What is it about President Bush that so rankles the Left?
Whensoever someone argues that he's the worst president ever, I always find it fascinating and immediately dismiss them. After all, we've had some pretty awful presidents and I've got very little time for historical ignorance. Much of it is from people who ought to know better.
The most recent example from our Claremont bubble of people dislike the President is from Jean Lipman-Blumen, who is, according to a recent blog post, "the Thorton F. Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Organizational Behavior at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA." Professor Lipman-Blumen tries to argue in The Huffington Post that President Bush is a "toxic leader" in that he left us worse than how he found us. Oddly, Professor Lipman-Blumen seems to forget that only a few months passed after he was elected and the attacks of 9-11. To date, there hasn't been a single attack on American soil since the President took the reigns and it hasn't been for lack of trying on the part of the savages. And yet he's left us worse off?
Lipman-Blumen bandies about such armchair psychiatric phrases as "neurotic" and "narcissistic" and suggests that the reason so many Americans followed President is that we are preprogrammed to follow authoritarian leaders.
In addition to the usual attacks on President Bush for detaining terrorists at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, many of whom were later picked up right back where they were found -- the battlefield! and despite the far worse behavior of F.D.R., a president who interned entire groups of people on the sole basis of race and whom the professor cites admiringly despite his efforts to turn America into a socialist, anti-freedom state during the New Deal, we're supposed to think President Bush is a "toxic leader." I don't buy it.
Of course the post itself provides an excellent window into why the "leadership" courses at Claremont McKenna are largely bunk.
9 comments:
Charles, out of curiosity, what is President Bush' approval rating right now?
"Whensoever someone argues that he's the worst president ever, I always find it fascinating and immediately dismiss them."
Really Charles? When somebody says something you disagree with you dismiss them? Why don't you ask them why, and trade ideas? After all, you used to be an anti-war liberal, until somebody explained the other side that you had been ignoring.
If you're going to use homeland safety as a metric you need to realize that many of us believe that ensuring the uninterrupted security of our country is a given in the job itself. That Bush made it a continual focus of their activities at the expense of many other important issues simply isn't noteworthy to many of us. Indeed, if the frequency of major terror attacks is our gauge, then it can be said that prior presidents fared much better; and without eroding our privacy and civil liberties.
If you're going to have this discussion, we at least need to agree on the basic parameters of how we recognize leaders. Stripping away politics as much as possible, at the very core meaning of the word, a leader is someone who inspires their community to want to be better people. A leader is able to rally the masses around common causes such that the individual makes conscious effort to act in ways that serve the interest of the many. Bush has had continual historically low approval ratings. He is not respected on the world stage. The very mention of his name evokes feelings of anger and resentment among many. It is hard to make a case that Bush is a "leader" given those observations. How many people will tell you that Bush inspires them to be a better American (for the right reasons anyway)?
I've traveled around Europe extensively during the 2nd term and I've talked to people firsthand about how our policies have impacted their lives. I can say with confidence that Bush is not seen as a leader in that part of the world. I don't think it was coincidence that people usually inquired early on in conversations how we "felt about Bush". Sad to admit, but I didn't always feel like I was proud to be American while abroad. I'm embarrassed by our our conduct in the Middle East and so our many others. I and many others were embarrassed about the handling of Katrina.
I'm not begrudging those who voted for Bush or encouraged others to do so. I'm willing to concede that Gore and/or Kerry may not have fared any better or possibly even worse. But our nation collectively made a mistake and it is time to move on from that. Bush said he would be a "uniter" when he came into office and yet it seems partisan politics is at a high. His presence has been intensely polarizing. In many important aspects he has left our country in worse shape than when he began.
If you're going to stand behind that, I don't think you're really being honest with yourself.
To the previous poster, why don't you just get your sorry ass back to Europe and stay there. What's really the problem with America today is America haters like you. Embarassed for your country are you? Not proud to be an American? Then get the fuck out.
I haven't traveled as widely through Western Europe as some people, though I must say I find it the essence of elitism how they never mention the Eastern Europeans who, according to most polls, love America.
I've been riding a lot in cabs lately and one of the things I always ask is, "so do you like it in America?" Afterwards, I record their response. I have never heard a negative thing said about this country in our nation's taxi cabs. They are just happy to be here.
It kind of reminds me of that time I was down in Guatemala near the Mexico border and asked one of the women there were all the men were. She laughed and said they were in the United States and I asked if she ever missed them to which she replied, of course. I then asked if she wanted them to come back and she said, "Oh no. I wish I could join them." When we have a country where people want to break into, not out of, we've got a good country.
Also, I would just point that the opinion polls of other countries aren't exactly a great measure of deciding whether or not countries like us. In fact, after we liberated France in the '40s, only 40 percent of the country said they had a favorable view of us. It was that another forty percent years later that said they had a favorable view of the United States in the run up to the liberation of Iraq.
J. Ezra, there's nothing to trade with people that are so set in their ways that they are unwilling to listen to their nation's own history. It's oftentimes best to ignore it and change the subject.
Having a country with a high standard of living and major financial capitals doesn't have anything to do with how godawful Bush was as a president.
How any serious conservative can ever defend Bush's presidency- nearly the antithesis of conservative- I just can't see.
"J. Ezra, there's nothing to trade with people that are so set in their ways that they are unwilling to listen to their nation's own history. It's oftentimes best to ignore it and change the subject."
What you said is that when someone makes what you consider to be an outlandish claim (and I agree their claim that he sucks is outlandish) that you dismiss them. You are making the unfair assumption that they are set in their ways, and it is this assumption that will prevent the kind of realization that you yourself had. Imagine if the Iraq War Supporters wrote you off the way you now write these folks off.
Professor Lipman-Blumen has spent her entire career studying leaders and leadership. She has approached this research with objective and subjective measures. She is a brilliant scholar and an extraordinary teacher. I wouldn't dismiss her opinions out of hand merely because you disagree with her. If I were you, I'd try to get to understand her views. Remember, she's right here in Claremont!
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