George W. Bush is looking very good these days. As President of the United States (R, 2001 — 2009), he wasn’t the worst president ever. Surely we can put aside our political differences and acknowledge that he performed many of the duties of the presidency that we took for granted, and which Putin puppet Donald Trump refuses to perform.
But Bush looks good only in comparison to Trump. Seth Meyers reminds us how awful Bush was.
“Incurious” is a word that seems to come up a lot more often these days. It’s almost always applied to Trump. It also applies quite well to George W. Bush. Take for example the August 6, 2001 President’s Daily Briefing. Put yourself in Bush’s shoes. What follow-up questions would you have asked?
- “What’s the soonest they’re going to try to do this?”
- “Where do you think these terrorist cells are at right now?”
- “What new assets do you need to catch these terrorists before they can carry out their plan?”
- “What existing assets can we mobilize against this threat?”
- “What do you think we should do to prevent this from happening?”
- Or at the very least: “How do you know that’s what they’re planning?”
Sure Bush looks intelligent when it comes to pandemic readiness, or at least willing to listen to actual medical experts. Even so, he was still profoundly lacking in foresight in a lot of other things.
Like for example, how to actually win a war in Iraq. Our troops would be welcomed as liberators. Remember that? That was back when most people didn’t know terms like “insurgency” and “IED.”
Can someone worse than Trump get the title of President of the United States? Definitely. But let’s do what we can to ensure that remains a strictly hypothetical question. That means, in part, a vigorous get-out-the-vote effort and strong laws codifying norms so as to ensure the integrity of the presidency.
It also means expecting more of our presidents. Joe Biden should be our next president. He won’t be able to fix all of Trump’s mess, but we should expect him to be much better than Trump and much better than Bush. And we should also tell ourselves that we deserve better than Trump, better than Bush, better than any modern Republican.