G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
The Fight for Bush's Legacy
By Robert Parry
Created Jan 30 2008 - 9:33am
With one year to go in George W. Bush's presidency, the national Democrats
are on the verge of the same miscalculation that they made about his father
after his defeat in Election 1992. Instead of doing the hard work to hold
the Bushes accountable, the Democrats are "leaving it to the historians."
In other words, the national Democrats seem ready to let the junior George
Bush stroll off into the sunset with his legacy relatively intact, much as
the senior George Bush was allowed to do.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats are turning a deaf ear
to grassroots demands for at least impeachment hearings against George W.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over their violations of criminal laws
(e.g. the ban on torture and the need for court warrants authorizing
wiretaps), their trampling on constitutional rights, and their deceptions
that led the nation into the disastrous Iraq War.
Though Democrats control the House and the Senate, there doesn't even appear
to be a likelihood of comprehensive hearings on the lessons to be learned
from Bush's blunders in the "global war on terror."
Democrats didn't raise their voices after Bush's State of the Union Address
on Jan. 28 when he repeated one of his central falsehoods about Islamic
extremists - that they are motivated by a hatred of American freedoms,
rather than a resentment of U.S. government interference in the Muslim
world.
"We are engaged in the defining ideological struggle of the 21st century,"
Bush said. "Yet in this war on terror, there is one thing we and our enemies
agree on: In the long run, men and women who are free to determine their own
destinies will reject terror and refuse to live in tyranny.
"And that is why the terrorists are fighting to deny this choice to the
people in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Palestinian
Territories. And that is why, for the security of America and the peace of
the world, we are spreading the hope of freedom."
While sounding noble - and earning the predictable round of applause -
Bush's
diagnosis remains dangerously flawed. The truth is that Islamic
fundamentalists often have engaged in the democratic process, only to have
autocratic leaders or Western forces void electoral outcomes.
Algeria may stand out as the clearest historical example, but even more
recently the Hamas victory in the Palestinian Territories and the success of
pro-Taliban parties in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas highlight the
growing popularity of these elements, especially amid intense
anti-Americanism spreading across the Islamic world.
During Bush's recent eight-day tour of the Middle East, he found his warmest
reception not with the Arabs on the street but with the sheiks in their
palaces.
But Democratic leaders have adopted a strategy of tamping down rank-and-file
outrage over Bush, while essentially waiting out his presidency. The only
accountability, in this view, will be his low approval ratings and the
expectation that historians will look unfavorably on his presidency.
[It was in anticipation of this look-the-other-way approach that we wrote
Neck Deep [1] as our way to help avert a total whitewash of these difficult
years - and to explain some of the vital lessons to be learned.]
Reprising Failure
In their haste to avoid confrontations with this President Bush, the
Democrats are reprising their response to the wrongdoing of the last
President Bush.
Indeed, protecting George H.W. Bush's legacy grew into almost an obsession
for President Bill Clinton, who not only went along with sweeping under the
rug several national security scandals - Iran-Contra, Iraq-gate, October
Surprise - in 1993, but whose subordinates aggressively joined in covering
up Bush's wrongdoing in subsequent years.
For instance, in early 1996, one of Ronald Reagan's national security
assistants, Howard Teicher, came forward with a sworn affidavit [2]
detailing how Reagan and the senior George Bush had secretly armed Saddam
Hussein's Iraq during the 1980s. The reaction of Clinton's Justice
Department was to bully Teicher into silence. [For details, see Robert
Parry's
Secrecy & Privilege [3].]
In 1998, when the CIA's inspector general issued two damning reports about
how the Reagan-Bush administration concealed proof of Nicaraguan contra drug
trafficking - including evidence which led directly into the White House -
the Clinton administration stayed mum on the remarkable disclosures. [See
Parry's Lost History [4].]
Even in 1999, when Clinton released some historical records relating to the
horrible Guatemalan political violence - and even genocide against Mayan
Indians - during the Reagan years, the Democratic President issued an
apology to the Guatemalan people but failed to direct any criticism at
either Reagan or the senior George Bush.
The refrain that I heard from senior Clinton officials in the 1990s was that
these historical questions weren't on "our radar scopes" or that the
administration was "looking to the future, not the past," or that the
President needed to "work with these guys."
Clinton's strategy ended up letting Republicans write a false historical
narrative for the Reagan-Bush years and opened the White House back door for
a restoration of the Bush Dynasty. But Clinton did cement a friendship with
George H.W. Bush, which Clinton hopes will extend into his wife's
presidency.
On Dec. 17, 2007, Bill Clinton announced that his wife's first act in the
White House would be to send him and George H.W. Bush on an around-the-world
mission to explain that "America is open for business and cooperation
again."
Apocalyptic Battle
This Clinton-Bush coziness is one of the reasons it's so surprising to hear
supporters of Hillary Clinton say that she's the one who best can take the
fight to the Republicans. Except in narrow partisan ways relating to
elections or in self-defense, the Clintons have ducked going head-to-head
with the Reagan-Bush crowd or its Republican successors.
