by James Mann
* * *
In his memoir and in interviews after leaving the White House, Bush frequently maintained that any historical judgments about his presidency would be premature for decades. He recalled how Harry Truman’s presidency and Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon came to be viewed more positively after the passage of time.
This argument that it will take a long time to judge Bush’s actions may be valid for a few of the far-reaching measures Bush took. The counterterrorism measures Bush approved after September 11 fall into this category; years from now, historians will have greater perspective to evaluate whether or not they were necessary. The mere fact that Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, a liberal Democrat, decided to continue some of these measures (such as the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities) underscores the fact that Bush was not alone in deciding they were needed to help protect the United States against attack. A half century from now, if there are no further attacks on the American homeland comparable to al-Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, some future historians may conclude that Bush deserves credit. Contrarily, in a half century it may seem as if Bush’s responses to September 11 were the starting point in the establishment of a surveillance state in which American rights to privacy were irretrievably damaged.
Yet there are other major aspects of the Bush presidency in which it does not seem too soon to draw conclusions. We can evaluate many of the actions of Bush and his administration against the predictions they made and the hopes they expressed at the time as well as the measurable consequences of those actions. Even judging by Bush’s own standards, some of the most far-reaching and important initiatives of his presidency didn’t work or turned out poorly.
At the top of the list is the war in Iraq. In both the buildup to the war and in the war itself, Bush and his top advisers misjudged badly what it would entail. They overestimated the international support the United States would be able to obtain for military action against Saddam Hussein. They asserted before the war that American troops would need to stay in Iraq for no more than a couple of years; instead, the troops had to stay for more than eight years and then departed without having achieved the stability in Iraq that was envisioned. The Bush administration’s public estimate before the war was that it would cost well below $100 billion; instead, it wound up costing $2 trillion, more than twenty times as much. The administration predicted that Americans would be greeted as liberators and thus failed to prepare adequately for the chaos that ensued. Administration officials believed Iraq might behave like Poland or Hungary after the collapse of Communism, when in fact the closer analogy from eastern Europe would have been the former Yugoslavia, which fell into bloody ethnic and religious conflict.
In the end, the military intervention in Iraq took the lives of more than 4,400 Americans. The war did succeed in toppling Saddam Hussein and ending the brutality of his regime, but the supposed weapons of mass destruction Bush administration officials told the country Saddam possessed were never found. The larger regional and international consequences of the intervention in Iraq also did not turn out as Bush and his administration had hoped. The war did not result in the spread of American influence in the Middle East; indeed, the practical, unintended consequence of the Iraq War was to leave Iran, America’s principal adversary in the region, in a stronger position than before.
Intended originally as a short-term demonstration of American power and influence, the Iraq War over the longer term seemed to bring about the opposite. In its aftermath, America became increasingly cautious, more reluctant to become involved overseas. The broad strategic doctrine of unilateral preemption that Bush and Rice invoked before the war did not take root. Overall, the Iraq War now seems like a strategic blunder of epic proportions, among the most serious in modern American history, and it is difficult to see how future historians can decide otherwise.
So, too, it does not seem too soon to form judgments about the second most far-reaching aspect of Bush’s legacy, his historic tax cuts. Bush argued that the tax cuts would stimulate the economy and spur economic growth; after a decade, these benefits seemed dubious at best. The harmful long-term consequences, however, were incalculable. The tax cuts ushered in a new era of massive budget deficits, as the federal government became increasingly short of revenues. Meanwhile, the tax cuts changed the very nature of American society, creating vastly greater disparities in income and assets between wealthy Americans and the middle classes, so that, more and more, they led different lives and had little in common with one another. Although Barack Obama eventually overturned the Bush tax cuts on upper-income Americans, that action did not reverse the enormous impact of what had already taken place: over a period of nearly a decade, enormous sums that would otherwise have been routinely taxed were instead left in the hands of the wealthy.
American presidents tend to be evaluated, above all, on how they perform in two areas: on issues of war and peace and on the economy. By this standard, Bush, who departed from the White House with America embroiled in two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, is likely to rank low in the judgments of future historians.
