Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Dubya

"“I have told various George W. haters that they had best not underestimate the man,” I wrote, “that he’s smart, thoughtful in a brawny kind of way and, most of all, a good and decent man. … What I’ve never mentioned is that I didn’t vote for George W. I disagree with him on the Supreme Court, environment, abortion, the death penalty and affirmative action. So I voted against this good and decent man. It pained me to do it. … It baffles me that grown people must convince themselves that those with whom they disagree are stupid or malevolent.”


To say I am not a fan of George W. Bush would be an understatement. It is unlikely that anything can alter my judgments vis a vis the Iraq War. Still, I never have thought of Bush as a bad person, but rather a person whose background and demeanor were engineered to make him particularly ill suited for the presidency. Then there was the matter of having Dick Cheney and Karl Rove providing him with counsel on a daily basis during one of America's most precarious eras.


His post presidency behavior, especially measured against Cheney's narcissist massaging of history, is to be admired. He seems almost, er, presidential.


Walt Harrington has written a piece for the American Scholar about his relationship with George W. Bush and, while it won't make folks like me rethink our criticism of Bush, it does reveal him to be a three dimensional person who had a method to his madness.


Read more:     Dubya and Me     by Walt Harrington : The American Scholar