric of the leftist in favor of a liberal forced to face the reality of the world around him (i.e., adopting existing White House policy). The change in tone is recognition that the rhetoric that the American public was offered during the election was simply not based on reality.
As President Obama and his people are briefed on what has been happening in the world these last eight years, the insider’s view has given them a completely new perspective on what to do about the situation, resulting in completely different actions as compared to the ones they were telling everyone they would take once they were given the power.
Five months later? Bush’s vindication is apparent and remarkable — see President Obama’s quiet reestablishment of the military tribunals he loudly rejected as a candidate — but perhaps the most notable phenomenon of Bush’s rise from the ashes is the political damage Democrats have suffered by sticking to the pre-election platform. The base is claiming betrayal, the dinosaur media — if they bother to recognize the change at all — is giving a confused and muffled response, and the politicians who cannot let go of their Bush-bashing ways are caught in hypocrisy and losing their constituencies.
Obama’s change of policy now leaves his political supporters in a terribly awkward position. Pelosi ensnared herself in a lie on the very subject that was so central to her party and her ascendancy. All these years, she could claim the “moral high ground” on Iraq and on waterboarding only by hiding her exposure to the interrogation briefing. But by continuing on her hard line, her lie came out — appalling voters from the center and right and alienating her leftist base. Obama can claim to have changed his mind about the validity of his pre-election rhetoric when exposed to reality, but Pelosi demonstrably lied about what she knew, and approved of, back in 2002. By not following Obama’s lead — by not getting softer on campaign promises, as Obama has — she made her skeletons a target for any willing investigator.
And it isn’t just Pelosi left exposed by Obama’s about-face. The Democrats, as a party, made lots of noise about Bush’s conduct during the Iraq war — it was, for several years, a winning strategy. Now it seems, at least in terms of the incumbent Democrats, that some may have hitched themselves to the anti-war fervor at considerable risk to their reputations. There likely are more skeletons, more lies to uncover.
Pelosi’s credibility has suffered by not softening on Bush following the election. And so too will the credibility of any Democrat who continues to press for punishment of the Bush era. These are issues that cannot help but come out in any kind of investigation, particularly if questions are asked and answered under oath, which will most certainly happen should Pelosi continue to follow the reflexively aggressive path she’s currently on. Along with reports that most Americans actually approve of what Pelosi calls torture, we see the Democrats in a very unattractive position going into the midterm cycle of 2010.
Obama is being forced by reality to admit that the policies adopted by his white whale, George W. Bush, were in fact wise and a vindication of his presidency. The president’s strongest political supporters will likely see consequences should they not follow Obama’s lead and soften their formerly expedient attacks.
Eric Florack has spent 25 years discussing politics in online forums. He’s also a veteran of some 20 years of Broadcast (radio) experience and blogs at Bits Blog.
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22 Comments
1. Sebastian Shaw:President Obama’s immaturity, inexperience, arrogance, ignorance, & incompetence forced Obama’s hand after the fact he said would close & still like to close Gitmo; as of the press releases has thus far come out on Friday’s to get as little attention as possible from the teeny-bopper MSM.
President Obama has no original politicies with the War on Terror since he has adopted all of President Bush’s strategies.
However, we are still vulnerable since we are no longer getting vital information directly from the detainees that are caught now.
May 27, 2009 - 6:31 am 2. tc:Isn’t it funny to see what happens when rhetoric meets reality.
It simply shows that the President, and a good many in Congress, use rhetoric to further a position and confuse people–then are forced to do the right thing when reality bites them.
Facts are stubborn things.
May 27, 2009 - 7:39 am 3. Macko:I think we underestimate boobama. He needs to exppand the bush policies not end them that way he can go after americans who oppose his statism. Besides this also keeps everybody distracted while he bankrupts the country.
May 27, 2009 - 8:14 am 4. G Alston:Eric Florack — Obama can claim to have changed his mind about the validity of his pre-election rhetoric when exposed to reality… [snip]
Demonstrating that he can learn is a plus. Humbling perhaps, but still a plus.
May 27, 2009 - 8:46 am 5. misanthropicus:Unfortunately what Florack says is so alien to many Americans – the Obama mass hypnosis continues, and injustice is continually heaped upon W, Cheney and other figures from the past adminstration.
May 27, 2009 - 9:27 am 6. Eric Florack:How long can so many people swallow the garbage spewed by media and the liberal machine regarding W? I don’t know – yet for some, it seems that have a limitless capacity of garbage absorbtion.
If you can make the case that learning, and not simly pragmatism, is what’s going on. Remember this above all else… with Obama it’s never about principle… it’s about whatever will keep the left in power.
May 27, 2009 - 9:33 am 7. Eric Florack:And look, Gang.. make no mistake… I was a vocal… very vocal at times…. critic of the Bush administration on several points in the last eight years. But the one place where he got it spot on was the War On Terror. That reality is seeping in, just now. THe biggest delay in reinstating Bush policy is figuring out what to re-name it to allow Obama to take crediit for it without annoying the leftist base.
May 27, 2009 - 9:38 am 8. billslayer:All of this is fine and dandy. How do we communicate this to the nation? How do we get them to say out loud that Obama is an opportunist and so is his party? And if we do get that to happen…how do we know that our own house is in order to retake that reigns of governance? How do we know that the republican party that emerges from the ashes of this theoretical dem implosion is not just a clone of the one that committed all of the egregious arrogant sins of the Tom Delay Congress and the Rubberstamp Bush Admin?
