The Bush Legacy
I think that an important element of establishing history’s view on the Bush legacy is to view in stark, real terms what it is they did, and promoting torture is one of them. One important aspect of this is how the rank-and-file can become corrupted so easily to approve of and push forward such unacceptable practices.
Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush administration, describes those people thusly: “They’re not evil people, they were people trying to do their best.. even though they made mistakes.”
I think that this is important to remember: that it does not take evil people to do evil things; that even those with the best of intentions can perform horrendous acts. This, at least, describes the rank-and-file; we know that the higher-ups such as Cheney have wanted to instill such policies for a long time, before there supposedly a “need” for them. Their motivations are far more suspect. However, they need the rank-and-file to carry out those policies, and not to protest or obstruct, as bureaucracies are so apt at doing.
Goldsmith described that level of government worker and their motivation:
The twin pressures that everyone was under in the government when they were trying to decide these counter-terrorism policies, on the one hand, they were literally scared to death of the next attack… fearing that they can’t stop the next attack, and knowing that they’ll be responsible when the next attack comes. And so that leads them to push as hard as they can along every dimension to do everything they can to stop the terrorists.
Fair enough, one would think; but Goldsmith’s “other hand” was telling of the clear warning signs these people should have seen:
On the other hand of course, there’s the law….
Yes. That tiny little detail of what is actually illegal. The tragedy here is that what these people had thought was necessary was in fact, not. It was known for a long time that torture is an ineffective means of getting intel from suspects–that some time, a friendly game of chess could garner more vital information. The entire torture idea was not a necessary tool in harsh times, it was the result of an ideological tough-guy, police-state meme that neocons favored. Ir was wrong, it was immoral, and in the end, probably has cost us access to that vital intel we need so badly. They get away with by fear and obfuscation, as with Bush simply saying that the torture we do is not “torture.”
So there are the movers and shakers who are the closest to being evil, valuing ideology and thirst for power over morality and effectiveness, and there are the rank-and-file who fall all too easily into the mindset that says, “we’d better push the legal limits on this,” not out of efficiency or need but out of fear–fear of displeasing their bosses, and fear of taking the blame for something going wrong. They become willing tools for the illegal and amoral agenda of their superiors.
And then there is the third aspect, one not so often recognized: the puppet president. Reagan set the scene, and Bush 43 followed and amplified the effect. A president of low intelligence but passable charisma and electability, someone who can be ridden to power by those who would truly control. Bush said it himself in the 2000 election, when he responded to the criticism that he was not smart enough or experienced enough. Bush essentially said that he would “surround” himself with good, talented people. It is my belief that this was essentially the core of the Bush presidency: not the candidate, but those around him, people like Cheney and Rumsfeld who could not be elected themselves, who instead use this weak man to grab holds of the reins of power. Remember the account of yet another tax cut being pushed in the White House, Bush reacting with, “haven’t we done that already?” and then told that another cut was needed. Not a capable leader in charge, but a figurehead following the lead of others.
That last element is what was needed to complete the setup, to allow for so much of the abuse and damage in Washington over the past seven-some years. And it is yet another element of danger that we must look for in the future.
I don’t by the meant well did bad meme.
At some point people have to have common sense. People working in public affairs need to have at least a remedial understanding of civics. And finally, people, not just in government, but everywhere have to have a moral compass.
The last part is no small thing. One has to exercise and develop that muscle throughout ones life. Admittedly I may have pursued this more than necessary, erring on the side of caution, but that’s part of the process of developing ones’ moral compass. It’s a bit of an analog, amorphus, kind of thing.
I’ve loved history and geography since I was ten years old. However, I was twelve before I read the rise and fall of the third reich. It was immediately obvious to me that the reason for studying any aspect of the social sciences was to avoid what happened in that book.
The people in the Bush administration had the benefit of hind site that people in Germany did not. Even if you don’t get pushed into high office, you have a duty to develop your moral compass, because you have the right and duty to vote. But especially if you get pushed into high office, you have a duty to be especially be atuned.
The problem with many Bush people is that they had greater ambition than they had understanding of civics, history or the moral consequences of their action. This comes full circle with the classic definition of evil: banality.
Now from my perspective, the only way you can be pro-Bush is to be lacking in all these capacities of civics, history, and moral consequence of the two. You can’t be a republican in the current era without having blinders.