These Democrats, who now imagine Hillary Clinton in an apocalyptic battle
with hyper-partisan Republicans, seem to have misread Bill Clinton's
presidency. While he managed to survive those eight years, he was on the
losing end of most political battles and saw Republicans achieve dominance
of Congress for a dozen years.
Still, these pro-Hillary Democrats keep hoping that a rematch will end
differently. As Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal told the New Yorker's George
Packer, the 2008 election offers a chance to finally defeat right-wing
forces and secure progressive governance for years ahead.
"It's not a question of transcending partisanship," Blumenthal said. "It's a
question of fulfilling it. If we can win and govern well while handling
multiple crises at the same time and the Congress, then we can move the
country out of this Republican era and into a progressive Democratic era,
for a long period of time." [New Yorker, Jan. 28, 2008 [5]]
But are the Clintons - and some of their followers - like punch-drunk
fighters staggering back into the ring with no better chance to prevail now
than the last time when they took a pounding from the Republicans?
Despite the drag from George W. Bush's dead-weight presidency, the
Republicans still have the far superior media/political machine. Since Bill
Clinton's victory in 1992, the Right has poured tens of billions of dollars
into building up this infrastructure while the Left has done relatively
little.
So, while the Right delivers a national political message through its media
apparatus day-in and day-out, year-in and year-out, the Left treats politics
mostly as a biennial or quadrennial process tied to the election cycles.
When seeking to influence a policy debate between those cycles, the Right
can coordinate talking points through a vertically integrated media - from
newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet. The Left
mostly buys ads, like MoveOn.org did with its counterproductive "General
Betray-Us" ad.
The Clintons' personal political tenacity aside, there appears to be scant
reason to believe that Hillary Clinton can overcome the Left's structural
deficit to win the presidency. And even if she can win, there's even less
reason to think she can maintain any momentum toward establishing a
long-term "progressive Democratic era."
That's one appeal of Barack Obama, that he may be able to transcend the
partisan battles - which the Democrats are not equipped to win - and achieve
a solid victory that would put broad Democratic majorities in Congress.
Those numbers - not the eagerness to fight partisan battles - could create
at least a moderately progressive outcome.
Though there's little reason to believe that Barack Obama would be any more
aggressive than Hillary Clinton about opening the archives of past
presidential abuses, arguably he might have less of an incentive to withhold
the evidence.
Presumably, a President Obama would not be counting on the tandem of Bill
Clinton and George H.W. Bush to represent the new administration on a world
tour.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Robert Parry
Created Jan 30 2008 - 9:33am
With one year to go in George W. Bush's presidency, the national Democrats
are on the verge of the same miscalculation that they made about his father
after his defeat in Election 1992. Instead of doing the hard work to hold
the Bushes accountable, the Democrats are "leaving it to the historians."
In other words, the national Democrats seem ready to let the junior George
Bush stroll off into the sunset with his legacy relatively intact, much as
the senior George Bush was allowed to do.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats are turning a deaf ear
to grassroots demands for at least impeachment hearings against George W.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over their violations of criminal laws
(e.g. the ban on torture and the need for court warrants authorizing
wiretaps), their trampling on constitutional rights, and their deceptions
that led the nation into the disastrous Iraq War.
Though Democrats control the House and the Senate, there doesn't even appear
to be a likelihood of comprehensive hearings on the lessons to be learned
from Bush's blunders in the "global war on terror."
Democrats didn't raise their voices after Bush's State of the Union Address
on Jan. 28 when he repeated one of his central falsehoods about Islamic
extremists - that they are motivated by a hatred of American freedoms,
rather than a resentment of U.S. government interference in the Muslim
world.
"We are engaged in the defining ideological struggle of the 21st century,"
Bush said. "Yet in this war on terror, there is one thing we and our enemies
agree on: In the long run, men and women who are free to determine their own
destinies will reject terror and refuse to live in tyranny.
"And that is why the terrorists are fighting to deny this choice to the
people in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Palestinian
Territories. And that is why, for the security of America and the peace of
the world, we are spreading the hope of freedom."
While sounding noble - and earning the predictable round of applause -
Bush's
diagnosis remains dangerously flawed. The truth is that Islamic
fundamentalists often have engaged in the democratic process, only to have
autocratic leaders or Western forces void electoral outcomes.
Algeria may stand out as the clearest historical example, but even more
recently the Hamas victory in the Palestinian Territories and the success of
pro-Taliban parties in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas highlight the
growing popularity of these elements, especially amid intense
anti-Americanism spreading across the Islamic world.
During Bush's recent eight-day tour of the Middle East, he found his warmest
reception not with the Arabs on the street but with the sheiks in their
palaces.
But Democratic leaders have adopted a strategy of tamping down rank-and-file
outrage over Bush, while essentially waiting out his presidency. The only
accountability, in this view, will be his low approval ratings and the
expectation that historians will look unfavorably on his presidency.
