JOLLY DAYS

Bush and the Flood

Every president has their group of “issues” — human weaknesses. What you hope, for the country's sake, is that a critical mass doesn't accumulate to real trouble. Bush's weaknesses have long been evident and are now hitting the fan.

Many times Bush had an admirable resolve, a clear sense of what was right, but it was vitiated by his inability to speak to the public with resonance — it made him look stubborn rather than infused with a character that believed in an issue he had studied and could articulate convincingly. Bush's other flaw was laziness which always lingered on the periphery— Bush appeared less the executive delegating authority, more a leader who wanted to relax at home. He is the rich boy who expects others to cover for him — to make it easy and stress free — but the job is too difficult, the complexities too great, for others to deflect and assume his responsibilities and provide the scrutiny of the actual results of his policies that a leader must have to keep on course. The list goes on. I've been supportive of Bush's policies in many arenas, but he hasn't been able to execute.

The default Republican hit on Democrats is that Democrats are filled with ideas and theories, but aren't pragmatic — they can't manage or bear the weight of difficult decisions, so wrapped in ideology and victimology are they. But it appears it was the Republicans who had all sorts of ideas, dramatic and ruthlessly implemented in many cases, but who had no managerial skills, no planning abilities, no concept of cost benefit ratios. Using Madison Avenue Orwellian twists of language — privatizing became “ownership society” — it was as though Bush thought he could change reality with slogans and Rove's political skills, instead of generating considered policies.

The discussion @Lehrer has a surprising degree of unanimity across the political spectrum — a remarkably forthright anger at Bush.

DAVID BROOKS: …I think it is a huge reaction we are about to see. I mean, first of all, they violated the social fabric, which is in the moments of crisis you take care of the poor first. That didn't happen; it's like leaving wounded on the battlefield.

So there is just — in 9/11 you had a great surge of public confidence. Now I think we are going to see a great decline in public confidence in our institutions. And so I just think this is sort of the anti-9/11 as one of the bloggers wrote.

TOM OLIPHANT: …the anger that is going to come from the realization that virtually all public policy — state, local, federal… has been against the public interests for decades…

DAVID BROOKS: …first of all it is a national humiliation to see bodies floating in a river for five days in a major American city. But second, you have to remember, this was really a de-legitimization of institutions.

Our institutions completely failed us and it is not as if it is the first in the past three years — this follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals.

We have had over the past four or five years a whole series of scandals that soured the public mood. You've seen a rise in feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.

And I think this is the biggest one and the bursting one, and I must say personally it is the one that really says hey, it feels like the 70s now where you really have a loss of faith in institutions. Let's get out of this mess. And I really think this is so important as a cultural moment, like the blackouts of 1977, just people are sick of it.

Brooks is eloquent: “…you save the poor first…it's like leaving wounded on the battlefield”.