Mike Murray essay -- Bush III vs. Carter II

11 June 2008

Bush III vs. Carter II

--by Mike Murray

Get ready for the retro election. Forget everything you’ve heard about “change”; the 2008 presidential election is all about the past. Democrats have signaled that they will try to paint John McCain’s candidacy as nothing more than an attempt by Republicans to, in essence, award a “third term” to George W. Bush.

If that claim is fair game, then it’s also cricket to say that Democrats are using Barack Obama to secure a second term for Jimmy Carter – the one that voters denied him in 1980. Both assertions regarding this year’s presumptive nominees are outlandish. Just the same, each contains a kernel of truth.

It is true, for example, that McCain was in accordance with Bush about the need to remove Sadam Hussein from power. Consequently, both men believed that invading Iraq was a necessary act (given intelligence data that was supplied to them at the time – data that similarly persuaded a good many Democrats, by the way). But McCain and Bush have also quarreled, sometimes bitterly, over the war’s prosecution.

Everyone agrees that the initial phase of the war was carried out effectively and efficiently. Even staunch-Democrat Chris Matthews (who served as a mouthpiece in the Carter administration) was impressed. From his talking-head perch at MSNBC he opined early on that the Iraq War would serve as a sterling model for future military operations. But this was a different kind of war. Overthrowing Sadam Hussein and his regime was only the beginning.

The much maligned “mission accomplished” declaration by Bush (a milestone proclamation requested by the United Nations as a predicate to next-phase, humanitarian relief), signaled only an end to traditional-style battlefield operations. Non-traditional combat against insurgents was a struggle destined to continue for years.

As it turned out, the roadmap that had guided so well in deposing Hussein and his henchmen was not backed up by a proper plan for securing Iraq in the aftermath. Initially heralded as a brilliant strategist, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld found himself reduced to an object of ridicule.

Making matters worse, he refused to acknowledge the shortcomings of his “phase two” approach. Rumsfeld rejected passionate pleas – many of them issued by John McCain – to revise his methods. So strong was his opposition to change that it became necessary for Bush to remove him from office. Only then could a new course be pursued.

McCain does believe that the surge in Iraq is a reasonable undertaking. He championed it, after all. And he clearly believes that it is working. Bush concurs with the latter assertion. But, having been long counseled by surge-opponent Rumsfeld, Bush had to be prodded – hard – before he acquiesced to the build-up in troop strength. And who did most of the prodding? Yep: it was none other than long-time, thorn-in-his-side McCain.

John McCain is decidedly more hawkish than is Barack Obama. In that regard, McCain would certainly resemble Bush more as Commander-in-Chief than would the junior senator from Illinois. And given the fact that conflicts are never popular (and that the length of this war has made it especially distasteful), political benefit has accrued to Obama – who spoke from the start against using military force in Iraq.

But genuine leadership doesn’t trace its roots to opinion polls. Many of the figures in American and world history who are now admired were vilified in their day. George W. Bush’s own father (himself a former president), along with many other Republican elder statesmen, tried to dissuade him against taking military action. They cautioned that invading Iraq would prove to be politically poisonous, that it would cost him a second term as president.

They were wrong about that. But it wasn’t any ability on Bush’s part to forecast the future that guided his decision. It was his conscience. He believed it to be the right thing to do. The people who now claim that “Bush lied; people died” are very much mistaken. Bush did not “lie” us into war. He did not “trade blood for oil.”

Disagree all you want with Bush’s decision to go to war (a decision overwhelmingly approved by the U.S. Senate). But don’t delude yourself into thinking that Bush – or any other governmental official – served up soldiers and civilians in the pursuit of political or financial gain. Despite what is convenient for critics to believe, neither Bush nor our military’s senior officers have callous disregard for human life.

