Granted that there were always going to be some people who would loathe and despise George W. Bush for who he was, what groups supported him, what he did, how he acted — to be President is always going to engender some level of animus amongst some portion of the population, just as it will always engender some level of support. But Dubya was never going to be the world’s most faboo president, nor its most beloved.
But there was one issue that he could use to rise to the top — or that, thrust upon him, could have propelled him into a dearly-remembered place in the history books. Yes, it’s 9-11 again, and the War on Terror, and even Iraq — a national security / military set of crises that actually substantially unified a partisan country — for a while.
What’s happened, though, is a long, five-year list of tone-deaf missteps and bungles and actions all too easily attributed to idiocy at best, sinister malignity at worst. And, in the course of that, and, just as much, in reaction to their disclosure, the Bush Administration has squandered much of the good will it once held, or that was there for the grasping if handled well. It’s not just the abysmal popularity polls — though that’s a part of it — but a sense that, y’know, January 2009 can’t get hear soon enough.
The most recent installment in this tragi-comedy of errors is the revelation that the NSA has been compiling lists of phone calls. Now, based on what’s known, that’s an interesting idea: can one use such lists and patterns to identify and pre-empt terrorist threats? Maybe so. Maybe not.
But we won’t find out. Because the Bush Administration has, time and again, demonstrated its untrustworthiness, its penchant for secrecy, its contempt for any sort of oversight or explanation or admission of error. Even if this was the greatest weapon in the world against terrorism, nobody trusts Dubya to use it, on his own, wisely or solely for the public good.
See, if you want to do something like this, then you make your case for it. You tell people you’re going to do it — fact is, most folks in the terror game probably assume stuff like this is going on anyway, and, at the most secure, you limit the audience to the legally constituted oversight and legislative watchdogs — and you argue persuasively that it’s the right thing to do, and you put in safeguards so that the data isn’t misused … or, at worst, you fail to persuade lawmakers and the courts and you don’t do it.
Whereas the Bush Administration approach is to do it, hide it, deny it, deny anyone the right to ask about it, try to hunt down anyone who leaks word of it, imperiously argue that to question it is to be unpatriotic, to go tell Congress and the Judiciary to pound sand if they inquire about it, and, once laws and rulings and such are passed against it, nod grudgingly, then mutter under one’s breath that “It does move!” and reserve the right to ignore any restraint upon it.
Dubya and Company have been their own worst enemies about this sort of thing, and civil libertarians can thank their lucky stars that, in a time of ostensible war, they’ve had an Administration so blatant and inept about infinging on liberties.
Alonzo has some even clearer and more cogent thoughts on the matter. And Les weighs in with appropriate outrage.