Richard Cohen: Delving Into Bush's Legacy
[Richard Cohen writes for the New York Daily News.]
Former President George Bush and some of his White House aides are gathering in Dallas to plan the future George W. Bush Policy Institute. There, I guess, they will ponder grand themes and marble foyers, but I propose they begin by simply renaming the place. I suggest the "George W. Bush Institute of Management Failure" and dedicate it to studying how this presidency went so wrong - a task as big as Texas.
Bush's tenure was truly remarkable. He left office with the lowest poll ratings in 60 years, two wars had begun and not ended and the deepest recession since the Great Depression. If it's true that we learn from our mistakes, Bush's eight years represent a bonanza of lessons.
What commends the Bush presidency to further study was its sheer managerial ineptitude. This is irony aplenty for a man not known for irony. Bush's one area of expertise, after all, supposedly was in management. Not only had he been a businessman, but he had graduated from Harvard Business School. Bush was the Decider. He was a delegator. He was precise and punctual - early to the office, early out of the office and a clean desk at all times. Wow!
Conventional wisdom holds that the bungling of the Iraq war was a consequence of ideology run amuck. Maybe. But it was also an example of awful management. Whether you supported the war or opposed it, you have to concede that it should have ended years ago and, along with the invasion of Grenada, be a fit dissertation subject for a desperate Ph.D. candidate and not, as it remains, a festering debacle.
Had Bush and his team performed better, the war might have ended a lot sooner. It finally took the surge to get things under control - and that may yet turn out to be too optimistic a statement. Still, the surge would not have been necessary had the war been handled competently from the beginning.
The war in Afghanistan waged against the Taliban, which had provided Osama Bin Laden with sanctuary, was similarly mishandled. Once again, too few troops were sent to do too big a job. Good managers know how to make choices. Bush not only chose wrong when he gave Iraq precedence over Afghanistan, but he chose not to choose at all when he thought both wars could be fought on the cheap - no draft, no tax hike, no sacrifice from the general public...
Read entire article at New York Daily News
Former President George Bush and some of his White House aides are gathering in Dallas to plan the future George W. Bush Policy Institute. There, I guess, they will ponder grand themes and marble foyers, but I propose they begin by simply renaming the place. I suggest the "George W. Bush Institute of Management Failure" and dedicate it to studying how this presidency went so wrong - a task as big as Texas.
Bush's tenure was truly remarkable. He left office with the lowest poll ratings in 60 years, two wars had begun and not ended and the deepest recession since the Great Depression. If it's true that we learn from our mistakes, Bush's eight years represent a bonanza of lessons.
What commends the Bush presidency to further study was its sheer managerial ineptitude. This is irony aplenty for a man not known for irony. Bush's one area of expertise, after all, supposedly was in management. Not only had he been a businessman, but he had graduated from Harvard Business School. Bush was the Decider. He was a delegator. He was precise and punctual - early to the office, early out of the office and a clean desk at all times. Wow!
Conventional wisdom holds that the bungling of the Iraq war was a consequence of ideology run amuck. Maybe. But it was also an example of awful management. Whether you supported the war or opposed it, you have to concede that it should have ended years ago and, along with the invasion of Grenada, be a fit dissertation subject for a desperate Ph.D. candidate and not, as it remains, a festering debacle.
Had Bush and his team performed better, the war might have ended a lot sooner. It finally took the surge to get things under control - and that may yet turn out to be too optimistic a statement. Still, the surge would not have been necessary had the war been handled competently from the beginning.
The war in Afghanistan waged against the Taliban, which had provided Osama Bin Laden with sanctuary, was similarly mishandled. Once again, too few troops were sent to do too big a job. Good managers know how to make choices. Bush not only chose wrong when he gave Iraq precedence over Afghanistan, but he chose not to choose at all when he thought both wars could be fought on the cheap - no draft, no tax hike, no sacrifice from the general public...