McCain shares Bush’s advocacy of a strong national-defense posture. And he agrees with the sitting president on the matter of reduced taxation. But – sometimes to his credit, sometimes not – he parts company with Bush in myriad ways. Only politically biased observers fail to see that McCain has all-along been partially supportive, partially dismissive of Bush’s management of the executive branch.

As for Barack Obama, he has several points of intersection with former-president Jimmy Carter. Foremost among them is his attempt to portray himself as an “outsider” to Washington – and as a candidate, therefore, capable of delivering “change.” That claim was an easier one for Georgia’s Governor Carter to make. For an inside-the-Beltway, sitting senator like Obama, that argument is a stretch.

No problem. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Obama’s people say he qualifies as an outsider because he’s only a first-term senator. In politics, it’s all about perception. It’s all about framing the discussion. So Obama’s not “inexperienced,” you see; he is instead “uncontaminated” by a lengthy D.C. tenure.

Another thing that Obama has in common with Jimmy Carter: neither has a history of reaching across the political aisle to get things accomplished. Even Carter’s supporters acknowledge that his term as president was marred by an unwillingness to cooperate, by his refusal to search for the smallest patch of common ground. Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike had tired of the prickly peanut farmer from Plains by 1980. (Hence Ted Kennedy’s refusal – right up to the convention – to concede the nomination to Carter ...a sitting president from his own party!)

For all his campaign rhetoric, there is no evidence to support the claim that Obama would be any more willing than was Carter to collaborate. Moreover, Obama’s record is as far left as it gets: he’s rated the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. When opportunities have arisen to bridge political divides (such as when a handful of Democrats and Republicans – including McCain – came together to break a logjam over judicial appointments), Obama rejected them.

That kind of behavior might have scored him points with The New York Times, MSNBC, and the entirety of the far-left blogosphere during the primary season. But it won’t sit well with general-election voters. Such truculence is detrimental to good governance. Jimmy Carter found that out the hard way, when voters denied him a second term. They instead favored Ronald Reagan – a Republican who trounced Carter by garnering the support of millions of fed-up Democrats.

And then there is the matter of the Middle East. Despite Jimmy Carter’s claims of neutrality (which mirror Obama’s), he is decidedly anti-Israel. Read what Carter has written over the past couple of decades. Review his public comments. Reflect on his travel itinerary. The years-ago perception that he was an objective seeker of reconciliation in the region has proved false. In the matter of Arab-Israeli relations, Carter’s bias is now transparent.

But it wasn’t always so. He managed to fool a great many people for a good long time. It seems that Obama might be trying to do the same today. Because many of his consorts are clearly hostile to Israel. Obama’s defenders say that we shouldn’t judge him by the company he keeps, that we shouldn’t declare him “guilty by association.”

Nonsense. It all depends on the intimacy of specific relationships. Some nut case with whom you’ve had little contact endorses you? Not a problem. On the other hand, if you have warmly embraced someone by establishing a friendship that spans decades, or have characterized that person as a de facto member of your family, or have invited him or her to serve in a significant capacity in your campaign (paid or volunteer) – you are fully accountable.

Consequently, Obama is answerable for the many unsavory people who closely orbit his life and his political ambition. Some appear anti-American. Some bigoted. Some snobbish. Some anti-Israel. And some just seem intent on reliving the imagined glory of 1960s radicalism and protest.

Still, as is the case with John McCain, the real Barack Obama is probably not so easily defined. It is doubtful that he fits neatly into any particular pigeon hole. Except one: he is surely a more traditional politician than he lets on. His hard-left positioning these past few years has been – at least in part – an outgrowth of political calculation.

An ultra-liberal stance benefited Obama during his long run-up to the Democratic nomination. Now that he has secured it, look for him (and for McCain, too, for that matter) to tack toward the middle in an attempt to woo moderate general-election voters.

But don’t try to sell the notion that McCain is running for George Bush’s third term. Not unless you want others to counter that Obama is running for Jimmy Carter’s second term. Or perhaps George McGovern’s first.

< Back to Berea Bits