Middle East Studies on the Mend?
Winfield Myers • January 5, 2009 14:54pm • Uncategorized
My Campus Watch colleague Jonathan Schanzer (see the DP entry on his new book here), who is an adjunct scholar at CW, reports that the recent annual conference of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) contained several panels that addressed topics hitherto considered untouchable by Middle East scholars. Schanzer assesses the influence of Campus Watch in “Middle East Studies on the Mend?,” published yesterday at The American Thinker.
Below are the first few paragraphs. To read the entire article, please click here.
In recent years, Campus Watch (CW) analysts have leveled a barrage of criticism against the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) as a bastion of groupthink for scholar-activists peddling a politicized agenda. CW’s current director, Winfield Myers, noted that its “reputation has been shattered by years of politicized scholarship, one-sided teaching, and bullying students.” Jonathan Calt Harris, formerly with CW, called the organization a “hive of academic opposition to America, Israel, and, in the larger sense, rationalism itself.” After years of responding to such criticism with cries of “McCarthyism,” MESA just might be owning up to a few of its failures.
The 2008 MESA conference, held in Washington, DC in November, consisted of 12 sessions over four days with more than 1,500 scholars and professionals in attendance.
In recent years, even after the 9/11 attacks, MESA has failed to offer useful information on the Middle East and Islam and almost completely ignored American national security issues. Not surprisingly, critics charged that MESA was increasingly irrelevant.
This year, MESA actually hosted several panels to correct the problem. Indeed, MESA’s 2008 lineup reflected real improvements from 2007. Though few in number, there are positive indications that MESA may grasp, at least in some small way, why critics charge that the field has become a den of corruption and activism posing as scholarship.
One panel, titled “International Relations of the Middle East,” featured a number of senior scholars — including Gilles Kepel of France’s Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland — who conducted some soul-searching. In MESA’s description of the panel, the organization admitted that “academic research has not always prioritized” policy issues. The session was held to assess “the state of the field: what has gone right, what has gone wrong, and the future of the field over the next decade.” Former MESA president Lisa Anderson also served on the panel. The willingness of MESA to engage in a bit of self-criticism is a welcome departure from its traditional insistence that all is well in Middle East studies.
While many panels covered arcane subjects (i.e., The Diversity of Yemeni Poetry), as is customary throughout academia, there were a few earnest attempts to put the Middle East academic brain trust to work for the good of society. Ghada Al-Madbouh of the University of Maryland addressed a critical policy topic in “Inquiry into the Struggle between the Palestinian Authority Fatah’s and Hamas over Governance.” An entire panel was reserved for Iraqi scholars to provide suggestions on the “Role of Academics in Building Civil Society in Iraq.”
Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College writes eloquently of the Constitution
Laurie Morrow • January 2, 2009 22:00pm • Uncategorized
In the excerpt from the latest edition of Imprimis, Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, expresses with uncommon grace and passion his faith in the power of America’s Constitution to re-unite our fragmented nation.
The economic storm will pass, God providing. Our college has so far weathered that storm handsomely, having entered it in a position of historic strength, having a strong balance sheet, and having a conservative investment strategy that has so far done much better than the markets. None of the problems that are upon our nation need be fundamental and probably will not be.
What is fundamental is the purpose and function of our political system. Either we shall have limited government, in which a few vital things are tended to with a careful eye and strong but limited powers, or else we shall attempt to allocate the labor and capital of the nation by force of law. This second will make a disaster of a kind not seen in this country from its first days.
I began by saying that we must recover our appreciation of the beauty of constitutional government. That beauty consists first of all in an appreciation for the place of man in nature, not so high as the angels, not so low as the beasts. To recognize that place is to recognize the dignity of every human being and the responsibility to defend the rights written by the hand of the Creator in man’s nature. It is to recognize also that, just as government is necessary, it is for the same reason necessary that it be limited. It cannot make angels of us. It cannot be run as if angels were in control of it.
When one sees that these principles are written in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution, he begins to see then what a revolutionary thing was achieved here in our nation. He begins to see the reason why for two centuries and more the American people have been the last best hope of mankind on earth. By becoming a student of his country, the citizen becomes again an intelligent lover of it.
Funny videos — about economics!
Laurie Morrow • January 2, 2009 12:36pm • Uncategorized
Wishing the DP team and all our readers a most happy and prosperous New Year, I’d like to offer as my first post for 2009 two of my favorite video links:
First, “the world’s only stand-up economist,” Yoram Bauman, Ph.D., a brilliant and delightful professor of economics, translates some basic economic principles into terms the rest of us can understand.