To be sure, not all of this legacy was of Bush’s creation. One of the two wars he left behind, in Afghanistan, began as a response to a direct attack on the United States. The financial crisis resulted from a wave of deregulation that dated back to the Clinton years or even earlier and that Bush further accelerated. Indeed, history may judge that, through actions such as the TARP program, Bush and Barack Obama together deserve credit for the fact that the financial crisis wasn’t even worse. Nevertheless, major parts of the Bush legacy—the Iraq War, the tax cuts—were entirely of Bush’s own choosing, and their impact was pervasive, affecting many of his other policies. The war in Iraq, for example, diverted attention and resources away from the war in Afghanistan, while the tax reductions strained resources both for the two wars and for other ventures abroad and at home.
Bush was not responsible for all of America’s difficulties, yet the far-reaching actions he took, particularly on Iraq and the tax cuts, further compounded the nation’s problems. Once, in the midst of a discussion with his military advisers, Bush made a telling observation. “Somebody has got to be risk-averse in this process, and it better be you, because I’m sure not,” he said. George W. Bush was, for sure, not risk-averse. He took gambles both in foreign policy and with the economy. Sometimes, they paid off. Yet overall the country paid heavily for the risks he took.
Notes
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PROLOGUE
only three trips outside the United States: See, for example, David A. Sanger, “Rivals Differ on U.S. Role in the World,” New York Times, October 30, 2000; Warren Hoge, “Other Nations Regard Campaign with Interest and Wonder,” New York Times, November 6, 2000; Thomas L. Friedman, “I Love D.C.,” New York Times, November 7, 2000.
“Laura and I went to see ‘Cats’”: Transcript, interview of George W. Bush by Sir David Frost of BBCTV, November 12, 2003.
“Try being a VPK”: David Maraniss, “The Bush Bunch,” Washington Post Magazine, January 22, 1989.
The survey found: Nicholas D. Kristof, “A Father’s Footsteps Echo Throughout a Son’s Career,” New York Times, September 11, 2000.
“The one somewhat touchy area”: Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), pp. 5–7, 95.
1: “A GOOD-TIME GUY”
castor oil … “spoiled little boy”: Barbara Bush, Barbara Bush: A Memoir (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), pp. 27–35.
“too young to know”: Amy Cunningham interview with Barbara Bush, for “Goodbye to Robin,” Texas Monthly, February 1988.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”: George Lardner Jr. and Lois Romano,
“A Texas Childhood: A Sister Dies, a Family Moves On; Loss Creates Strong Bond Between Mother, Son,” Washington Post, July 26, 1999.
“saved my life”: Cunningham interview with Barbara Bush.
“She kind of smothered me”: Patricia Kilday Hart, “Don’t Call Him Junior,” Texas Monthly, August 1988.
“of Mother’s personality”: George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown, 2010), p. 7.
“hardest thing I did”: Ibid., p. 11.
“a sense of frivolity”: Bill Minutaglio, First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999), p. 64.
“a little swagger”: Ibid., p. 66.
“big man on campus”: Lois Romano and George Lardner Jr., “Bush: So-So Student but a Campus Mover,” Washington Post, July 27, 1999.
college board scores: Nicholas D. Kristof, “Earning A’s in People Skills at Andover,” New York Times, June 10, 2000.
back of the page: Bush, Decision Points, p. 13.
Red Sox star Carl Yastrzemski: Ibid., p. 15.
“a good-time guy”: Romano and Lardner, “Bush: So-So Student.”
its first toga party: Minutaglio, First Son, p. 95.
“only a cigarette burn”: “Branding Rite Laid to Yale Fraternity,” New York Times, November 9, 1967, obtained from Steven Weisman.
“a better man”: “Born to Run,” Texas Monthly, April 1994, cited in Minutaglio, First Son, p. 85.
