Friday, May 12, 2006
Bush is just another word for nothing left to lose
JB
Yesterday my colleague Bruce Ackerman pointed out to me that if things continue to go as they have, President Bush is never likely to regain his popularity and his political capital; as a result, he has very little to lose if he engages in even greater risk taking behavior than he demonstrated in his first six years in office. If his gambles pay off, he regains some political capital; if they don't, he can't lose much more popularity than he already has. Moreover, even if the Democrats retake the House and Senate in 2006, the chances of impeaching him are slim and the chances of impeaching him *and* removing him from office are even slimmer.
It's true that a risk taking Bush might screw things up for the Republican Party for the next election cycle or two, but he has already done that quite nicely, thank you. Moreover, he has never been one to put the interests of other politicians ahead of his own, so why should he start now?
Throughout his Presidency Bush has shown a desire to engage in gambling and risk taking behavior. Now that he has gambled himself into a failed presidency, he may well decide that taking even greater risks has considerable upside and very little downside.
Snip...
But let's put Iran to one side. There are lots of other gambles that a failed President can take with very little downside risk. For example, with a Democratic controlled Congress, he can veto bills left and right (well, mostly from the right); it will be hard to override his veto. He can make more recess appointments. And he can try to stock the courts with even more strongly conservative judges. What does he care if the Democrats can block some of them? Finally, he can stop investigations in their tracks by withholding information on national security and executive privilege grounds, and he can prevent embarrassing criminal investigations by using his pardon power as his father did. He can become increasingly truculent and he can dare the House to impeach him and the Senate to remove him. I mean, what are the chances that two thirds of the Senate will vote to convict and remove? Not very great, even if the Democrats retake the Senate. And even if the risk is, say twenty percent, he might conclude that it's a gamble worth taking.
But, you may object, what about his legacy in history? Won't engaging in even greater risk taking damage what historians will say about him? Well Bush has every reason to believe that if he will be honored at all by later generations, it will be for pursuing aggressive policies following 9-11 that helped keep the country safe and prepared it for a long struggle against terrorism. He may well assume that he will be regarded retrospectively with the same degree of respect and warmth that Harry Truman received many years after he left office. Remember that Truman was also regarded as a stubborn man who got the country embroiled in a frustrating war overseas (Korea), and his approval ratings were just as low. Nevertheless, Truman was eventually remembered as the President who first formulated and implemented the successful policy of containment during the Cold War. In the same way, Bush might reason, he will be remembered not for deficit spending, Katrina and the Iraq debacle but for his policy of muscular responsiveness to the threat of Islamic terrorism, which later Presidents will adopt just as Truman's containment policies were adopted by Presidents of both parties during the Cold War.
Snip...
Now I don't actually believe that Bush is the second coming of Harry Truman-- I think that history will be far less kind. But from Bush's perspective, it's a plausible legacy to shoot for. If that's so, Bush has no incentive to admit any mistakes or to ask forgiveness for anything he's done in office. Indeed, he has every incentive to be just as risk taking, just as stubborn, and just as bull headed as he has been for the past six years, if not more so.
And that, I am afraid, does not bode well for the future of our country.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/05/bush-is-just-another-word-for-nothing.html
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