You know what I like about President Bush? He knows his limits. He has boundaries, as the shrinks say. In his interview with Frank Bruni of the New York Times (Bruni’s a one-man refutation that the Times is universally anti-Bush), I was struck by Bush’s statements about what he couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Here’s a classic:
“Q. What sort of signals are you sending to Lott or the leadership about how they should proceed with the transfer of power?
A. That’s up to the Senate. One of the things you will learn from the executive branch is that the executive branch should not tell the Senate or the House how to organize. That’s a sensitive – that’s a matter of internal politics, internal procedures.”
Or how about this:
“Q. Don’t you ever just get a knot in your gut at times like that [the Jeffords defection]?
A. Not yet.
Q. Nothing? Not China?
A. A president is – there’s a lot on my plate on a daily basis.
Q. That would suggest the knot would be constant.
A. Well, there are some things over which I have no control and some things I t can influence. And I’m able to distinguish between the two.
Q. And you really think the Jeffords thing, no influence —
A. If a person makes up their mind that they want to make the decision he made, it’s awful hard to change a fellow’s mind. And I talked to him about it as plainly as I could. . . .”
Okay, I know some of you think I’m a complete sap for the guy. My friend Dan Savage came up with the felicitous phrase that I am always looking for the corn in each of President Bush’s turds (thanks, Dan!). But I’m serious when I say this guy seems to have a sense of proportion, of humility, and of common sense. So sue me for saying so. He reminds me of William Hague. Pity not a lot of other people seem to agree on that last one.
A VOICE OF STEELE: Shelby Steele’s essays on race in the 1980s were the most formative contemporary inspiration for my own attempts to rethink some of the assumptions behind gay politics. His piece today in the Wall Street Journal is a brave and good one. Brave because he dares conservatives, i.e. old-style liberals, not to be afraid of their principles – “merit, accountability, competition, the pursuit of excellence,” – against the well-meaning but ultimately empty compassion of today’s liberals, i.e. leftists. And good because he connects these principles to the real and urgent task of bringing everyone more fully into the American experiment. This requires courage. It’s not easy to take on certain entrenched interests who will doubtless demonize those who want minorities to help themselves as “mean-spirited” or “right-wing.” And courage – in a closely divided polity – is not always the political strategy pollsters and advisers urge. I fear George W. Bush is not up to this task. It is not his style. But Steele is right to remind us of Machiavelli’s dictum that taking risks sometimes lessens risk. Think Thatcher and Reagan. Think Truman. And hope, I guess. Hope.
