Ceremonies like the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library tend to warm the hearts of elite pundits, who value such displays of uncritical bipartisanship. The media conversations about the ceremony mimicked the tone of the ceremonies themselves, which is why you heard very little in the way of criticism of the Bush legacy.
On the NBC Nightly News (4/24/13), David Gregory attempted to list as Bush’s accomplishments his “place in launching the school reform movement” and “his willingness to tackle entitlement spending”–the latter a curious description for an administration that added a very expensive drug benefit program to Medicare.
But one of the more interesting moments came during the roundtable discussion of ABC‘s This Week (4/28/13), where former Bush adviser and ABC regular Matthew Dowd was introduced this way:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Matthew Dowd, you worked for the president for several years. Broke over the Iraq War.
DOWD: Well, yeah, and I was there for the first five years of the administration, as you say, broke over the Iraq War.
Now when someone says they “broke” over the Iraq War, you might be inclined to think that they did that sometime before 2006 or so, which is about when Dowd is saying he left. The New York Times published what seemed like one of the first post-administration interviews with Dowd in April 2007.
To be fair, Dowd was critical of the Iraq War when he appeared on ABC in 2013. It does seem like, in many ways, there is a built-in media preference for anti-war views that come from people who initially supported such wars. In Dowd’s case, that meant being the chief campaign strategist for Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, promoting the guy who apparently he’d eventually “break” with over a war that started the year before.
For the record, that Times piece about Dowd’s new outlook closes with this quote predicting his own future:
I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work…. I do feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world.
Dowd is currently a partner at a “boutique management consultancy” that helps “companies and causes position their brand and move public opinion.” And he’s a TV pundit too–albeit a gentle one.
kgten
I came here thinking that perhaps there was some dirt on Matthew Dowd, like maybe he said he’d broken with Bush over the war, but hadn’t done so until this year. But the 2007 NY Times article cited (see link above) shows that even back in 2007 he was against the war. This article is completely silent on how long before that he may have also been against the war. So when did he break with Bush over the war? Who knows? So what’s the whole point of this stupid column? How does Peter Hart reach the main conclusion blared in the title, that it happened “many years too late”?
Greg nichols
I see no problem with the logic here. If you break with the prez against the war started in 2003, then it IS odd that you help him get re-elected in 2004. Looks like you didn’t really break with him, more like your “break” was incomplete, unsure and your loyalty was undamaged.
kgten
But there is no need for a campaign advisor to agree 100% with the candidate on 100% of the issues. Only the candidate’s mother can really be expected to so mirror his opinions. It seems entirely plausible that Dowd could have agreed with Bush’s war policies less and less as the years went by, until he finally “broke” with the prez long after the re-election. It’s not clear what “broke” really means here, or exactly when it occurred.
michael e
I love what Greg wrote .Reminds me of what the American people are going through today.The majority hate Obamas policies,but think he is doing a good job??????Bush did his job after 911.He went after the bad guys in Afghanistan .After that most was up to debate and speculation.He was at the helm when Fanny and Freddy crashed,bringing all along with it.Say what you want that they were liberal programs.Like a father allowing a pedifile into his home….he was responsible as much as anyone for letting them “in”.As for Obama…his library should have boarded up windows and going out of business signs for decorations.If anyone could be a thousand times worse than Bush it is this guy.Yet when all is said and done he and the other presidents will yuck it up over games of golf.
Night-Gaunt
What Bush didn’t do was use the information and warning left to him by the out going Clinton administration centering on Osama bin Laudin. So in that area he started out a failure. First he took many months off and when the did go back to work it was the biggest security failure since Pearl Harbor.
Then he started a search for bin Lauden and later stopped it! So many failures.