Might the man from Texas be the worst president our nation has seen since Herbert Hoover?
To be fair, he came into office with the odds stacked against him. His predecessor was a youthful, charismatic leader whose following seemed more like that of a rock star than a politician. And the nation was coming off years of peace and prosperity. In many respects, he had nowhere to go but down. Nonetheless, consider the following:
He took office under circumstances that some consider suspicious, even treacherous.
Many argue that he cynically used goodwill the nation bestowed upon him in the wake of national tragedy to lead us into an unpopular and unwinnable war.
He expanded the scope of the federal government in ways no one could have foreseen, adding new roles for everything from education to Medicare, even as the cost of the war spiraled out of control. Many feel his final legacy will be one of bloated government and fiscal bankruptcy.
Furthermore, his determination to do things his way, combined with disdain for detractors, has earned him a reputation for being petulant and insular. Not exactly traits we might hope for in a president.
So how does all this make you feel? Some are probably outraged, while others are shouting a big, old, “Amen, brother.” But what if I said that I’m talking about Lyndon Johnson, not George W. Bush?
Interesting, huh? Many of the things people despise about George Bush are the same things many didn’t like about LBJ. Yet, I’d be willing to make a sizable wager that there is very little overlap among the two groups of detractors. Why is that? Is it because we agree more with one man’s policies than the other’s? Or is it because we identify more with one man’s party?
To be sure, plenty of liberals turned against LBJ as his term wore on, just as many conservatives have come to question George W. Bush. Still, the sad truth is that too many people fall in line behind one politician or another for no reason other than he or she is a Democrat or a Republican. But we do ourselves a disservice when we ascribe more importance to party than to policy, because we ignore what works and what doesn’t.
For example, many believe the U.S. prospered under Bill Clinton because he raised taxes, a liberal approach. Yet he also signed off on free trade, welfare reform and cuts in capital gains taxes, all considered conservative ideas. So was it liberal or conservative policies that spurred the economy and eliminated deficits? To too many Americans, it doesn’t matter. But it should, because it’s policy, not party that counts.
We all – left and right (myself included) – should spend a bit more time critiquing our own beliefs and biases and less time blindly defending them. Conversely, we should consider the merits of opposing viewpoints rather than dismissing them out-of-hand. Such critical thinking is necessary if we hope to meet the challenges we face in the years ahead. But we won’t be able to do that until we put less emphasis on Right and Left and more on right and wrong.
