“Nobody would have been a better President than George W Bush”
Vote For Nobody
You probably haven't heard many people say “Nobody would have been a better President than George W Bush”. But unless you are one of the 20% that think he's done a fine job, you are not parsing the sentence correctly. Today's po is “Having nobody as President would have been better than Bush.”
We are a democracy with a constitution says we must have a President, but suppose it didn't. Suppose it said that we could have a President if we wanted to, but not if or when we don't want to.
But we need a president, right? We got to have a Commander-in-Chief. We need someone to make rapid decisions in times of crisis; someone to be in-charge.
Bush had more than his fair share of opportunities to show the importance of leadership in crisis, but did that show that we needed it?
9/11 showed how important the President is. We've seen the movie. Alerted to the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, an aid whispers in the President's ear “the country is under attack”. He leaps into action, putting aside everything, to issue orders – he readies immediate defenses while securing better information. He is epitome of the leader spitting out sharp decisive orders. No that's not quite what happened. For seven minutes, he looked puzzled while continuing to listen to a fairy tale (not one from his Aides – one read by a Kindergarten teacher.). Well, fully informed by this fairy tale, and given a few moments to collect his thoughts, then he leaps into action, spitting out sharp decisive orders to defend the country in its time of need. No, that didn't happen either. He spent the rest of the day in hiding; protected from another attack.
Ah, but from his unknown location he took the critical decisions that mattered so much; the grounding of every airplane in the United States; deciding whether airforce pilots be given permission to shoot down civilian planes that might be another hijacker's missile? No, that didn't happen either. The decision to ground all the planes was taken by the FAA, after wasting precious moments failing to contact the President-In-Hiding. While Chenney, bunkered in the White House, thought he'd given firing authority to airforce pilots and taken out flight UA93, he hadn't. His orders to Airforce chiefs were ignored; they took the decision not to trust their pilots with that decision, and the crashing of UA93 was caused by citizens, not the Airforce. Our “leaders” had nothing to do with it.
During the day of 9/11 the president was not an asset. He was a liability. His existence meant he was a target. The parts of government – the FAA, Airforce, Police, firemen, and all other emergency services got on with the jobs, as effectively as they could. Nothing the president did made a difference, and there's probably nothing he could have done that would have made anything better.
In time, he reappeared as a cheer leader. He made speeches that uplifted spirits that badly needed uplifting. Nobody could have done better. But plenty could have done just as good. The writing of an uplifting speech may be a wonderful gift, but there are armies of people with that gift, and we have an entire profession of actors able to read lines effectively. A more important contribution might have been thinking though the message of the speech. Ultimately Bush's speeches showed all the leadership of a four-year-old child failing out at anybody in retaliation to being hurt. A real leader might have thought though (or at least considered) other approaches. Instead of making Bin Laden (who, I suggest, most people had never heard of) into the Biggest Baddest Enemy of All Time, and therefore the hero of everyone with a grudge against the US, and then magnifying it out of all proportion, he might have consider minimizing it.
In the end it is clear that “Nobody” would have been a better President than “George W Bush” on 9/11.
And then there was Katrina. While people drowned and starved, the government agency responsible for helping them spent days arguing with the White House. The argument seemed to be that if only FEMA could convince the President to press his magic “Fix Everything” button, these people would be saved, but the White House didn't believe there was a problem because they hadn't seen the levees break.
The truth, of course, is that the President doesn't have a magic “Fix Everything” button. The involvement of the White House couldn't possibly help. FEMA should have got on with its job without wasting time talking to politician. The proper role for the rest of government, including the president, should have been to make sure, before there was an emergency, that FEMA had all the “Fix It” buttons that can be had and a competent executive (rather than a political hack) in charge. If Nobody has president when Katrina hit, FEMA would have had to get on with the job, just as the FAA did on 9/11, and a FEMA executive, qualified to do his job – not beholden to the president for his job as a political gift - would have been able and willing to do it.
The events of 9/11 and Katrina show the case that “Nobody would have been a better President than George W Bush” is at least good enough that “Nobody” should be on the ballot.
Vote for “Nobody”!
Footnote: Alan Greenspan in a post-retirement interview, was asked who he favored for the 2008 election – an opinion that could be seriously considered given his intimate involvement with several presidents.
His answer was “Is 'nobody' an option?”