Although Yoram’s politics don’t align with mine, he’s one of my favorite comedians. You can find more of his work at his website, here.
Yoram also brings to us the unforgettable “Chicken chicken chicken” lecture by Doug Zongker, Ph.D. of the University of Washington. Don’t miss the Q&A at the end.
Bush’s New Year Gift
Brent Tantillo • January 2, 2009 12:03pm • Uncategorized
Rolling Stone Magazine laments, and I celebrate, the fact that the Bush Administration is pushing through last minute regulations that will protect Americans’ individual liberties and promote economic prosperity, while President-elect Obama is busy making plans to raise our taxes. Here’s one lament from Rolling Stone:
HEALTH CARE In late August, the administration proposed a new regulation ostensibly aimed at preventing pharmacy and clinic workers from being forced to participate in abortions. But the wording of the new rule is so vague as to allow providers to deny any treatment that anyone in their practice finds objectionable — including contraception, family planning and artificial insemination. Thirteen state attorneys general protested the regulation, saying it “completely obliterates the rights of patients to legal and medically necessary health care services.”
In a rule that went into effect on December 8th, the administration also limited vision and dental care for more than 50 million low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid. “This means the states are going to have to pick up the tab or cut the services at a time when a majority of states are in a deficit situation,” says Bass of OMB Watch. “It’s a horrible time to do this.” To make matters worse, the administration has also raised co-payments for Medicaid, forcing families on poverty wages to pay up to 10 percent of the cost for doctor visits and medicine. One study suggests that co-payments could cause Medicaid patients to skip nearly a fifth of all prescription-drug treatments. “People who have nothing are being asked to pay for services they rely upon to live,” says Elaine Ryan, vice president of government relations for AARP. “Imposing co-pays on the poorest and sickest people in the United States is cynical and cruel.”
So Rolling Stone believes that pharmacy workers and clinicians should be forced to perform abortions, even if abortion and contraception violates their morals? Where’s the choice in that? The reality is that we live in a free market economy and contraception is available on nearly every street corner. If one pharmacy worker does not want to perform an activity that is violative of her moral principles, there should be enough employees to fill in the gap. And if a pharmacy does not want to sell those products, then we as Americans have a choice to go to CVS or Walgreens.
Healthcare costs for government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid have been outstripping inflation for the last ten years and will bankrupt the federal government if not reigned in by 2030. What’s wrong with individuals who participate in these programs helping to pay for part of their costs? Yes, they are poor, but it does not mean that they cannot afford to pay for part of the costs of their healthcare. Ninety percent of their doctor’s visits are still paid for by the Government — a very generous amount indeed.
Rolling Stone then really jumps the shark when it accuses the Bush Administration of creating a police state by allowing state and locals to serve on terrorism task forces and share terrorism information with the feds:
NATIONAL SECURITY Under midnight regulations, the administration is seeking to lock in the domestic spying it began even before 9/11. One rule under consideration would roll back Watergate-era prohibitions barring state and local law enforcement from spying on Americans and sharing that information with U.S. intelligence agencies. “If the federal government announced tomorrow that it was creating a new domestic intelligence agency of more than 800,000 operatives reporting on even the most mundane everyday activities, Americans would be outraged,” says Michael German, a former FBI agent who now serves as national security policy counsel for the ACLU. “This proposed rule change is the final step in creating an America we no longer recognize — an America where everyone is a suspect.”
The progressives have attacked the conservatives and national security hawks on this issue from both sides and have gotten away with it. But not anymore. First they claim that Bush didn’t do enough to prevent 9/11, as the intelligence organizations and state and locals weren’t talking enough with each other. Now, they claim that Bush is trying to create a police state by letting state and locals into the mix. The reality of it is that without the help of state and locals in intelligence gathering already, we would have had another 9/11. This rule change is only formalizing what has already been changed by a post-9/11 world. The ACLU is the last place to look and listen for policy changes on national security issues. If they had their way, we’d be living under Sharia law.
The Palin Treatment
Brent Tantillo • December 30, 2008 11:03am • Uncategorized
Caroline Kennedy knows what it feels like to be Sarah Palin. After providing a few short interviews to The Associated Press and New York City cable TV’s NY1, the wheels are coming off her candidacy to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as New York State’s junior senator. The New York Times says:
she seemed less like a candidate than an idea of one: eloquent but vague, largely undefined and seemingly determined to remain that way
Caroline’s performance has been criticized, much like Palin’s, for it’s lack of grace and the use of too many colloquialisms:
The New York Daily News noted she frequently used the phrase “you know” and “ums” during the interview, which was skewered in political blogs Monday.