[It was in anticipation of this look-the-other-way approach that we wrote
Neck Deep [1] as our way to help avert a total whitewash of these difficult
years - and to explain some of the vital lessons to be learned.]
Reprising Failure
In their haste to avoid confrontations with this President Bush, the
Democrats are reprising their response to the wrongdoing of the last
President Bush.
Indeed, protecting George H.W. Bush's legacy grew into almost an obsession
for President Bill Clinton, who not only went along with sweeping under the
rug several national security scandals - Iran-Contra, Iraq-gate, October
Surprise - in 1993, but whose subordinates aggressively joined in covering
up Bush's wrongdoing in subsequent years.
For instance, in early 1996, one of Ronald Reagan's national security
assistants, Howard Teicher, came forward with a sworn affidavit [2]
detailing how Reagan and the senior George Bush had secretly armed Saddam
Hussein's Iraq during the 1980s. The reaction of Clinton's Justice
Department was to bully Teicher into silence. [For details, see Robert
Parry's
Secrecy & Privilege [3].]
In 1998, when the CIA's inspector general issued two damning reports about
how the Reagan-Bush administration concealed proof of Nicaraguan contra drug
trafficking - including evidence which led directly into the White House -
the Clinton administration stayed mum on the remarkable disclosures. [See
Parry's Lost History [4].]
Even in 1999, when Clinton released some historical records relating to the
horrible Guatemalan political violence - and even genocide against Mayan
Indians - during the Reagan years, the Democratic President issued an
apology to the Guatemalan people but failed to direct any criticism at
either Reagan or the senior George Bush.
The refrain that I heard from senior Clinton officials in the 1990s was that
these historical questions weren't on "our radar scopes" or that the
administration was "looking to the future, not the past," or that the
President needed to "work with these guys."
Clinton's strategy ended up letting Republicans write a false historical
narrative for the Reagan-Bush years and opened the White House back door for
a restoration of the Bush Dynasty. But Clinton did cement a friendship with
George H.W. Bush, which Clinton hopes will extend into his wife's
presidency.
On Dec. 17, 2007, Bill Clinton announced that his wife's first act in the
White House would be to send him and George H.W. Bush on an around-the-world
mission to explain that "America is open for business and cooperation
again."
Apocalyptic Battle
This Clinton-Bush coziness is one of the reasons it's so surprising to hear
supporters of Hillary Clinton say that she's the one who best can take the
fight to the Republicans. Except in narrow partisan ways relating to
elections or in self-defense, the Clintons have ducked going head-to-head
with the Reagan-Bush crowd or its Republican successors.
These Democrats, who now imagine Hillary Clinton in an apocalyptic battle
with hyper-partisan Republicans, seem to have misread Bill Clinton's
presidency. While he managed to survive those eight years, he was on the
losing end of most political battles and saw Republicans achieve dominance
of Congress for a dozen years.
Still, these pro-Hillary Democrats keep hoping that a rematch will end
differently. As Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal told the New Yorker's George
Packer, the 2008 election offers a chance to finally defeat right-wing
forces and secure progressive governance for years ahead.
"It's not a question of transcending partisanship," Blumenthal said. "It's a
question of fulfilling it. If we can win and govern well while handling
multiple crises at the same time and the Congress, then we can move the
country out of this Republican era and into a progressive Democratic era,
for a long period of time." [New Yorker, Jan. 28, 2008 [5]]
But are the Clintons - and some of their followers - like punch-drunk
fighters staggering back into the ring with no better chance to prevail now
than the last time when they took a pounding from the Republicans?
Despite the drag from George W. Bush's dead-weight presidency, the
Republicans still have the far superior media/political machine. Since Bill
Clinton's victory in 1992, the Right has poured tens of billions of dollars
into building up this infrastructure while the Left has done relatively
little.
So, while the Right delivers a national political message through its media
apparatus day-in and day-out, year-in and year-out, the Left treats politics
mostly as a biennial or quadrennial process tied to the election cycles.
When seeking to influence a policy debate between those cycles, the Right
can coordinate talking points through a vertically integrated media - from
newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet. The Left
mostly buys ads, like MoveOn.org did with its counterproductive "General
Betray-Us" ad.
The Clintons' personal political tenacity aside, there appears to be scant
reason to believe that Hillary Clinton can overcome the Left's structural
deficit to win the presidency. And even if she can win, there's even less
reason to think she can maintain any momentum toward establishing a
long-term "progressive Democratic era."
That's one appeal of Barack Obama, that he may be able to transcend the
partisan battles - which the Democrats are not equipped to win - and achieve
a solid victory that would put broad Democratic majorities in Congress.
Those numbers - not the eagerness to fight partisan battles - could create
at least a moderately progressive outcome.
Though there's little reason to believe that Barack Obama would be any more
aggressive than Hillary Clinton about opening the archives of past
presidential abuses, arguably he might have less of an incentive to withhold
the evidence.
Presumably, a President Obama would not be counting on the tandem of Bill
Clinton and George H.W. Bush to represent the new administration on a world
tour.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson