After a few months of Bush media blackout, to the point where comedians started joking about forgetting who our current president actually was, I've been hearing a lot about President George W. Bush lately. Even some who abhor the policies and outcomes stemming from his administration remember the man as "good," "efficient," "funny," and "kind."
Something about those characterizations struck me as fuzzy and hollow at the same time, but I haven't been able to articulate it exactly until a reading an essay titled, "My Dinners With Dubya."
For me, one of the most telling moments about Bush's perceived personality came during his 2004 campaign against Sen. John Kerry. One Zogby poll famously asked undecided voters which candidate they'd rather have a beer with. The reformed alcoholic "Dubya" won that contest, as well as the election months later.
The often prescient satirical news source The Onion nailed it once again in 2005 with an article titled, "Long-Awaited Beer With Bush Really Awkward, Voter Reports."
Vanity Fair published this article in true form, as a confessional of sorts from a gay drinking pal of Bush's daughter Barbara who visited the White House as her guest on several occasions. C. Brian Smith writes that at first, Bush's talk of "dog farts and diarrhea nicknames" was funny, and he admits to genuinely liking the man, despite ideological differences.
Smith describes a president who refers to the hallowed White House Treaty Room as "my upstairs office," repeatedly calls the Washington Monument the "Washington Memorial" and tells Smith he is "a good boy."
It's all fun and games until a return visit one month after 9/11. Bush has often talked about the tragedy in paradigm-shifting terms, referring to pre- and post-9/11 thinking as markedly different and diametrically opposed. But Bush didn't seem to have changed much, according to Smith.
In Oct. 2001, Smith sat in the White House screening room watching what he described as "an awful movie" with the president, who was dodging a meeting with the head of the FAA over whether Reagan National Airport was safe enough to completely reopen.
But that's not how Bush remembers this time in his life. This is what he said in his last TV address to the American people about that difficult period after the September 11 attacks:
"As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation. And I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe."
Now, it probably wouldn't have made anyone any safer if Bush had been at that FAA meeting. But I know damn well that the president's knowledge of Anthony Hopkins' Hearts in Atlantis didn't help. If he were really doing as much as he could to keep us safe, he might watch a documentary on the history of colonialism or take a briefing book to bed with him instead of attending that FAA meeting.
No matter. I've never met President Bush, but I imagine my criticism would have little effect on the man. As he said in his final speech:
"You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions."
Fair enough. However, I have a feeling some of the decisions he made weren't exactly framed in the correct manner. It's like trying to come up with the right answer when you don't even know the question.
For example, did the president understand his responsibility as commander-in-chief when Katrina hit? From what he told reporters about Katrina at his final presser, it seems he thinks of the office of the president as some sort of ceremonial figurehead that shows up in his finery to try and make things seem better than they are.
"I've thought long and hard about Katrina -- you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and -- is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?"
I could point out how completely deranged this view is of the reality of the situation in New Orleans in August 2005. I could list what was sorely needed there at the time, and how Air Force One was never on that list. But I hardly think it's necessary to state the obvious here (plus, Jon Stewart already did an excellent job trying to explain it to Bush).
In the end, the warmest memories people seem to have of Bush relate to his hospitality. This would be just fine if we had a monarchy, with a prime minister available to take the heat when things need to get done. And our president's confusion about his job description is almost understandable, given the nepotism that got him into politics in the first place.
But when you determine electability upon the basis of hospitality, that's what you get: a beer buddy, and nothing else. Like a child pouring imaginary liquid into plastic teacups for the King of Teddybearistan in his backyard, Bush misses the point entirely.
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