Former President George W. Bush seems to be about the only top Republican in the land who hasn’t taken a shot at President Obama. There’s not one, I repeat, not one single word of criticism of Obama’s performance to date in the White House in Bush’s near 500-page memoir, “Decision Points.” In fact, forget the word criticism, the times that Bush mentions Obama in the book he practically gushes over him on everything from the handling of the Afghanistan war to the economic crisis.
[img]994|left|||no_popup[/img]
The easy answer for Bush’s lovefest with the President is that he’s a much maligned, much reviled former President who finds it prudent to take the statesmanlike high ground. He showers praise on his successor, lest he run the grave risk of putting his failed, flawed, bumbling and blundering policies back on the table as fair game for attack.
Another answer is that he’s simply following Presidential protocol: Speak no ill of your successor. Or that he’s trying to peddle a book, and since it’s not a sex-and-smut gossipy, tabloid tell-all, he and the book must come off looking and sounding politically revealing, intriguing, and informative, to get the cash registers jingling on book sales. These undoubtedly are sensible reasons for Bush’s gratuitous deference to Obama. Other reasons are even more compelling.
Obama has, in part through political necessity, pragmatism and political belief, followed in some of Bush’s footsteps.
The two most prominent that Bush praised him for are the handling of the Afghan war and the economic crisis. Obama and Bush have been in lockstep agreement that the war should be waged, and waged to win, and that the U.S. would spend whatever it takes, make whatever military sacrifices have to be made to insure that.
At every stage of the Presidential campaign, Obama’s speeches and his action to escalate the war once in the White House, confirmed that he meant business on this. It was virtually the same tough, unrelenting position that Bush struck on Iraq. If you are George W. Bush, you can’t help but like this and cheer lead Obama for it.
If you are Bush, you also have to like Obama’s willingness to leave virtually untouched the deals worked out to rescue the banks, the Wall Street houses, and keep in place as your top economic advisors and micro managers. The carryovers have close ties to the banking and corporate leaders, and they will play it close to the vest on tax, spending and budget decisions.
Then there’s the way things are done in the White House. Like Bush, Obama did what every other new President does during his first two years in office. He used the early public goodwill to make politically favorable appointments, ink executive orders and push through Congress programs that likely would draw fire later on while exerting a tight grip on executive power and casting an eye on building a favorable historic legacy. In Bush’s first address to Congress, he cast himself as the education president, talked about health care reform and made a vague promise to tackle paying off the national debt. Obama has repeatedly talked about these issues, up to and including carbon copying and tweaking one of Bush’s few signature achievements, the No Child Left Behind initiative.
Obama, like Bush, took big campaign hits for being a foreign policy novice. He has moved just as quickly to meet and talk with foreign leaders, embark on a busy round of state visits, and try to repair the monumental damage that Bush did in poisoning relations with America’s allies.
At the same time, Bush staunchly backed a national missile defense system in Europe. So did Obama, initially. He called a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland the most cost-effective and proven defense system. He tied the decision to go ahead with it directly to Iran’s nuclear threat and international security concerns. Obama backed away from it on the recommendation from the Pentagon, but a truncated version of the system is not entirely off the military and diplomatic table.
There’s much to like and admire from Bush’s view about Obama, but that alone wouldn’t be enough to explain his heap of praise on him.
The final clue to why he does came following a meeting with Obama immediately after the election. He applauded him for shoring up G.M. and the other automakers. Bush quipped to his economic team, “I won’t dump this mess on them.”
Bush did, but he didn’t just dump it on Obama. He dumped the mess on the nation, too. For that he can’t afford to utter a word of criticism about the effort he’s made to clean up the mess he made.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a nationally acclaimed author and political analyst. He has authored 10 books; his articles are published in newspapers and magazines nationally in the United States. Three of his books have been published in other languages. He is also a social and political analyst and he appears on such TV programs as CNN, MSBC, NPR, the O'Reilly Show, American Urban Radio Network, and local Los Angeles television and radio stations as well. He is an associate editor at New America Media and a regular contributor to BlackNews.com, Alternet.com, BlackAmericaWeb.Com and the HuffingtonPost.com. He does a weekly commentary on KJLH-FM radio (102.3).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
