Despite still being composed of largely the same faces with the same ideological bent, the Bush administration has undergone some of the most radical transformations of any executive regime in U.S. history. These transformations shed light not only on the current political situation in America, but also on politics in general. It's important for both the Left and Right to prepare for the fight ahead as the Bush administration begins to slide into the lame-duck ossuary. In that sense, this column is intended as a sort of political obituary.
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, many were ready to dismiss his presidency before it began. To detractors, he was an ignorant amateur who stole the White House thanks to his presidential lineage, the Supreme Court appointments of his predecessors and the effective exploitation of his cowboy image by political guru Karl Rove, whose inflated reputation was due largely to a discrediting of Bush's own political talent. He was a playboy president who liked to take vacations and chase armadillos, while shadowy patriarch Dick Cheney, both more professional and more experienced, ran everything from his nominally "vice" presidential office. To supporters, he was a "good ol' boy" whose most significant hallmark would be cutting taxes and whose willingness to delegate most of the actual decision-making to a coterie of experienced advisers was one of his greatest strengths.
Were it not for the intervening period of Sept. 11, 2001, the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq and two overwhelming political victories in 2002 and 2004, the Bush administration's current dilapidation might have seemed like a natural conclusion of its 'light-weight' beginnings. However, in the intervening period (roughly spanning from late 2001 to early 2005), the playboy president became the horned demon of the Left and the spiritual savior of the Right to a degree virtually unequaled by any contemporary leader.
While the transformation of the early lame-duck Bush presidency into a political steamroller had a clear starting point (Sept. 11), its subsequent return to lame-duck status owes to a combination of complex factors. The Bush oligarchy clearly had both the confidence, the ability and the electoral support to quickly become an unstoppable political steamroller, but its foundation always remained shaky, its external confidence balanced by an internal weakness that rested on that same "armadillo chasing, tax-cutting" foundation that characterized Bush before Sept. 11. When the going got rough in Iraq, this internal weakness caused a political implosion. The so-called war president turned out to be a playboy president at heart.
The left-wing activists who demonized him are naturally happy to seize on this, but the right-wing activists who can no longer count on the Bush White House to deliver are largely admitting this, and distancing themselves. The Democratic Party seems too internally divided to truly capitalize on this moment even though its archenemy has become a lame duck and corruption scandals are dogging the congressional GOP. Meanwhile, the Right, with no clear source of leadership ready to quickly fill the void - and none likely to appear before the primaries of 2008 - is likewise left in a sort of purgatory. The result for both sides is a political vacuum.
The effects of this vacuum are felt all over the world. In the domain of foreign policy, those who would pretend to redefine the international system (by establishing American hegemony, sidelining the U.N. and invading Iraq) have found that the global transition from the Cold War is not yet complete. Their effort was misguided or premature; and everything remains undecided. The death of the Bush administration, far from marking any definitive conclusion, is but a chapter in this transitory tempest.
So who will step in to fill this vacuum in the world, as well as in U.S. politics? History shows that in times like these, it will not be compromise that triumphs. Whoever it is will be well organized, have a clear vision and be unafraid to wield power. The fact that one of the most organized, unabashed and powerful forces in world politics - the American Right - is in disarray, its overarching foreign policy vision discredited, means we now face an important turning point. This political vacuum will not be decided over the next few years, but the next few decades.
Michal Zapendowski '07 needs a political vacuum to clean the mess in his apartment.
