Repudiating the Bush Era

Publish Date: 
Sunday, February 18, 2007

US politics 2007 is being driven by one central force - the ongoing and deepening repudiation of the Bush Era, its politics and ideology.  It is as if we have to struggle, each day, to toss off the language, the arguments, the reality of this disapointing era, as Bush and his team desperately try to stop the ongoing assault on their governing construct and world view. 

Look at what has happened in recent weeks, and how the media is handling it all.  A majority of Congress, including prominent Republicans, rebuke the President on Iraq.  The Post frontpages a story about how our vets aren't getting the medical treatment they deserve.  The Times runs yet another story about how Iran isn't going away, and that any plan that we may have for the future of the Middle East must involve them. The Administration cuts a deal with another one of his Axes of Evil, North Korea, and then is pummled by the right, particularly by their own former UN Ambassador.  Today Russert destroyed Tony Snow on the inept stage management of the this week's version of its "Iran is the enemy" campaign, and on the same show, Senator Hagel, a likely Republican Presidential candidate, suggests all this Iran talk is a diversion to keep people's attention from the troubles in Iraq and the Iraq votes this week.  Libby's defense is that Bush and his team scapegoated him to save Rove.  A recent NIE rejected the Administration's assertion that Iran was driving the violence in Iraq, and a Pentagon Inspector General report concluded that Doug Feith, a leader of the neocon faction inside the Administration, created an alternative intelligence process in the runup to the Iraq War that systemically, well, how should we say? Lied.....

It is remarkable how far they've fallen. They have become literally un-believable.  In his interview on Russert this morning, Tony Snow kept saying things that didn't make any sense.  So why is Iran different from North Korea? Or from Russia during the Cold War? We can talk to them but not to Iran.  No real answer for that one.  He refered to our need to take on the enemy in Iraq.  But who exactly is this enemy Tony, and who exactly are our troops fighting there? And Tony why do we scream bloody murder about possible aid by Iran of the more radical Shiite elements in Iraq, but say nothing when our Sunni "allies" in the region help fund groups who are killing many more people, and more Americans, than the Shiites groups are? And why do we stay silent when a regional Sunni television station, currently aided by the Egyptian government, broadcasts segments glorifying the killing of Shiites and Americans? Or stay silent when the Pakistani Intelligence Services, who like the increasingly famous Iranian Quds force, are an integral part of their government, aids the Taliban, the group that housed and aided the 9/11 terrorists? 

Essentially their answer to everything now is that we have to win the war, pulling the troops out will lead to regional chaos and that we need to support the troops.  The ground they have to work from has gotten so small.  But even this one core argument isn't what it was, and has lost a great deal of its potency.  In listening to Snow this morning describe what would happen if we pulled out the troops - Al Qaeda growing in strength, regional actors moving into a failed state, extremists empowered - it sounded as if he was describing Iraq today, as it already is.  And the stories in recent days about the lack of adequate care for troops returning home, rotations being shortened, shortages of critical body and vehicular armor on the ground in Iraq, Generals warning that the Army is on the verge of breaking - and then, even the Administration's claim that they are supporting the troops begins to falls apart.  Once that happens they will have no ground left to stand on. 

It is now clear that the Administration is also in the proces of losing the battle for ideological control of the country.  Their arguments, words, frames, constructs, no longer make sense.  What happened in Congress on Friday and Saturday was just another manifestation of the main dynamic driving American politics today, the repudiation of Bush era politics and governing philosophy.  We are moving on to a new era, slowly, more slowly than is good for the country, but we are moving on.  

A final hearty congratulations to the Congressional leaders of both parties who are doing the hard work of making Bush and his allies history.  This is tough stuff, and as I sit here tonight I admit I am a little amazed at what Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi pulled off this week.  It was no easy thing, but it also showed that there are many tough but important battles ahead.