Brad at The Crossed Pond ponders a Bush Administration without 9/11:
I can’t help but think that in some alternate universe where 911 didn’t happen, Bush didn’t carry so much psychological baggage, and didn’t prove so malleable when pushed towards corportaism, police statism, and neoconservatism, he might have been a passable president (probably at best). You have to sift through a lot of manure to find any glimmers of that hope, but they’re there. He wasn’t totally obnoxious in his first 9 months, where he has shown personal interest (immigration, education reform, social security reform, faith initiatives, global AIDs, etc) he’s had pretty defensible instincts, and for the last couple of years has been quietly realigning our foreign policy towards a more pragmatic, moderate stance.
Personally, my impressions of the pre-9/11 Bush Administration are somewhat different.
The word directionless comes to mind. With the exception of the tax cuts, there was very little during those first nine months that would give one the impressions that George W. Bush had the potential to be a good, never mind great, President. There was the China spy plane debacle, then the stem cell research controversy. In the middle of it all, Republicans lost control of the Senate thanks to a defection.
Through it all, there was the steadily increasing feeling that we were watching Year One of a four-year Presidency.
Then 9/11 happened and, to his credit, George Bush shined. Yes, the Patriot Act is a travesty. But Bush rallied the country at a moment when it was hit harder than it had been since 1941, and he was decisive in striking back against the culprits. In return, the public rewarded him with popularity ratings that exceeded even though his father had in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
Then, he made the same mistake his father did. He failed to capitalize on that popularity and wasted it on a foolhardy endeavor.
Had it not been for 9/11, it’s hard to see how Bush would have been re-elected in 2004. His mistake was in believing that the popularity that tragic day gave him could be translated into convincing the public to support a war that was badly thought-out and horribly planned.
