The Real Legacy, Part I: Don't Believe the Hype

Defeatism is a word people should not use lightly. Simply being anti-war does not make one defeatist. Disliking the current president and his administration should not automatically make one defeatist, either. But what is one to make of a group determined to end the war by making it fail?

In Congress and in the press, the American left has determined that the war is absolutely hopeless, that no steps should be taken or strategies adopted to advance a ridiculous fantasy of victory. A few weeks ago, Jacob Weisberg of Slate noted four “unspeakable truths” in politics, among them that “America is losing or has lost the Iraq War.” This in itself is not especially provocative. But Weisberg is flippant with his write-offs. (”The patriotically correct term for losing parts of your body in a pointless war in Mesopotamia is, of course, 'sacrifice.'”) Well, of course, it is. That's exactly what sacrifice means. In fact, that's exactly what the military teaches you it means. It's a curious thing that now even the normal lexicon for war is being called into question. It depends on what the meaning of sacrifice is.

Americans, however, don't seem to find anything wrong with the traditional definition of sacrifice, but this hasn't stopped the paternalism among the left. Democrats know what's better for the country, but fortunately, they haven't figured out how to pursue it, at least not publicly.

But make no mistake in passing blame. The defeatism that runs so rampant through our political discussion is not limited to one party or even one fringe group. Conservatives, albeit in slightly different ways, have embraced the same kind of pitiful and bleak outlook that Democrats have adopted as a party platform. Witness Joseph Bottums's recent anti-Bush diatribe in First Things. Many of his observations are, in fact, correct. There have been huge mistakes made, in Iraq and elsewhere, that can and should be unequivocally laid at the desk of the President. But Bottum takes it a step further, and halfway through his article, his entire frame of reference changes. Failure in Iraq “could” happen only a few paragraphs before, but he turns on his own analysis. Failure becomes an inevitability, and not just figuratively, as he attempts to explain later. The astonishing thing is that Bottum is no Pat Buchanan. His shift is a sign of a greater weakness and frustration within the conservative community.

This newfound pessimism over the current situation among those on the right displays itself in two other ways. Most conservatives are now focusing the heft of their energies on embracing a Republican candidate for 2008, explaining their support and attempting to convince others of their decision. Still, other conservatives have quietly conceded their recent acquisition of a certain kind of “political insurance,” Jonah Goldberg being only the most obvious example.

With this contagious hopelessness, it is taken for granted that President Bush's legacy will be as the worst president in history. Rolling Stone called it almost a year ago. It's important to understand, however, that these questions of legacy -- something we won't even be able to define or understand for at least more than a decade -- only serve to cloud an already murky debate. Perhaps that is also what is most infuriating for those wishing to stake claim on a Bush legacy. For everyone who is occupied with the great question, the one person who should be is remarkably content.

The one thing detractors and supporters of President Bush seem to forget or ignore is the incredible amount of hype that accompanied his presidency. From his first day in office, he was the great Republican hope, the next Reagan, the savior of the movement. As if these kinds of expectations weren't enough, he was also a cause for great shame among Democrats. “We really lost to him?” was a common question. President Bush could never hope to even touch the coattails of the great President Clinton, at least not in the eyes of the Democrats. Facing this kind of hype, things only worsened. It turned out that Democrats were never really beaten at all. Al Gore was the real president. So there you had it, the hope and despair, the promise and the shame of a nation embodied by one man.

And then 9/11 happened.

As if by some tragic cosmic joke, the expectations for President Bush only grew higher, shooting through the roof of precedent. One can scarcely think of a previous example in American history where a president faced such difficult odds from his first years in office. Yet, he beat even the most dire of circumstances. Instead of limiting the scope of his presidency, he pushed for an aggressive, much delayed foreign policy. He pushed just as hard domestically. And truly remarkably (and endlessly frustrating for some), he was reelected.

Bush's legacy won't be as positive as some hope, but it won't be as negative as most now assume, either. The real question -- the one that will really have an effect a decade from now -- is the question of the American legacy. In two short years, President Bush will be out of office, and the reins of power will be given to someone else. But regardless of which party reaches the White House, America will be at a crossroads. All the partisanship we experienced over the past few years will have left a legacy of its own as we attempt to establish a foreign policy that either follows President Bush's or forges its own path.