The Political Chase

The historians must be terrorists too

The first significant indication of George Bush’s obsessive adherence to Manichaeism was in a speech he made September 20, 2001 before a joint session of Congress. Nine days after 9/11. The president made it abundantly clear. There was no gray then nor is it now. Standing before Congress, Mr. Bush, the Standard Bearer of Good, declared:

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Everything is black or white. Good versus Evil. Those who dare oppose Mr. Bush, as we have learned the hard way, are Evil. They are no different than  the Terrorists.

We’ve frequently heard George Bush comment that he could care less about what the polls say about him; those writing history will be his judge. Of course, Mr. Bush would prefer all the authors wait until he is dead before history begins to weigh in on the Merits of His Presidency. He made it clear in his authorized biography, Dead Certain, by Robert Draper. It’s in black and white. The first sentence of the first page.

“You can’t possibly figure out the history of the Bush presidency — until I’m dead.”

Well too bad for Mr. Bush, because history is being written everyday and the vast majority share the same view. The Decider makes bad decisions.

Damned historians, they must be terrorists too, and Alan Greenspan has turned out to be one of them because he gave Mr. Bush a thumpin’ in his new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.

During Alan Greenspan’s tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and especially in the 1990’s, many viewed him as the most powerful man in the world, and rightfully so. I can remember well how the world’s financial markets would be influenced if people even thought Greenspan was just thinking about a given issue in the global economy. He did not have to utter a word — a rumor, his body language in a meeting, not commenting on a particular item, pure speculation — would create some type of impact in the global markets and particularly the U.S., of course.

Fed Chairman turned author, Greenspan joins the long list of authors criticizing George Bush, his administration, and the Republicans. While the Democrats did not come out unscathed, Greenspan praised Bill Clinton, which probably infuriated Bush more than the criticism levied on him personally.

Alan Greenspan, who served as Federal Reserve chairman for 18 years and was the leading Republican economist for the past three decades, levels unusually harsh criticism at President Bush and the Republican Party in his new book, arguing that Bush abandoned the central conservative principle of fiscal restraint. (Emphasis added.)

[He expressed] deep disappointment with Bush. “My biggest frustration remained the president’s unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending,” Greenspan writes. “Not exercising the veto power became a hallmark of the Bush presidency. . . . To my mind, Bush’s collaborate-don’t-confront approach was a major mistake.”

Greenspan accuses the Republicans who presided over the party’s majority in the House until last year of being too eager to tolerate excessive federal spending in exchange for political opportunity. The Republicans, he says, deserved to lose control of the Senate and House in last year’s elections. “The Republicans in Congress lost their way,” Greenspan writes. “They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither.”

Bill Clinton - “The Hero”

While condemning Democrats, too, for rampant federal spending, he offers Bill Clinton an exemption. The former president emerges as the political hero of “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” Greenspan’s 531-page memoir, which is being published Monday.

Greenspan, who had an eight-year alliance with Clinton and Democratic Treasury secretaries in the 1990s, praises Clinton’s mind and his tough anti-deficit policies, calling the former president’s 1993 economic plan “an act of political courage.”

Remember how the economy began rapidly declining after the Supreme Court crowned George Bush king and how Bush adamantly blamed Bill Clinton for it? Vindicated.

On a side note, tor those that might not know, Alan Greenspan is married to NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Andrea Mitchell.