The Lonesome Farewell

Watched Pres. Bush's Farewell Address to the nation last night. As ususal with Bush 43 speeches, it was much more rewarding to read his speech than to actually watch it. He remains a middling public speaker. Actually, I think his speaking skills have declined, if that seems possible.

The substance was a review of his presidency, but the tone in his voice gave the speech a melancholy air. No, it wasn't "somber." But, it was valedictory, and it was given with a sense of the accumulated weight of the last 8 years. Disaster planners used to say that the three worst things they could imagine happening in the US would be a WMD attack on Manhatten, a hurricane directly hitting New Orleans, or an earthquake wrecking San Francisco. Well, GW Bush saw two of those three happen on his watch. And, while the rest of us could watch on television, or lecture the president from their comfortable sincures on Capitol Hill, he went to the scenes of death and destruction, comforted the survivors, and tried to figure out how to lead the nation in the face of unprecedented perils. This isn't the time or place to debate the federal response to Katrina, but Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin each demonstrated what tragically bad leadership looks like. I'll take GW Bush over "competent" Democrats any day of the week.

Much of the speech dealt with 9/11 and its aftermath, as well it should. Those days showed Bush, and America, at their best, and a lot of people are desperate to forget what he did. In an instant, our vacation from history ended, symbols of our power lay in ruins, and thousands of inncents lay dead. No one, no matter how many CIA briefings or "threat memos" or whatever they might have seen, could have been prepared for the moment when Andrew Card whispered in the president's ear, as he faced a room full of children, and told him that our lives had changed forever.

Of course, we knew at the time that "things had changed," but no one knew exactly how until much later. In fact, we still don't know. But for the 18 months after 9/11, right up until we invaded Iraq, he could do no wrong. He could visit rescue workers at Ground Zero and, with one sentence, lift a city and a nation from its shock. He could join with the great Tony Blair and resurect the Anglo-American alliance, and show that it's the quality of your friends, not their multiplicity, that is important. And, he could redirect and redeploy our nation's eyes and ears to meet a shadowy enemy that would never live by the rules that we impose on ourselves. And, he did all this while the openness and freedom that is America's great unique quality was left blissfully unchanged. That was no accident. That was the overriding goal of the president.

There's been a lot of pissing and moaning about the shredding of the Constitution, but very little of it arises from actions he took in the months after 9/11. Even Bush's noisiest critics know, in their hearts, that for a short time GW Bush was man perfectly suited for the times. But, when the times returned to a sort of normalcy, the critics returned with a vengence with one goal in mind; to ruin the man's standing in the eyes of Americans and the world. Sadly, these critics largely succeeded, helped along by a president who would not pay back their opprobrium in kind.

There was one funny moment in Bush's spech when he ducked his head, smiled faintly, and said, "You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made." Instantly, the mind conjures visions of Cindy Sheehan in her ditch, Michael Moore selling treason at Cannes, Dick Durbin calling US troops Nazis, bookstore tables groaning under the weight of that month's latest Bush Bashing tomes, the whole panoply of Bush Derangement. The entire weight of the media, entertainment, and university lead intelligencia came down on GW Bush, and finally it was too much. The American public always tires of their presidents after about 6 years. In this case, we also had to bear the weight of endless attacks on our president and our nation from our supposed intellectual betters until, finally, many of us voted into office a pleasant man who said he would "end the partisanship." That he might do, but he would do it the same way FDR did: by routing the other party from the political scene and then taxing and regulating its constituents until they no longer resembled what they had once been.

Speaking of contituents, Bush may be leaving, but the GOP remains. Over the years, the modern GOP and movement conservatives have found plenty of reasons to criticize, not just GW, but all Bushes . The Bush family is the closest the modern GOP has to Democratic aristocrats like the Bayhs, Clintons, and Kennedies, but while Dems swoon for such people, the GOP is visibly discomfited. And, the Bushes have always come from the moderate wing, which has been much more successful at obtaining office, even as the die-hards castigate them as RINO's and "tax collectors for the welfare state." But, Bush cares just as much about America and the GOP as does Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich or anyone else you might name. And right now, the GOP has an image problem that is beyond anything attributable to GW Bush. The GOP has also become the party of the sour-pussed James Dobson, the corrupt Tom Delay, the incompetent Mike Brown, the baffled Scott McClellan, the fallen Master of the Universe Hank Paulson, the spendthrift House and Senate, &c.

Bush had some invited guests with him last night, some of whom he singled out in his speech. None were who you would call celebtrities. Instead, there was a Iraq War hero, a former gang banger now leading an inner-city ministry, and a father who joined the Navy as a tribute to his Marine son-killed in action in Iraq. All were admirable in their heroism and ordinariness. Like the pilot who, on the same day, landed a jet on the Hudson and then remained on board until the last passenger was safely off, these people should be the GOP's natural constituency. They are not the sort of people who march in protests, or donate money to activist causes, or lobby for special favors. They are ordinary Americans who love their country and just want to know that it is working and that it is safe. No, they don't appear on television like the Cindy Sheehans of the world. But they are out there, and their votes are far better sought out by the modern GOP than the votes of the Dobson crowd. For Bush, these people are the ones he sees in his mind's eye when he asks, "What is an American?" And these people have been drowned out in the noise raised, not just by the Left, but also by the agitated interest groups on the Right as well. I hope the GOP's wise men will take a look at Bush's exemplars because they are the ones to whom they should appeal, not some pollster's creation like "soccer moms" or "security dads."

GW Bush made a short reference to the recent financial crash, simply saying that we have been tested again, and that he had acted decisively to prevent the wreck of our financial system. Mr. Bush, I haven't agreed with a single thing you have done since September. But, if the man who ordered the Surge into being thinks he has done the right thing for the country, I am willing and eager to be proven wrong. Certainly for our nation's sake I hope you, and Mr. Obama, are successful in this endeavor.

Still, the man goes out with his head held high, and secure with the knowledge that - despite everything that was thrown at him - he never lost his dignity. I don't know what he plans to do with his time now, but I will make one daring prediction: he will not be jetting around the world fund raising from dictators and third world corporate oligarchs; nor will he be traveling to woe-begotten tyrranies to declare their latest sham elections to be "basically fair," nor will he grow wealthy traveling the world by private jet giving speeches about the imminent melting of the icecaps.

And, just as liberals look back at their hounding of the progressive Lyndon Johnson with regret, we will regret that we did not recognize that this was a president who was the strongest pro-life voice to occupy the office, the strongest friend of Israel, the finest annointer of judges and justices, a crusader for AIDS relief in Africa, and above all The Decider.

And no matter what, I think we will miss him more than we know.