What Bush Got Right By Fareed Zakaria | NEWSWEEK

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/151731





Compared with the flutters and flurries of the near-daily polls in the presidential race, one set of numbers has stayed fixed for months, even years. President George W. Bush now enters his 23rd consecutive month with an approval rating under 40 percent. (It currently stands at 32 percent.) No matter what he does, or what happens in the world, the public seems to have decided that Bush has been a failure. As a result, both candidates are promising a change from the Bush presidency. Barack Obama, of course, promises a wholly different approach to the world. But even Bush's fellow Republican, John McCain, has on several issues suggested that he would depart from the administration's policies. McCain was last seen with the president at a fund-raiser more than two months ago at which no reporters or photographers were allowed.

A broad shift in America's approach to the world is justified and overdue. Bush's basic conception of a "global War on Terror," to take but the most obvious example, has been poorly thought-through, badly implemented, and has produced many unintended costs that will linger for years if not decades. But blanket criticism of Bush misses an important reality. The administration that became the target of so much passion and anger—from Democrats, Republicans, independents, foreigners, Martians, everyone—is not quite the one in place today. The foreign policies that aroused the greatest anger and opposition were mostly pursued in Bush's first term: the invasion of Iraq, the rejection of treaties, diplomacy and multilateralism. In the past few years, many of these policies have been modified, abandoned or reversed. This has happened without acknowledgment—which is partly what drives critics crazy—and it's often been done surreptitiously. It doesn't reflect a change of heart so much as an admission of failure; the old way simply wasn't working. But for whatever reasons and through whichever path, the foreign policies in place now are more sensible, moderate and mainstream. In many cases the next president should follow rather than reverse them.

Consider as a symbol of this shift Bush's appointment of the World Bank's president. His first choice for the job was Paul Wolfowitz, an arch neoconservative with little background in economics. But by the time Wolfowitz was forced to resign and the post opened up again, Bush realized that he needed a less ideological choice, and he picked the highly qualified and respected Robert Zoellick. Where Dick Cheney was once the poster child for the administration, today policy is being run by Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, Stephen Hadley and Hank Paulson—all pragmatists. Change has not extended to all areas, and in many places it's been too little, too late. But that there has been a shift to the center in many crucial areas of foreign policy is simply undeniable.

[Ian David]

1. The only thing Bush did right was the National Do Not Call List.

Which probably ended up being used for voter caging and blanket wiretaps, but still...

[angstlessk]

2. so in the twilight of his administration he turns to the center...in order

to attempt to get another republigan entrenched in the white house ... what he has done cannot be undone by anyone with a scintilla of his ideology...

[PassingFair]

3. Must be a short article.....

Perfect for idiot's attention spans.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Eric Alterman at Media Matters linked to it yesterday as the "shortest

magazine in the world"

http://mediamatters.org/altercation/200808110179

"Did you hear the joke about the shortest magazine in the world?"

[tabasco]

5. Idiotic puff piece.

Like praising an arsonist for pissing on the burning house.

[bkcc]

6. Wow.

I didn't think it was possible to write more than one word on that subject: NOTHING.

[lurky]

7. Any improvements have not been by choice.

A: His appointments now have to be approved by a Democratic senate (albeit a compliant one), not the rubber-stamp Republicans of his first term-and-a-half.

B: His popular support has collapsed from the highest on record to the lowest on record. He no longer has the "political capital" to cross the street, let alone openly pursue his radical policies.

To claim that he has changed his stripes is just bullsh*t. He just can't get away with the same overt crap he used to do.