George W. Bush was a failure as a president, but there has already been plenty—and will of course be much more—piling on about the failures. After watching his farewell address, I am struck by the thought of the one thing Bush got right.
Whatever his failures, George W. Bush is an honest man—often foolish, usually deeply misguided—but a sincere man who genuinely loves his country and its people. When he speaks about the people he has met that he admires, you can tell that these meetings have touched him at the heart. Of all the attacks on him in the past eight years, probably none is more tragically misplaced than the immature and ludicrous claim that he “lied to get us into war.” In fact, whatever his faults, that was not one of them. While virtually all of the “accomplishments” he listed in his farewell speech are disastrously bad policies that should never have been adopted, there can be little doubt that he acted on the basis of what he genuinely believed, wrongly in many cases, was good for the country. After the shabby opportunism and poll-following of the Clintons and Al Gore, that was an enormous relief. If, as it seems right now, Obama is a similarly sincere person, that will be a blessing.
George Bush was an unlikely man, and an unlucky choice, to lead a war for secular values against a theocratic ideology of hatred. He lacked the rhetorical position (let alone ability!) to articulate a defense of those values. Yet he did recognize that that was the war that had to be fought, and he did fight it. The memory I will always have of him is him standing with the bullhorn at the World Trade Center site, saying “I can hear you, the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon.” In all the time since, with all the criticisms and attacks—both merited and unmerited, considered and childish, thoughtful and emotive—that one core did not change. Bush fell short in many, many ways—his continued embrace of Saudi Arabia and Russia, for instance, his keeping of an almost openly insubordinate Secretary of State, a domestic policy so riddled with stupidity and error that time will not permit even a brief itemization. But when he says this, he gets it exactly right, and he has always got this point right:
As we address these challenges—and others we cannot foresee tonight—America must maintain our moral clarity. I’ve often spoken to you about good and evil, and this has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense—and to advance the cause of peace.
This is the truth, and, alas, that is not a small thing in today’s world. It is to be hoped that others will continue to stand by that truth in the coming years.
Comments policy