May 27, 2009 - 12:52 pm 9. billslayer:If you’ve notices a pattern to my commenting..it’s because I want a serious discussion about this stuff.
Erik–I;m sorry but I really don’t think Bush got it right with the war on terror. I think that we invaded the wrong country to begin with! Yes, the Al Qeada that we knew back then was largely a Sunni Arab phenomenon, and yes that was largely destroyed in the fight to take back Iraq from the terrorists (after Bush allowed a slide into anarchy) but the shortest distance between two points was not to take Iraq. It would have been to take Saudi Arabia and let the Jihadists come to us.
May 27, 2009 - 1:23 pm 10. Roland:So do we in fact, have Bush III in Obama? And to imagine all the fear and fervor exhibited by the left saying that voting for McCain would be Bush III.
I honestly didn’t think in my wildest dreams that Pres. Bush’s policies would be vindicated in less than 6 months of being out of office. It must make the lefties sick to their stomachs that their “One” is siding with the “village idiot”. Guess Pres. Bush wasn’t so dumb after all.
May 27, 2009 - 2:03 pm 11. Eric Florack:If the most immediate answer is that the left already knows that they’ve been had. That’s why they’re screaming “betrayal” , just now. And the right, well, <a href=”http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/angry-conservative-base-itching-to-take-off-the-gloves/”the right knows what’s going on as well.
The problem is that you can just get away with saying it wants and leaving it at that. We get to where we are by eight years of relentless pounding on the part of the Democrats. I suggest it’s going to take a similar effort to get the message across in the opposite direction.
I’ve <a href=”http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/getting-back-to-gop-principles/” already addressed this point, as well. Funny how these things all intertwine, isn’t it, with one article kinda depending on the others?
Insofar as the war? The answer is a qualified yes. As to the rest, not so much.
I think in the end the consequences are going after the Saudis directly would have been far more of an issue than you or I could contemplate. Both in terms of their goodwill elsewhere in the region , and their presence in terms of oil. And yes, that was always a consideration, here. As it should be.
And of course there’s also the issue of the Iraqi government by no means being stable, whereas the Saudi government has been stable. The Democrats spent a good deal of their time complaining about how we lost prestige around the world by taking Iraq. However, what kind of prestige would it have cost us to go after the Saudis? I think trying to justify that action would have been far harder then our action in Iraq.
To you and I, perhaps, there’s arguably enough evidence there to at least make the discussion about such an action worthwhile. To the rest of the world ? I don’t think so.
In the ultimate sense Bush took the only path available.
May 27, 2009 - 6:09 pm 12. Eric Florack:darn hand coding anyway.
May 27, 2009 - 6:10 pm 13. goy:Hey Eric – there’s a Preview plugin available that works pretty well. Email me for details. Unless they think it will generate more traffic than their servers can handle, I’ve no idea why PJM isn’t using it.
May 27, 2009 - 7:50 pm 14. Dave Surls:“So do we in fact, have Bush III in Obama?”
If you think Barack Obama is going to go after terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism the way George Bush did…you be dreaming.
May 28, 2009 - 12:57 am 15. Houdini:Strange isn’t it? If he has found that he was wrong about something like that what else is he wrong about? Could spending money that we don’t have to attempt to stimulate the economy out of a recession which will only prolong it and make it cost even more. You would hope he would ask congress to cut at least half of it out of the bill.
Eric you didn’t close your anchor reference it would be The link without the spaces.
May 28, 2009 - 5:40 am 16. Eric Florack:goy;
Well, yeah, I know about that plugin, but I don’t maintain the site. Heck, if I did I’d have gone back in and fixed the errors I made.
(Shrug)
May 28, 2009 - 12:06 pm 17. Eric Florack:Thanks, though.
Hou: yeah, I know. Stupid mistake.
I hand code stuff at my own blog all the time, and have been a developer for years, but sometimes, the brain skips a beat.
And there it is.
May 28, 2009 - 12:09 pm 18. Mr. M:What total BS.
Obama is justifying Bush policies only in that they both work for the same people (not us). Obama needs to perpetuate this phony “war on terror” and promote the lies of 9/11 alive, in addition to keeping a steady march in destroying our country and turning it into a total tyrannical police state.
May 29, 2009 - 7:04 am 19. flickervertigo:we need to continue torturing so we can obtain confessions from patsies blamed for the false flags we employ to provide justification for our war on terror.
obama has come to realize all that, especially since he’s seen how real evidence against the patsies is gonna be hard to come by because the patsies are innocent.
May 29, 2009 - 3:44 pm 20. Brian:Its amazing.Now the prez says Bush/Cheney were right after all it seems.Whats it like eating crow there Obama?
May 29, 2009 - 7:37 pm 21. Mr. M:If Bush polices were so right, how than does that explain the mess we’re in?
May 29, 2009 - 10:25 pm 22. Bsmith:Mr. M
The mess we are inks due the the democrats -Bill Clinton- Forcing the mortgage
Jun 10, 2009 - 1:03 pmCompanies like fanni mae to soften the lending policies to allow more people to purchase homes. The new York times even ran an article from fanni mae stating they forcasted a collaps on the bankng industry if Clinton did not stop pressuring the banks to allow risky loans. I have watched the country soak up the baseless retoric of Obama, the liberal media brainwash or country, and because of the collective stupidity of the populace we are all suffereong again. Wake the F…. Up!!!