So Now That We Understand Each Other
I am now ready to believe just about anything. Last Friday’s Bill Maher show on HBO proved to me that the apocalypse does in fact draw nigh: I agreed with almost everything Anne Coulter had to say about President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers. Granted, to get Coulter and I on the same page her elitism needed to be offended (mental note, Anne, not only liberals can be guilty of snobbery).
People on all spectrums of political belief are equally surprised at Bush’s choice and the bi-partisan discontent over his selection of Miers. The ultimate prize of American politics is the Oval Office, and the people who are a part of obtaining it are typically politically astute at levels you and I can only dream of. Perhaps the Miers’ nomination is a feint, a move designed to throw both sides off their entrenched positions, only to turn around and drop in a really conservative candidate who might otherwise not get through the Senate’s nomination process. If this is the case, when future candidates for judicial appointments are being vetted they will not have to worry about being “Borked” but will no doubt wrestle with the equally pejorative question as to whether they are being “made a Harriet of?”
If Bush is using Miers as a distraction from the candidate he really wants to appoint and knows he can get through only after the political machine tears up some fresh meat, he is a genius. Of all the incantations supporters of President Bush throw out, his genius is not one most choose to lead with. The number of people who think Bush is a genius is limited to those who either still call him “Georgie” (i.e. family) or who have managed to latch their own fortune and fame to that of the President, making his own intelligence important only because it makes their own significance significant. Miers appears to fit quite nicely into this latter category – a woman whose own career has tracked that of her boss. And that is precisely one of the worries people have about her nomination: can she separate herself from policy questions the Supreme Court must hear that inevitably deal with positions she has already developed? If, as many experts anticipate, the US Supreme Court is to hear cases involving the administration’s position over torture, will Miers recuse herself because she developed and worked with people whose case she is now adjudicating? Given the still smarting wound in America over the Supreme Court’s involvement in halting the Bush-Gore votes in Florida, was picking his personal lawyer to fill a critical vacancy on the Supreme Court an insensitive move? Is this an honest oversight, is it a calloused disregard for public concerns over impartiality, or has Bush officially wandered off the reservation into his own private world where logic, reason and criticism can be entirely overlooked?
Miers’ appointment is cronyism of a wholly different type: appointing your personal lawyer to a Supreme Court Justice is a very tacky move from any president at any time. It is one thing to, post 9/11, have a president who will not apologize for appointing intelligent but unqualified people to positions specifically relevant to how we respond to domestic calamity, terror attacks being just one possibility. Miers would not be the first poorly qualified appointment to the Court, but she should be the last poorly qualified appointment to any position Bush appoints. Why can Bush, even if only in a nod to public disapproval over his appointment of Brown as the FEMA director, look to appoint qualified people to this important position? Is Bush this dumb? Does he not care? Is this part of a strategy? Even traditional conservative allies like Coulter have had to reject Miers as a candidate knowing that her appointment is a mistake of possibly historical significance – appointing someone with no constitutional law to the highest court whose only job is to interpret to US Constitution is unforgivable, and even the vitriolic supporters of Bush know this!
This is all very grating to critics of the President like me who would like to believe that his policies are, at their foundation, at least well thought out and represent ideologies that are open to reason and possibly changing when weaknesses are presented. But with Bush’s response to criticism of Miers we see a part of Bush that we saw during the last presidential campaign. It is the same disregard we have seen on the few occasions when he has dared stand in front of an open microphone and attempt to argue his policies. Bush’s justification for Miers has amounted to a “trust me.” What he does not seem able to appreciate is that Americans no longer trust him; even his own party does not trust him. Their trust was lost when the justification to invading Iraq proved to be disingenuous. The general American population’s frustration hardened when his was the only real option in the last campaign, and they have not forgotten that his way out is not their choice; it is just the only viable choice either the Americans or Iraqis have at their disposal. With every death in Iraq and every repeated plea from Bush to stay strong in the face of an uncertain future and unclear policy, Americans have grown unwilling to merely accept Bush’s policies “just because.” Now, even conservatives want answers. They want a responsive administration that does not simply say, “trust me.” They want to be reasoned with; they want what many of us always wanted from Bush – him to be forced to answer questions about his policies, justifications, and rationale.
The difference is that Bush’s critics long ago saw this side to him – the inability to appreciate his surroundings, his own mistakes, and his unwillingness to acknowledge fiscal, cultural or ideological limitations. Bush is a brittle leader who at his core does not really believe he needs to justify himself to anyone. His view of the Presidency is a hallowed one because of the power it wields; his mistake is in thinking that because he has power he is entitled to use it as he sees fit without adequate checks and balances. This is all bound up in the underlying pathology of the Bush administration – that might makes right. Bush’s intransigence is disaffecting his base and the political middle class. Without these two bases the pressure on the administration to address its economic spending habits and its disjointed foreign policy are going to increase. Watch for Bush to begin attempting to do more and more of what he thinks is the right thing to do, and watch for the distance between him and his handlers to grow. What got Bush to the presidency was knowing who to listen to; now that he has the power he is falling for the trap of believing in his own aptitude. Miers is the first visible crack in the policy genius that put Bush into his job. Bush, always an insular leader unwilling to listen to critics, will begin to look for direction internally and will find none. Miers represents Bush as Bush, his ideas on their own.
Supporters of President Bush are caught in a trap that Bush has set for himself and will no doubt set for himself on several other occasions before he leaves Washington for good. Hubris is a particularly unfaithful companion to leaders. What makes a leader is, among other things, his willingness to make mistakes, learn from them, and change course. Instead of attacking President Bush’s politics, the Miers’ confirmation should present us with an opportunity to look at his faults at a deeper level – specifically, his inability to learn from his own mistakes and his tendency to make the same mistake over and over. Why did Bush make this mistake? It is probably no coincidence that Bush makes one of the poorest and ill-timed appointments at the same time Karl Rove is working to prevent an indictment over the Valarie Plume leak and Vice President Dick Cheney is recuperating from surgery. Miers is Bush as Bush, without the supporting cast that can only thinly disguise his incompetence and suitability to the job of President from his political supporters. It has never been much of a veneer to his political foes; in appointing a poorly qualified candidate to an absolutely essential position, Bush is only echoing what his own life has taught him – that qualifications are less important than who you know.
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About MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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October 15th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Am catching up with your articles…excellent as usual. And YES, Bush IS that dumb… it amazes me that the president of the richest most powerful country on the planet is so very obviously very limited intellectually - and yes, just “dumb”. My great fear is the further damage his cronyism and pure dumbness can do in the next 3 years. Heaven help us. (Well, I don’t believe in Heaven, so God help us.)
Melinda