Now even I did not realize how bad a person Bush was. My first hint was the claims that he was the loyalty police in his father’s administration – bullying reasonable people in responsible jobs that indicated pathological contempt and disrespect. I can remember thinking it was a good thing that his emergence in his father’s administration occurred only near the end – and so good riddance. I noted great fear when he beat out Ann Richards – a gifted politician and orator. I became synical about politics in 2000 when the issue I most cared for, reform, and it’s greatest champions, Bradley and McCain, were marginalized. After that I did nothing. I heard countervailing information on how Bush had matured, Gore hadn’t, but it didn’t matter to me, I was out of town on election day and didn’t vote. But a month or so before the election I read an account about how Condi Rice was ridiculing NATO, suggesting indirectly that if Bush got elected they would end it. That sent up a huge red flare. But before that point – I was too passive. At that point I realized that Bush was someone that had to be stopped or he would be a disaster for this nation. In my own mind, I am wondering what I could have done different. How could have I been more moral – regardless as to whatever happened.
I doubt if anything I did in my life could have stopped what happened from happening. I am the smallest of the small. But still I wonder about my small position in it. If those ambitious people in the Bush administration and the upper reaches of the Republican party, even the lower reaches, had been more circumspect there is no way that what did happen would have happened.
As to the torture, it wasn’t a means to the end, it was the end. They did it simply for the doing of it. They did it because they wanted to do it. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that torture doesn’t deliver.
The only problem (and i should probably preface this entire rant by stipulating the craven subjectiveness of the following critique) with all your rants and all your reasoning is that you seem to pre-suppose that any, yes, any, in the sense of the word corresponding to “all”, of the information dispensed by and in regards to the american government has even the remotest chance of being anything but absolute bullshit. So……..
1. Given that the world situation has rested firmly in the hands of an elite few since the end of the the 2nd world war, you really need to lose the concept of nations, as the result of clinging to this concept only serves to further the purposes of those who enjoy actual control, a primary purpose being to keep your ass in the dark. ( The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, etc., etc…)
2. Rest assured that if clowns like Cheney et al had any REAL power, their role in the scheme of things would be as obfuscated as humanly possible. They would certainly NOT be front and center telling the world at large and people in general to go fuck themselves and other pearls of class and wisdom.
3. Democracy does not exist, and especially not in that exercise in social disaster commonly referred to as the US. This should have become clear to everyone at the very latest with the introduction of the institution known as the Electoral College, an ingenious device designed to render you AND your vote to a civic uselessness quotient unprecedented in the span of human history. The primary ramification? I could run for president and win by a humongous landslide and still get less than 0% of the vote…..
How this situation manages to get spun into “Fair and Democratic Elections” every four years is a question the answer to which is, for me personally, at least as intriguing as the the true makeup of the most abundant form of matter in the universe.
4. I really liked it when u used “smegma”! ALL POWER TO THE VOCABULARY!!!
5. If the RIAA ever shows up at my door they are going to accidentally fall down the stairs at least 7 times. And the reason that’s not funny is cause I ain’t kiddin.
6. Except for the tendency to glorify ( by excessive attention to )the minutiae and ignore ( via ignorance or design )the magnific, you have one of the coolest blogs on the web.
Tim: I’m afraid that I was cynical before 2000, and saw the “surround myself with the right kind of people” from ten miles away, having lived through Reagan. I did not know the NeoCon rank-and-file nor their agenda per se, but I knew that Bush would be nothing more than a vehicle for the real people to ride in on. And I shudder to think what one person could have done, say, in Florida, pointing out the felons list ahead of time, or objecting to the butterfly ballots when it would have been at a point where a change could have been instituted. History hanged in so delicate a balance at that time, it is almost impossible not to imagine going back in time and applying a feather touch so that Al Gore and not George W. Bush would have won the election. Probably Gore would have failed in terms of being popular, he likely would have been ridiculed and vilified quite effectively and successfully by the right wing… but he would have kept us from going where Bush took us. He probably would not have let 9/11 happen, and even if it had, he would never have led us into Iraq. We would not have the massive tax cuts for the rich, the budget surpluses would be shrinking the debt, and something substantive would have been done about the environmental hazards we now face.
Such a tiny force in one place in Florida, by one person, and all of history would be changed. What utter tragedy.
Da Bob: Cheney might not have the power some think he has, but he has enough influence to shift things enough in the wrong direction to make hell a lot worse a place than it would have been. He doesn’t need to be Leonardo Da Smegma, all he needs to be is Dick Cheney in a place of influence, and the economy goes this way, the military goes that way, the Middle East goes down the toilet, and America goes down the tubes. In tragedy, it does not take much to change things drastically. Cheney pushed where Gore would have pulled, and the difference can be measured in millions of lives in the moment and maybe a few years more of the glorious illusion of hope.