The Ends Justified the End
With a 34% approval rating on his way out the door, President George W. Bush concluded his two tumultuous terms with one of the lowest exit ratings since President Richard Nixon in 1974 (Bush’s rating matched President Jimmy Carter’s from 1980). The Gallup Poll table below displays how Bush compares to recent former presidents.
While Bush publicly claims poor approval ratings don’t bother him (he leans on his embattled-president-adage “history will be the judge of my decisions”), the events in his “the ends justify the means” administration have left a litany of Presidential decision points to be debated for years to come.
While I will not recount each of the Bush Administration’s “lesser” moments here (many other sites already have this covered), I came across a little-discussed, yet very insightful interview on The Countdown from January 15th. Scott McClellan, former White House Press Secretary, was asked about President Bush’s legacy and he explained why it may significantly differ from his self-image:
There are really two problems that they don‘t seem to get. First of all, the public trust. The president, long ago, sadly, lost the public trust. They are no longer listening to what he has to say or buying what he is selling.
You know, unless, he is willing to come out and talk candidly about his own mistakes, his own policy mistakes, and address those issues openly with the American people, then they are not really tuning in. It‘s the same old song. It‘s just a different variation of it. It‘s much like listening to Charlie Brown‘s teacher.
The second part of this is, that the reason he lost the public trust was because of his actions and his policies, and the way he went about those policies or implementing those policies and selling those policies to the American people. And I think that, you know, that you can‘t—it‘s terribly mistaken to think that good intentions and your inner decency will somehow outweigh your actions and policies, and the way you went about them with the American people. They are terribly mistaken if they think that the American people are going to look at that as more important than what he actually did while he was in office.
McClellan makes an important distinction between what President Bush views he should be judged on and what the American public actually deems important. “Good intentions” versus “actions and policies.” However, aren’t all other individuals in the highest management positions (e.g., Army Generals, CEOs of public companies, GMs and coaches of professional sports teams, etc.) held accountable for the results of their organization’s actions and policies? Why is the management position of President any different?
This presents one of the many contradictions of the Bush Administration: Their intentions are used to justify their policies (or the ends), which are then used to justify the means. Only time will tell if this circular thinking will be strong enough for hindsight to revise the realities of today, but the main thing the devout Bush has going for him is that his strongest faith may actually be in himself.
==========
