Barack W. Bush<\/a>\u201d outlining how candidate Barack Obama was strangely emulating Bush policies \u2014 even as he was trashing the president.\u00a0<\/p>\nNearly a year later, President Obama has continued that schizophrenia, criticizing Bush while keeping in place Bush\u2019s anti-terrorism protocols. The result of this Bush Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is that, thanks to Obama, history will soon begin reassessing George W. Bush\u2019s presidency in a more positive light.<\/p>\n
Why? Because the more Obama feels compelled to trash Bush, the more he draws attention to the fact that he is copying \u2014 or in some cases falling short of \u2014 his predecessor. He seems to wish to frame his presidency in terms of the Bush years, even though such constant evocation is serving his predecessor more than it is serving Obama himself.<\/p>\n
For eight years conservatives whined \u2014 and Democrats railed \u2014 at the Bush deficits. In the aggregate over eight years they exceeded $2 trillion. The administration\u2019s excuses \u2014 the 2000 recession; 9\/11; two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq; Katrina; and two massive new programs, No Child Left Behind and Medicare Prescription Drug \u2014 fell on deaf ears.<\/p>\n
Between 2001 and 2008 we still spoke of annual budget shortfalls in billions of dollars. But an early effect of the Obama administration is that it has already made the Bush administration\u2019s reckless spending seem almost incidental. In the first 100 days of this government we have learned to speak of yearly red ink in terms of Obama\u2019s trillions, not Bush\u2019s mere billions. Indeed, compared to Obama, Bush looks like a fiscal conservative.<\/p>\n
Another complaint was the so-called culture of corruption in the Republican Congress \u2014 and the inability, or unwillingness, of the Bush administration to address party impropriety. Jack Abramoff, Larry Craig, Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, and Mark Foley were each involved in some sort of fiscal or moral turpitude that \u2014 according to critics \u2014 was never convincingly condemned by the Bush administration.<\/p>\n
But compared to some of the present Democratic headline-makers, those were relatively small potatoes. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has slurred the CIA and accused it of habitually lying to Congress. Rep. Charles Rangel has not paid his income taxes fully, and has improperly used his influence to lobby corporations for donations; he has also violated rent-stabilization laws in New York. Sen. Chris Dodd has received discounts and gifts from shady corporate insiders in clear quid-pro-quo influence peddling. Rep. Barney Frank got campaign money from Fannie Mae before it imploded, despite the fact he was charged with regulating the quasi-governmental agency \u2014 which at one time hired his boyfriend as a top executive. Former Rep. William Jefferson, an outright crook, is about to go on trial in federal court.<\/p>\n
As for other prominent Democrats, the sins of Blago and Eliot Spitzer bordered on buffoonery. A series of Obama cabinet nominations \u2014 Daschle, Geithner, Richardson, Solis \u2014 were marred by admissions of tax evasion and the suspicion of scandal. In other words, should either the Democratic leadership or President Obama now rail about a \u201cCulture of Corruption\u201d \u2014 and neither unfortunately has \u2014 the public would naturally assume a reference to Democratic misdeeds.<\/p>\n
For the last eight years, a sort of parlor game has been played listing the various ways the Bush anti-terror policies supposedly destroyed the Constitution. Liberal opponents \u2014 prominent among them Sen. Barack Obama \u2014 railed against elements of the Patriot Act, military tribunals, rendition, wiretaps, email intercepts, and Predator drone attacks. These supposedly unnecessary measures, plus Bush\u2019s policies in postwar Iraq, were said to be proof, on Bush\u2019s part, of either paranoia or blatantly partisan efforts to scare us into supporting his unconstitutional agenda.<\/p>\n
Now, thanks to President Obama, the verdict is in: All of the Bush protocols turned out to reflect a bipartisan national consensus that has kept us safe from another 9\/11-style attack.<\/p>\n
How do we know that?<\/p>\n
Because President Obama \u2014 despite earlier opposition and current name changes and nuancing \u2014 has kept intact the entire Bush anti-terrorism program. Apparently President Obama has kept these protocols because he suspects that they help to explain why his first few months in office have been free of successful terrorist attacks \u2014 witness the foiled plot earlier this month to murder Jews in New York City and shoot down military planes in upstate New York.<\/p>\n
There are only two exceptions to Obama\u2019s new Bushism. Both are revealing. The president says he wishes to shut down Guantanamo in a year, after careful study. But so far no one has come up with an alternative plan for dealing with out-of-uniform terrorists caught on the battlefield plotting harm to the United States. That\u2019s why Obama himself did not close the facility immediately upon entering office, and why the Democratic Congress has just cut off funding to close it. So we are left with the weird paradox that Obama hit hard against his predecessor for opening Guantanamo, while members of his own party are doing their best to keep it open.<\/p>\n