“I want to give nothing,” Romano and Lardner, “Bush: So-So Student.”
opened the White House to his Yale classmates: Interview with Derek Shearer; Elisabeth Bumiller, “On Gay Marriage, Bush May Have Said All He’s Going To,” New York Times, March 1, 2004.
Dallas Cowboys: George Lardner Jr. and Lois Romano, “At Height of Vietnam, Bush Picks Guard,” Washington Post, July 28, 1999.
more money for Houston’s Ellington Air Force Base: Joe Hagan, “Truth or Consequences,” Texas Monthly, May 2012.
accusations of favoritism always lingered: The Guard issue did, ironically, lead to the downfall of CBS anchorman Dan Rather, who in 2004 aired a report on Bush that was later found to have been based on a forged document. Hagan, “Truth or Consequences.”
“You wanna go mano a mano right here?”: Maraniss, “Bush Bunch.”
“I was a boozy kid,” Bush, Decision Points, p. 21.
the decade after college as a time to explore: Ibid., p. 16.
expeditions to the Hillbilly Ranch: Michael Kranish, “Hallmarks of Bush Style Were Seen at Harvard,” Boston Globe, December 28, 1999.
“Today is George’s twenty-ninth birthday”: Jeffrey A. Engel, ed., The China Diary of George H. W. Bush (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 352.
“close to my mother on that day”: George W. Bush, A Charge to Keep (New York: Harper Perennial, 2001), p. 175.
The campaign taught him an important lesson: Bush, Decision Points, p. 41.
the tennis star John Newcombe: Steve Lillebuen, “Newked: John Newcombe Breaks Silence on the Bender That Got George W. Bush Arrested,” Sydney Morning Herald, October 10, 2014.
a sign that it was time for him to settle down: Ibid., p. 25.
miniature golf: Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2010), pp. 94–96.
“ferociously tart-tongued”: Ibid., pp. 124–25.
his uncle Jonathan Bush: Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, “Slick W.,” Mother Jones, March/April 2000.
“Please Lord”: Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart, p. 116.
$15,000 investment … $840,000: Ivins and Dubose, “Slick W.”
2: THE RISING POLITICIAN
“an occasional bender”: Bush, Decision Points, p. 33.
“he could be a bore,”: Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart, p. 118.
“what is sex like after fifty?”: Bush, Decision Points, p. 33.
Broadmoor Hotel: Ibid., pp. 1–3.
go to heaven: Minutaglio, First Son, p. 289.
a gathering at Camp David: Ibid., p. 206.
her husband’s decision to quit drinking: Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart, p. 118.
“looked in the mirror”: Minutaglio, First Son, p. 210.
“these fakes”: Barbara Bush, Barbara Bush: A Memoir, p. 215.
a role within the Bush campaign: Minutaglio, First Son, p. 211.
A former Assembly of God minister: Robin Abcarian, “Behind the Secret Tapings of Bush, a Life Is Changed,” Los Angeles Times, March 25, 2005; Minutaglio, First Son, pp. 212–13.
a rival Republican presidential candidate, Jack Kemp: Lois Romano and George Lardner Jr., “Bush’s Move Up to the Majors,” Washington Post, July 31, 1999.
“How do we know we can trust you?”: Bush, A Charge to Keep, pp. 178–79.
“loyalty enforcer”: Ibid., p. 180.
“Roman candle of the family”: Richard Ben Cramer, What It Takes: The Way to the White House (New York: Random House, 1992), p. 17.
Scrub Team: Minutaglio, First Son, p. 232.
the ouster of John Sununu: James Gerstenzang, “Sununu Quits to Avoid Being Campaign Drag,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1991.
the exclusive White House dinner: Barbara Bush, Barbara Bush: A Memoir, pp. 414, 460.
dump Vice President Dan Quayle: Bush, Decision Points, p. 49.
“Watching a good man lose,”: Ibid., p. 50.
a wave of news stories and magazine profiles: See, for example, Hart, “Don’t Call Him Junior”; Julie Morris, “Bush’s Son Eyes Texas’s Top Job,” USA Today, May 31, 1989.
