Taking the Measure: The Presidency of George W. Bush

Chapter 5. The Leadership Difference between Steadfast and Stubborn: How Bush’s Psyche Drove Failure in Iraq

chaPTer 5 The Leadership difference between steadfast and stubborn How Bush’s Psyche Drove Failure in Iraq Robert Maranto i n contrast to the “all hat and no cattle” stereotype, there is nothing dumb about George W. Bush. Bush has psychological characteristics, however, that limited his competence as a “decider” (to use his term) and ultimately undermined his record. President Bush had strategic competence: a vision of where he wanted to push government that was compatible with national needs. And after the devastating 9/11 attacks, he certainly had opportunities for regime change at home. He thus could have become, to use the terms of Nelson, a president of achievement. Indeed initial judgments of the Bush presidency were favorable, even among liberal political scientists. However, the president lacked the tactical competence to implement his vision. President Bush had bad luck in Hurricane Katrina, and White House insiders and Bush himself believe that the Democratic opposition would attack no matter what the president did. Hyper-partisanship is in fact a feature of the political landscape . Yet psychological inflexibility played an even greater role in what Jacob Weisberg calls The Bush Tragedy. The impacts of leader psychological characteristics are magnified in foreign policy and in crisis, when power concentrates in the hands of the “decider.”1 President Bush lacked the tactical flexibility to adjust when initial plans failed in Afghanistan, just after Hurricane Katrina, and most importantly (and unforgivably) in Iraq. Failure in Iraq, with its fiscal impacts and its erosion of national confidence and international standing, likely 56 • robert maranto played a role in the 2008 stock market crash. These failures in combination, but particularly Iraq, will likely play the greatest role in shaping long-term perceptions of the presidency of George W. Bush, making it unlikely that this will be considered a successful administration. history and objectivity History is untidy. Had he won the presidency in 1960, Richard M. Nixon may have gone down in history as a self-made man and a great president in the making, his life tragically cut short by an assassin’s bullet. Had he survived Dallas, John F. Kennedy might be remembered as the patrician president who recklessly escalated US involvement in Vietnam and presided over domestic disorder. To take this a bit further, had Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the 1965 Civil Rights Act and immediately died, he may have gone down as among the greatest presidents in history, granting African Americans basic civil rights and leaving the scene before perceived failures in Vietnam and in urban America, setbacks that undermined faith in government and pushed Americans to the right for decades. While the perceived Bush failure has not moved Americans to the left as the Johnson administration’s aftermath moved the nation right, in other respects the tales of two Texans who tried great initiatives and failed big relate. Arguably, had President Bush liberated Afghanistan, signed No Child Left Behind, and then left the scene like A. E. Housman’s athlete dying young, he would not have become one of the “runners whom renown outran.”2 Instead Bush, who was seen as incredibly successful in 2002 and 2003, only narrowly won reelection in 2004 against a lackluster Democrat and then succumbed to near-record unpopularity. What went wrong? As Bill Galston points out in perhaps the best essay yet penned on the Bush presidency, presidents end up being ranked both on the cards they are dealt and the play of the hand. Some presidents have opportunities for greatness; others do not. As Bill Clinton allegedly mused, since he did not govern in trying times he never had a chance at greatness. Whatever his strengths as a leader and a man, few outside the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation would place Coolidge on Mount Rushmore. Presidents are also judged against their near peers; thus as Galston writes, a key question is “compared to what?” If Barack Obama and the president after are “failures,” Bush’s stock may rise. As historian Douglas Brinkley writes, every twentieth-century president before Reagan stood in the shadow of FDR and every one since stands in the shadow of Reagan.3 Short-term judgments may differ from long-term ones, both in terms of The Leadership Difference between Steadfast and Stubborn • 57 what matters most and path analysis, or how current policies may affect future conditions. Harry Truman in 1953 was seen as a president who tolerated corruption...