This piece from Tom Frank (the TNR reporter-researcher, not the scourge of Kansans) on why liberals shouldn’t be nostalgic for Bush I is interesting, although the author seems a little over-aggressive in his prosecution of the H.W. presidency. (Was supporting an anti-flag burning amendment that never passed really that awful, even from the vantage point of TNR?) What strikes me most, though, is not how foolish today’s left-wing Poppy nostalgists are being, but how overheated they were, way back then, in going after Bush’s cautious, uninspiring, but relatively middle-of-the-road Presidency. For instance, Frank dredges up his own magazine’s Bush the Elder send-off, and quotes:
Good riddance to George Bush, to his negligence, recklessness, and cynicism. Good riddance to his incompetent excuse for a foreign policy, to his ignorance and avoidance of the social ills of our country, to his failed economic agenda, and to his incoherent verbiage that sensible people had to accept as public discourse for four long years.
I mean, honestly — does anyone think this kind of rhetoric stands up well a decade later? Bush I, “reckless”? Bush I, a man with an “incompetent excuse for a foreign policy”? Bush I, a President with a “failed economic agenda”? I mean, sure, there was a recession during his presidency. . . but really, can’t we have a little perspective here?
And that’s just one paragraph. The editorial as a whole, when exhumed, is even more over-the-top. Which suggests, I suppose, that the poisonous partisanship of the present moment is nothing new under the sun — and that a lot today’s overheated books, columns, and yes, even blog posts (hard to believe, I know) are going to look awfully silly in the hindsight of history.
Or maybe the ’92 TNR editors were just having a bad day. After all, they had been out of power for twelve years, which is probably enough to make “even the liberal New Republic” a little crazy. Imagine what they’ll be like in 2012, when the Brownback-Pawlenty ticket is running for a second term . . .
MORE ON “DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION”: Noah Millman weighs in, intelligently.
“TASTES GREAT! LESS FILLING!”: Is everyone else as sick as I am of the argument over whether “moral values” or the war on terror tipped the election to Bush? Can’t it, just maybe, have been both?
Anyway, if you’re not bored with the debate, and if you haven’t yet heard that Bush made “security” a major issue in his campaign, then this Mark Danner article is for you.
— Ross
The Dish 