“a major commitment like that”: Romano and Lardner, “Bush’s Move Up to the Majors.”
“our shaky pitching rotation”: Bush, Decision Points, p. 46.
$14.9 million: Minutaglio, First Son, p. 322.
“older than his vice president”: Roberto Suro, “One of Bush’s Campaign Advisers Is Also His Son,” New York Times, April 26, 1992.
“the talent that George Bush has”: Romano and Lardner, “Bush’s Move Up to the Majors.”
“All that I ask”: Skip Hollandsworth, “Born to Run,” Texas Monthly, May 1994.
“heaven is only open”: Ken Herman, “The Candidates and the Higher Authority,” Houston Post, October 2, 1994.
“compassionate conservative”: Minutaglio, First Son, pp. 214, 306.
“a lot of capital to spend”: Sam Howe Verhovek, “Bush Stumbles on Taxes in Texas,” New York Times, May 31, 1997.
“a fair shot at achieving their dreams”: Lani Guanier, “An Equal Chance,” New York Times, April 23, 1998.
“If you’re Canadian”: Patrick Beach, “The First Son: George W. Bush Had His Rebellions,” Austin American-Statesman, June 13, 1999.
“It’s a six-inch putt”: Frank Bruni, Ambling into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), p. 148.
Rove began talking to Bush: Karl Rove, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight (New York: Threshold Editions, 2010), p. 112.
baby-boom generation: Bush, Decision Points, p. 49.
“our Clinton”: Minutaglio, First Son, p. 305.
“plotting, planning and scheming,”: Rove, Courage and Consequence, p. 114.
“The race is his to lose”: John J. Miller and Ramesh Ponnuru, “Handicapping 2000,” National Review, November 9, 1998.
52 percent: Dan Balz, “Starting Early and Urgently: Presidential Contenders Leave Calendar in Dust,” Washington Post, April 4, 1999.
“The bottom line remains money”: Kevin Merida, “A Campaign of Quitters Cites the Bush Factor,” Washington Post, October 28, 1999.
“funny and irreverent”: Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown, 2011), p. 2.
Social Security trust fund: Jill Lawrence, “McCain Knocks Bush’s Tax-Cut Proposal,” USA Today, January 6, 2000.
“chose to sire children without marriage”: Rove, Courage and Consequence, pp. 151–53.
“Don’
t give me that shit”: James Carney, “Frenemies: The McCain-Bush Dance,” Time, July 16, 2008.
“Grecians” … “put food on their family”: Bruni, Ambling into History, p. 39.
“stow your expectations … Last chance for malaprops”: Ibid., p. 5.
Rove resisted: Rove, Courage and Consequence, pp. 166–76; Bush, Decision Points, pp. 69–70.
“a great choice”: Bush, Decision Points, p. 66.
“If we’re an arrogant nation”: Transcript of Second Bush-Gore Debate, Winston-Salem, NC, October 11, 2000.
“I occasionally drank too much”: Rove, Courage and Consequence, p. 190.
a Bush friend phoned John Newcombe: Lillebuen, “Newked.”
“It was jarring”: Ibid., pp. 192–93.
at 7:49 p.m.: The times and election-night chronology are taken from Jeffrey Toobin, Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election (New York: Random House, 2001), pp. 17–25.
“Circumstances have changed … Are you saying?”: Gore and Bush quotes from ibid., p. 25.
“And I promised him”: Transcript of Gore concession speech, New York Times, December 14, 2000.
3: THE NEW PRESIDENT AND HIS TAX CUTS
“Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment”: Transcript of George W. Bush First Inaugural Address, January 20, 2001.
fritter away the surplus: Alison Mitchell, “Bush Says That the Bottom Line on Gore’s Proposals Would Consume the Surplus,” New York Times, September 7, 2000.
“too much of the people’s money”: Bush, Decision Points, p. 442.
more than a third of all the tax savings: “The Real Tax Plan,” Washington Post, February 11, 2001.
“I have about $125 billion of surplus”: Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 136.
