Cheney Inadvertently Rehabiltates Bush (Sort Of)?

Cheney uncloaks Bush frustration

WASHINGTON - In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney's White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.

Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."

... "When the president made decisions that I didn't agree with, I still supported him and didn't go out and undercut him," Cheney said, according to Stephen Hayes, his authorized biographer. "Now we're talking about after we've left office. I have strong feelings about what happened. . . . And I don't have any reason not to forthrightly express those views."

---"Sources: Cheney uncloaks Bush frustration," by Barton Gellman, New York Times, as reported on msnbc.com (8.13.09)

So, Dick Cheney has decided it is time to speak out about President George W. Bush--and on the record. He is writing a book. What a surprise. And if we think about it, we should not be surprised that he feels it necessary to criticize and further undermine the president he served in order to defend and burnish his own legacy--at least among his oddly anachronistic following at the trailing edge of American society.

But something ironic may inadvertently result from Cheney's self-serving mission: he may make George W. Bush appear a better, stronger man than we gave him credit for. At least that's my surprised, personal response to it all. In his criticism of Bush for distancing himself from the VP and his influence during his second term, Cheney has managed to make Bush look wiser, more presidential, stronger, even more likable--certainly compared to the frightening persona of the Dark Lord. I found myself feeling sympathetic toward Bush for the first time in many years. A modicum of belated respect fought hard for recognition against the dark memories of the Bush presidency.

But don't get me wrong. It appears clear by now that a hapless and less-than-adequate George Bush was quite capable of authoring a lot of misdirected and ineffective government completely on his own. He didn't need Dick Cheney for that; Cheney just made it a lot worse. For, much more than most presidents, Bush clearly needed to be influenced and supported by smarter, wiser men and women. Just as clearly, he made some disastrous choices in that area. But now, somehow, I am a little surprised, even a little relieved and heartened, to find that by the beginning of his second term, he likely rued the day he had been so unwise as to bring such a willful, arrogant, ideological power monger as Dick Cheney to a place of such influence.

But was he as insecure a man and weak a president as portrayed? Well, most of us came eventually to recognize that he was a man short of the requisite intellectual qualities, a vision of government and statesmanship, a vision of the future and--importantly--strength of leadership and confidence. But it now appears that by the end of his first term, he had actually developed some sense of presidential identity and confidence apart from Dick Cheney. He had become more his own man and, perhaps, more a leader. Still, by personality and judgment he would nevertheless hard-headedly follow his decisions and policies through--probably for lack of any sense of what else he might do, and the absence of more temperate, centrist voices among his advisers to guide him. But if I could get past the way I viewed him and give him a more objective look, were there later signs of a better President G.W. Bush?

Yes, there were some welcome signs of change toward the end. He was at long last moving toward a process for extricating us from Iraq, even if the timing was purposefully fuzzy, as was the criteria and process for staged departure. However controversial, his financial team of Bernanke and Paulson, with the President's full and public support, took the right and necessary first steps to address the crisis in the financial markets and--of critical importance--moved quickly. And even if the process and prescriptions were not perfect (after all, there was little history and research to guide them), an economic disaster of 1930s dimensions was likely avoided as a result. To Cheney's dismay and disapproval, Bush rightly if belatedly fired Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, even though his own reputation and credibility were already significantly damaged by the time he did so. And then there was the President's unexpected, uplifting stand on the conviction of Scooter Libby. On principles of justice and fairness, there would be no pardon for Libby--no matter how vociferously, arrogantly and disrespectfully Dick Cheney argued for it, no matter how entitled Cheney felt.

I can't help but entertain the view that what changes did evolve and express themselves as better leadership were, in large part, a result of the President no longer indulging Dick Cheney. He apparently no longer had the same standing and access, the same credibility and influence. (And I didn't even know!) But too late--far too late in the hapless Bush presidency to make a difference on the issues and failures that will define his place in history. Yet, it may nevertheless prove modestly rehabilitating to Bush's image--at least in the last years. And, if these resentful, spiteful revelations by Dick Cheney reflect a little better on George W. Bush, that's all right with me.

Postscript: Toward the end of George Bush's presidency, it was reported that, cloaked in light humor, the President wryly offered this lesson from his experience: Don't allow the chairman of your vice president's search committee to recommend himself for the job. Live and learn? Yes, but at such a cost.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32398177/ns/politics-washington_post/