Obama says he opposes waterboarding and calls it torture. Many of us tend to agree. But despite the partisan rhetoric of endemic cruelty, we now learn that the tactic was used on only three extraordinarily bad detainees.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the administration that disclosed the once-classified technique to the public now refuses to elaborate on whether valuable information that saved lives emerged from such coerced interrogations.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, liberal congressional icons like Jay Rockefeller and Nancy Pelosi are on record as being briefed about the technique \u2014 and, by their apparent silence as overseers,\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0approving it. Senator Schumer, remember, all but said that we must not rule out the resort to torture in the case of terrorist suspects.<\/p>\nMini-histories have already been written blasting Bush for unprecedented deficits, for being in bed with a sometimes corrupt Republican Congress, and for weakening our civil liberties. Now the historians will have to begin over again and see Bush as a mere prelude to a far more profligate, and ethically suspect, administration.<\/p>\n
More important, President Bush bequeathed to President Obama a successful anti-terrorism template that the latter has embraced and believes will keep the nation safe for another eight years. And, oddly, we are the more certain that is what he believes, the more a now obsessive-compulsive President Obama attacks none other than former President Bush.<\/p>\n
\n
\u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Obama continues to trash Bush in words–but his actions speak louder. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Last July I wrote a column entitled \u201cBarack W. Bush\u201d outlining how candidate Barack Obama was strangely emulating Bush policies \u2014 even as he was trashing the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[715],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Hs","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1251,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/rethinking-george-bush\/","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":0},"title":"Rethinking George Bush?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Former President George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon. In reaction, for nearly two years President Barack Obama won easy applause by prefacing almost every speech on his economic policies with a \"Bush did it\" put-down. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2010"","block_context":{"text":"September 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/september-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1115,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-george-w-bush-fixation\/","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":1},"title":"The George W. Bush Fixation","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Barack Obama remains fixated by George W. Bush. For nearly two years, President Obama and his team have prefaced their explanations for the tough economy, tough finances and tough situation abroad with a \"Bush did it\" chorus. Apparently, they believed that most of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2010"","block_context":{"text":"November 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/november-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1295,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-derangement-syndrome\/","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":2},"title":"Obama Derangement Syndrome?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media I\u2019d say if you live in the United States of America and you vote for George Bush, you\u2019ve lost your mind. \u2014 John Edwards When does the legitimate \u201cI oppose Obama\u201d descend into the illegitimate \u201cI hate Obama\u201d? It is popular now to suggest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bush-reconsidered\/","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":3},"title":"Bush Reconsidered","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online George W. Bush left office in January 2009 with one of the lowest job-approval ratings for a president (34 percent) since Gallup started compiling them \u2014 as compared to Harry Truman\u2019s low of 32 percent, Richard Nixon\u2019s of 24 percent, and Jimmy Carter\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1460,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-unbound\/","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":4},"title":"Obama Unbound","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a Commie appeaser. To this day, liberals cannot conceive that during the two world wars, progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Earl Warren, and Franklin Delano\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":720,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-hypocritic-oath\/","url_meta":{"origin":2694,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s Hypocritic Oath","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Barack Obama has a habit of identifying a supposed crisis in collective morality, damning straw men \u201cthem\u201d who engage in such ethical lapses, soaring with rhetorical bromides \u2014 and then, to national quiet, doing more or less the exact things he once swore\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Second Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"Second Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/second-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2695,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions\/2695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}