Exploding the Myths of Bush?

The rehabilitation of George W. Bush continues. After spending eight years listening to my favorite sports radio show go 'off sports' every now and then to bash Bush, I was very happy this morning to hear the solid liberals who do the show say "I had never before realized that George Bush was that funny," or "you know, he really is a decent guy," or "out of all the Presidents, he's a guy I think would be the most fun to sit down and have a beer with." The radio hosts had all watched W's interview the day before on Oprah or had seen his interview with Matt Lauer, and were being 'reintroduced' to Bush after he's been out of the political scene for a year or two, and what struck me the most was that now that Bush is no longer the 'evil enemy', myths about him are exploding left and right.

From the Washington Post, via powerlineblog, here are some other myths about President George W. Bush that are being exploded by time, analysis, research, and retrospection. Here are excerpts from the article (some editing by me for brevity), but please go here to read the whole thing:

Myth: George W. Bush was an uninformed Texas cowboy.
During his 2000 campaign against Vice President Al Gore, then-Gov. Bush went to great lengths to depict himself as a down-home Texan whom voters could relate to. But that image was at odds with his upbringing. Bush had plenty of blue in his blood. In 2004, Republicans again deployed the president's folksy image and manner of speech, contrasting Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry (the elitist who windsurfs off Nantucket) with Bush (the guy you'd rather have a beer with - even if he doesn't drink). But as the administration stumbled in crises from Katrina to Iraq, the reputation that had helped Bush win office turned into a huge liability as Americans increasingly questioned his competence.

Myth: "Compassionate conservatism" was just a campaign slogan.
Many critics dismiss Bush's talk about "compassionate conservatism" as nothing more than a cynical ploy to win over moderate voters in 2000. Liberals never believed that Bush truly wanted to bring racial and ethnic diversity to the Republican Party or that he accepted the need for the federal government to deal with entrenched social problems. The administration's bungled response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, along with regressive fiscal policies that disproportionately benefited wealthier Americans, also seemed to contradict the promise of compassion. Yet, as Vanderbilt University historian Gary Gerstle has shown, Bush was personally invested in compassionate conservatism. Bush's experience as a born-again Christian led him to empathize with individuals' personal struggles and to respect the role of religion in civic life. As president, he insisted that the war on terrorism must not become a war against Muslims. And his signature legislative accomplishments included expansive domestic programs, such as the No Child Left Behind Act (a huge extension of the federal government into primary education) and the Medicare prescription drug benefit (the biggest expansion of the system since its creation 40 years earlier).

Myth: Bush committed America to nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush appeared to commit the United States to remaking enemy nations into pro-Western democracies. Yet in many ways, Bush's commitment to nation-building was primarily a rhetorical tool to build domestic support for military operations. This lack of commitment became clear when U.S. resources were hastily diverted from Afghanistan toward Iraq, and when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld emphasized in the spring of 2002 that the Afghan people would have to handle most of the reconstruction themselves.

Myth: Dick Cheney ran the Bush White House.
The Bush era produced a stream of good books examining the vice president's hidden influence. In these accounts, Bush appears as a puppet to the real leader, Cheney, who lurked in the shadows. However, much of the subsequent writing about the Bush presidency - including works by journalists such as The Washington Post's Bob Woodward - challenges this portrait. We have begun to see instead that Bush, surrounded by political advisers such as Karl Rove, didn't allow power to move too far away from his control. And according to reports on Bush's memoir, the president even considered removing Cheney from the 2004 presidential ticket, given the vice president's "Darth Vader" reputation.

Myth: Bush left conservatism in ruins.
On election night in 2008, the conservative era appeared to be over, and the age of Obama seemed set to begin. Except it didn't happen that way. A recent poll by The Post, the Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University found that Americans dislike government more now than they did 10 years ago (though they support many specific programs). The Republican victories in the midterm elections suggest that, for all the problems that still face the GOP, conservatism is alive and well - even if it is a far different brand of conservatism than the kind Bush championed when he took office in 2001.

These myths will not die easily- a lot of people have a lot of time and money and effort invested into making us believe them, and to these people it is still important for us to believe them because if history is re-written to reflect the reality of Bush, it will have different lessons for the future. So, look for the left to fight any hint that that he is a funny, self-effacing, tad awkward, tough, honest, decent, and generally human person.

Be sure to get a copy of Bush's new book, Decision Points.