Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 20, 1993 TAG: 9301200335
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE STEWARDSHIP OF GEORGE BUSH
PREDICTING, on the very day it ends, how history will judge George Bush's presidency is obviously an iffy, maybe a ridiculous, proposition.In some instances, the consequences of decisions made and policies pursued during the Bush administration won't be known for years. In judging the administration's policies regarding, say, the emergence of post-communist Russia, historians of the future will have the great advantage of knowing how the story turned out.
Yet what will be gained in perspective will come at the cost of proximity to events. And one central theme that, for good or ill, characterized Bush already seems clear on his successor's Inauguration Day. It is a concept of the presidency as a place less to defend principles or pursue grand visions, than to run the country as competently as possible, to be a steward.
This may help explain why it's reasonable to ask whether there really was a Bush administration, as opposed to a Reagan-Bush administration of which the Bush years were simply the final and consolidating phase.
It might also help explain why Bush seemed so much to prefer being president to running for president. The preference was so strong that he appeared blind to the fact that how you run for office affects what you can do in office.
Bush seemed to want the presidency more for its own sake (because he knew he was a decent and trustworthy sort), than to do anything in particular. His disdain for politics was painfully evident, and it had policy implications.
The 1990 tax bill, for instance, was the kind of thing a competent president would agree to, as Bush did. His failure was in insisting absolutely during the '88 campaign that he would never raise taxes. To him, it was something you say in a campaign, no big deal. To the public, it came across as a statement of principle by a man who did not seem to believe in anything very deeply.
Similarly, his (and speechwriter Peggy Noonan's) call in '88 for a "kinder, gentler nation," his pledges to be "the education president" and "the environment president" never came to much. But he was probably being more wishful than insincere in pronouncing these phrases. His problem is that he was never as engaged with domestic issues as he was with foreign affairs.
This was not entirely harmful. Not only did Bush look abroad by virtue of his background and temperament, but in foreign affairs the times fit, in some ways, his concept of stewardship.
The great global event of the Bush years was the collapse of Soviet communism. Conservatives like to credit Reagan; Democrats, U.S. persistence for 45 years in containment policies begun by Truman. Few credit Bush.
But Bush had the wisdom to stand aside and let it happen. And his impulses in doing so were not isolationist, but prudent. For Bush was an internationalist. He recognized the need for American leadership in foreign affairs. He encouraged Germans to reunify, and Arabs and Israelis to talk. He negotiated far-reaching cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. He backed the spread of democracy.
And he was committed to free trade. Bush's negotiation of a North American free-trade zone and his struggle to win acceptance of revised world-trade rules will be well remembered.
His achievement in assembling an international coalition to deny Saddam Hussein the fruits of conquest was impressive, however the Saddam story ultimately plays out. His willingness to commit troops in Somalia, where America has little national interest save to provide humanitarian aid, is also impressive, if for different reasons.
With the fall of communism, some citizens are drifting back to myopic, unsustainable notions of a fortress America. For standing firm against isolationism and protectionism, Bush should draw historians' praise.
So, for that matter, should the World War II generation that Bush has come to symbolize, and that now is handing over power to younger men and women. It is a generation that won a world war against totalitarian regimes, that for 45 years kept communism in check until it collapsed of its own weight, that brought amazing prosperity to America, that established an international trading system spreading growth across much of the world.
Times, however, are different now. Bush's failure to win re-election was less the product of repudiation or scorn than of public recognition that America's needs have changed. Postwar prosperity is showing signs of strain; domestic policy needs to be reconstructed. Americans are weary of divisiveness, worried about the economy's footing. The Cold War has ended; foreign policy also needs to be rethought.
All of which is not a job description for a steward. Neither is it occasion to forget that, as he leaves office and ends a distinguished career of public service, Bush deserves the nation's thanks.