Soccer Dad

The faithful steward

In sharp contrast to his predecessor, George W. Bush isn't agonizing over his legacy. He sees himself as the steward of the nation's treasure and security so he wasn't going to be petty when it came to succession. Unlike Bill Clinton, George W. Bush wasn't president mostly for himself.

The liberal scholar Norman Ornstein writes in Mr. Bush's Gentlemanly Goodbye:

Beginning well before the election, President Bush and his chief of staff, Josh Bolten, decided to make this transition different by removing many of the usual obstacles and fostering cooperation and harmony. President Bush created a formal transition council, headed by Mr. Bolten and including all the people in charge of national security and the economy in his administration, and this group has met regularly to address every action, large and small, that needs to be taken to turn over power.

The signals went beyond simple cooperation. Mr. Bolten and Clay Johnson, from the Office of Management and Budget, who had worked on the transition when President Bush came to the White House, expedited the security checks and other administrative processes for Barack Obama's nominees. National security briefings were held with the president-elect in Chicago, and a high level of important information was shared with his top aides even before they were assigned to specific posts. It is also clear that Mr. Bush has agreed to make a few difficult or unpopular decisions on his way out so as not to burden Mr. Obama with them -- for example, his request last week that Congress release the second half of the $700 financial billion bailout.

The 9/11 Commission was about assigning blame to the Bush administration and salvaging the legacy of the Clinton administration for 9/11. We will not see a similar commission investigating the current financial crisis. Since it would implicate Democrats, neither they nor their media cheerleaders have any real interest in getting the true story out. (And it will never be acknowledged that President Bush was actually one of the voices calling for greater scrutiny of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.)

Still as Charles Krauthammer noticed Bush's policies may be somewhat vindicated by President Obama. Perhaps this is a benefit of Bush ensuring a smooth transition. Though Obama won the election by repudiating Bush and his policies, Bush was able to show him, under the radar, what worked and what didn't. No presidential candidate can honestly run on what he will do, because even candidates do not have full knowledge of information that only the president and his administration has access to.

The way President Bush has left office shows that he is more concerned with governing effectively (if imperfectly) than he is with how he is viewed historically. If nothing else, I'd hope that President Obama would take that lesson from President Bush.