Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

While lamentably deficient in talent and curiosity, Bush has consistently revealed that he is high on ego and has created his own portrait of self-proclaimed positive achievements.  It is understandable that he has become particularly defensive recently in view of what historians and Washington journalists are saying about his years in the Oval Office.

In certain cases it is necessary to wait for the passage of time before rendering a verdict on a presidential administration.  Critics have noted that stepping back, waiting, and slowly defining an historical verdict is unnecessary in this case at a time when calamity reigns internationally following American emergence into a war predicated on blatant lies involving fictitious "weapons of mass destruction."

In addition America has been plunged into the most overwhelming debt in the history of the planet due to ill-advised tax cuts benefiting the wealthy coupled with massive military-related increases.  

There has also been an assault on the Bill of Rights as revered freedoms have been curtailed and prisoner torture carried out in defiance of international law under the guise of fighting the war on terror.

Bush's response to these sharp criticisms was to unveil his sudden interest in history.  He claims to have read biographies on America's first president, George Washington, and made the interesting discovery that now, over 200 years after he left office, controversy still abounds about his place in history.

It is significant that Bush did not name even one of the biographies he had been reading on Washington nor should such a disclosure or disclosures be anticipated in the future.  Those of us who have written and studied history would like to know the names of authors criticizing or reserving judgment on Washington.

The unvarying opinion of Washington I recall from high school civic days has remained consistent with the famous comment about him:

"George Washington was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts and minds of his countrymen."

The view of Washington as a man of stability who held a fledgling nation together despite notable ideological friction between agrarian elements led by Jefferson and Madison who believed that limited government and local control should prevail with an emphasis on French traditions of freedom and the forces of Hamilton and Adams who adhered to stronger federal government control and an emphasis on British tradition.

As occurs in issues pertaining to the Bill of Rights and individual liberties, liberals and conservatives concur in a ringing endorsement of George Washington's presidency.  Liberals praise Washington for steering America away from the kind of monarchical influence favored by Anglophiles such as Hamilton.  Washington wins high marks from conservatives for engendering stability during America's early years.

Bush then moved from Washington to the necessity of remaining in Iraq, realizing that critics cite his military incursion into the Middle East as a continuing failure that has cancerous implications of growing consistently worse.

In this instance Bush raised the specter of Vietnam, a period of history that current political figures prefer to avoid.  After Bush linked the Vietnam and Iraq wars in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds in an article on the news service's website on August 23 wrote that the "introduction of Vietnam into the (Iraq War) argument is fraught with difficulties."

Reynolds concluded that apart from former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, almost no military historians found the Vietnam War to be "winnable."  

Reynolds then further asserted, "Americans, after all, were warned of disaster if South Vietnam fell.  Yet that did not happen.  The dominoes of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines did not fall to communism.  They thrived.  And the United States went on to win the Cold War."

What will never be revealed by Bush or any other neoconservative dogmatists is that way back in 1955 during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower a poll was conducted by the CIA.  The jolting result remained secret for years for an obvious reason.  

Amid panicky calls of dominoes falling and freedoms curtailed by communist influence, the poll revealed that if an election were held through Vietnam that then North Vietnam President Ho Chi Minh would command 90 percent of the vote.

Bush's views on the necessity of the Vietnam War were shared by Vice President Dick Cheney and, until very recently, resident Administration ideologue Karl Rove.  When given an opportunity to volunteer for duty in Vietnam all three took the same position of opting out.

As the wise Vietnam War chronicler David Halberstam then observed, "The sons of Watts and East Los Angeles were sent into battle by the sons of Harvard and Yale."