And others of course are merely outraged that she believes she deserves a Senate seat merely because of who were father was, and her last name. To be fair, Caroline Kennedy has written several bestselling books, including good introductory primers on the Bill of Rights for high school and college students. And she was instrumental in throwing her support early and often behind President-elect Barack Obama, serving as Co-Chair of Obama’s Vice-Presidential Search Committee. She also graduated in the Top Ten Percent of her class at Columbia Law. Hell, she could have done nothing at all. There’s no doubt that Caroline is an accomplished woman, with an excellent education in the humanities and politics, and while she has had many advantages that others haven’t, she would do fine job as Senator if given the chance. Of course, there may be many others that would do a much better job.
But in reality, we’re not going to learn that from an interview on a cable news channel. Rather, Caroline’s life, unlike that of her more flashy deceased brother, has been one of letters and writing, foundation boards and fundraising for good causes. Frankly, this sounds a lot more like the qualities of a U.S. Senator than one who can throw out a good soundbite. And frankly, the same could be said for that Governor from Alaska. Palin spent most of her adult life working as PTA president, and mayor of a small town, and Chairman of an oil and gas board. These are stick your head in the details jobs to fix a problem, which to me are the real qualities of leadership.
Herman Badillo Educator of the Year
Phil Orenstein • December 30, 2008 0:07am • Uncategorized
The following is an introduction to the accomplishments of the great New York statesman and education reformer, Herman Badillo I wrote for the Queens Village Eagle and local New York media:
Herman Badillo will be receiving his long overdue honors and recognition from the GOP at the Lincoln Bicentennial Dinner. The Queens Village Republican Club will be holding the 134th Anniversary Lincoln Dinner on February 8th 2009 at Antun’s of Queens Village, New York. On behalf of all New York City Democrats and Republicans alike, Assemblywoman Barbara Clark (D-Queens Village, 33rd AD) will be presenting the Educator of the Year award to this eminent reformer of both the City University of New York and public school systems at the gala celebration of the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Indeed the GOP missed a significant opportunity and snubbed him in the 2001 Republican primary against Michael Bloomberg. Republicans were lured by the unrequited lucrative promises of the billionaire who just changed to Republican, who is now set to “buy” his third term as mayor.
Battered but not beaten, the GOP is recognizing the errors of their ways and paying respect to our past standard bearers and rising to the challenge of embracing the new ones. Our illustrious standard bearer, Herman Badillo likewise realized his earlier errors in championing big government bi-lingual education programs and has ever since upheld high standards of achievement not only for his own ethnic group, but for all New Yorkers. He related this 180 degree change in his recent book, One Nation, One Standard which is subtitled “An Ex-Liberal on How Hispanics Can Succeed Just like Other Immigrant Groups.” Older and wiser now, he admonishes the Hispanic community to embrace American cultural values of self reliance, thrift and the hard work ethic held by Asian, Jewish, black Caribbean and other prior disadvantaged immigrant groups and to avoid big government solutions that are an obstacle to assimilation, prosperity and the American dream.
Badillo translated this lesson into action in his life’s work to end “social promotion” which is the shameful policy of promoting failing students, which sadly continues today unabated in the school system. The Hispanic population will soon grow to 25% of the nation and it would be disastrous for them and our nation if they fail to assimilate to American values and the work ethic. Now at 79, Badillo is still fighting valiantly for this lofty goal of “one standard for all” in the public school system.
Badillo began his political career becoming active in the New York Democratic Party and was elected Bronx Borough President in 1965. He was the first Puerto Rican Borough President and Congressman, when he was elected in 1970 to represent the residents of the 21st Congressional District in the South Bronx. He was one of the founders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, he added job training for unemployed non-English speaking citizens to the “Comprehensive Manpower Act of 1973,” added language access provisions to the Voting Rights Act, and was one of the first to advocate funding for bi-lingual educations programs of which he is now an outspoken opponent.
In 1977 Badillo was appointed deputy mayor of New York City under Democratic Mayor Ed Koch, handling labor relations and community outreach. Badillo resigned this post after a major public dispute with Mayor Koch over his lack of support for the revitalization program for the South Bronx. He ran for Comptroller of New York City in 1993 on a “fusion” ticket with Rudy Giuliani, but lost to Alan Hevesi. Badillo served as the Special Counsel on education policy to Mayor Giuliani and was appointed Vice Chairman and then Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York (CUNY), where he led the campaign to end open enrollment, overhaul the curriculum, and raise academic standards which succeeded in the glorious renaissance of CUNY.
City College, the gem of the CUNY system was known as the “Harvard of the Poor” and “its sister colleges like Hunter College and Queens College, boasts such eminent alumni as polio vaccine inventor Dr. Jonas Salk, civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable and Congressman Daniel Patrick Moynihan.”
In 1969, when CUNY officials caved in to the demands of violent black and Hispanic radical groups for “open enrollment,” “Black Studies” and other ethnic identity programs, the reputation and high standards of CUNY began to plummet. Minority enrollment rose, but degrees from this disgraceful “diploma mill” were of no value in the marketplace, and at some city colleges the dropout rate was over 80%. The outcome of this academic degeneration produced such despicable characters as City College professor Leonard Jeffries, former chair of Black Studies who spiced his lectures with such anti-Semitic slurs as “Jews are a race of skunks,” and referred to George Washington as “the slave master bastard founding father.” Badillo was an outspoken critic of Jeffries, decrying his anti-Semitic and racist drivel until he was dismissed as department chairman.
It wasn’t until the 1990’s when Badillo and the CUNY board started working for higher standards, ending the failed remediation and open enrollment policies, that the once proud reputation of CUNY was restored. Badillo successfully raised admission and graduation requirements, removed remedial courses, and fought to restore a core curriculum with an American history requisite for every student. Not only did minority enrollment continue to rise, but now their degrees are well respected in the marketplace. We are proud to present Herman Badillo with the Educator of the Year award. This is a fitting tribute to a fighter who stood up against the radical ideologies that lead to failure, and became the standard bearer of American values, hard work, and higher standards in education.
Maimonides: The Patron Saint of Venture Capitalism
Laurie Morrow • December 28, 2008 20:56pm • Uncategorized
Suppose you were standing on the stairs outside the New York Public Library, beside Leo Astor or Leo Lenox, who gaze with serene, marbled regard across the exuberant pandemonium of Midtown Manhattan. Suppose, also, you were to ask the panoply of patrons passing by to name the fictional character who best captures the essence of capitalism. Chances are, the names you’d hear most often would be of miserly or unscrupulous figures—Dickens’ unredeemed Ebenezer Scrooge, for example, or Gordon (“Greed is Good!”) Gecko, from the movie Wall Street. Even in December, no one heading up to the Main Reading Room is apt to name the fabled the toy manufacturer/distributor who created jobs in a rural area bereft of employment opportunities, built a business unsurpassed in growth, and whose non-unionized employees are unrivalled in productivity and job satisfaction. No: when it comes to images of capitalism in the popular consciousness, even at Christmas, Santa Claus doesn’t come to mind.
And this is rather a pity. While capitalism certainly allows the greedy, the exploitative, and the corrupt to prosper, it also offers vertical mobility for the generous, the selfless, and the exemplary. Sadly, few of us Library patrons remember that capitalist entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie, a poor, immigrant boy who became the head of U.S. Steel, was a major force behind the lovely library the Leos guard, as well the primary financial donor to several dozen additional public libraries scattered across the five Boroughs. Fewer of us still know that, by the time of his death in 1919, Carnegie had built over half the public libraries in the United States, some 1,689 structures from Pittsfield, Maine to Eureka, California; from Pawnee City, Nebraska to Palestine, Texas; and from Redfield, South Dakota to Jackson, Tennessee.
Capitalism’s detractors, desperate to minimize Carnegie’s generosity, sniff that he built these libraries out of vanity, to see his name displayed across the land. The truth, however, is quite different. Although Carnegie requested something be carved above each doorway, it was not his name, but the Biblical phrase, “Let there be light.”
Largely self-educated, Carnegie knew what it was to hunger for books his family could not purchase. He was inspired to fund libraries in particular, by a businessman who let poor boys, including young Carnegie, borrow books from his personal library:
When I was a working-boy in Pittsburgh, Colonel Anderson of Allegheny –a name I can never speak without feelings of devotional gratitude – opened his little library of four hundred books to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was in attendance at his house to exchange books. No one but he who has felt it, can ever know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was awaited, that a new book might be had.
–Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth” (1869)
Carnegie focused his entrepreneurial mind on how to maximize his gift’s positive impact. He realized that, important as access to books might be, equally important was having a safe, quiet place, to read and reflect, cloistered from the screeching squalor of the slums. He thus funded buildings where readers could enjoy comfortable, aesthetically uplifting surroundings. Carnegie also reconceptualized the relationship between borrower and book, instituting an innovation that spread to libraries across the nation. During Carnegie’s lifetime (1835-1919), books were luxury items, and the librarian’s duty was to safeguard these precious artifacts from the page-smudging, spine-bending, ear-dogging fingers of the Great Unwashed. Libraries minimized damage to books by keeping them locked away from patrons, in closed stacks. The patron wishing to borrow a book would fill out a slip with the requisite information and present it to the librarian, who would then disappear into the stacks and emerge bearing the desired volume.
Carnegie, however, wanted the books in his libraries to be tools, not artifacts, and was determined to maximize library patrons’ access to as many tools as possible. He directed his libraries to put the books out on open shelves for patrons to browse through, a democratization of consumption perhaps inspired by another innovation of Carnegie’s time, the self-service department store. Thanks to Carnegie, the lady who browsed for hats in the department store could now browse through Booth Tarkington or James Boswell. This change, the product of an entrepreneurial, rather than an academic cast of mind, increased exponentially the ability of Carnegie’s libraries to uplift the lives of patrons. Little wonder that Carnegie was nicknamed “The Patron Saint of Libraries” by grateful contemporaries.
In the recent past, however, gratitude for and even awareness of the generosity of Carnegie was nearly exterminated by professors, education bureaucrats, and media people, who were often infatuated with Marxism and near-universally contemptuous of capitalism. When they did not omit him from American history, Big Education demonized Carnegie as a “Robber Baron,” despite his having done more to help teachers, scholars, schoolchildren, and journalists access information than any other individual in American history.
With the rise of the high-tech economy, which is highly individualistic, competitive, and entrepreneurial, doctrinaire anticapitalism is fast going the way of earth shoes and roller disco. It is out of this new, high-tech world that many of today’s most generous philanthropists come. Often politically liberal, they are not anticapitalist, but seek to harness the energy of capitalism and its culture of accountability to generate social and economic good more surely and more efficiently than traditional philanthropy. Like Carnegie, these philanthropists are thoughtful, strategic investors in human potential; they, too, approach giving in an analytical, businesslike manner. These new philanthropists want a ‘return’ on their investment, in the form of demonstrable progress towards solving the problems they take on.
This seemingly innovative, businesslike approach to philanthropy has very old roots, in, for example, the medieval rabbi and philospher, Maimonides, who developed a systematic means of assessing the quality of philanthropic giving according to the circumstances under which a gift is given, and received. The concept about which Maimonides wrote was tzedakah. Commonly translated as “charity,” this Hebrew word means something more akin to “justice” or “righteousness.” For Maimonides, giving to those in need isn’t a virtue, but an obligation, something one is simply obliged to do by the Creator, as a steward, not a possessor, of His gifts. For Maimonides, all giving is not created equal. A gift’s quality depends on the circumstances under which the gift is given, the spirit in which it is offered, and its potential for what we now call ‘sustainability’. Maimonides ranks the quality of giving as follows, from minimally virtuous (#8) to maximally virtuous (#1) :
8. You give, grudgingly.
7. You give less than you should, but with a generous heart.
6. You give to someone in need, but only after they ask for help. (They shouldn’t have to ask. You’re God’s steward, and are supposed to be paying attention.)
5. You give without being asked, having observed the need. You know whom you’re helping, and they know you’re helping them.
4. You don’t know the person receiving your gift, but the recipient knows you’re the giver.
3. You know whom you’re helping, but they don’t know you’re their benefactor.
2. You give without knowing the recipient, who benefits without knowing your identity.
1. You help a person in need find employment, or start her own business.
What a remarkable, refreshing idea: that the highest form of charity is to help good people find employers who value them, or, even become business owners themselves, and, potentially, employers of other good people in need of work. In so doing, the giver removes from the recipient the humiliating stigma of the supplicant, offering instead a testament to or tangible endorsement of the recipient’s talent and character. A time of struggle and despair can thus be transformed into a time of creativity and gratitude. Someone whose life is transformed in this manner is apt to be disposed to replicate that experience for others, and those she benefits may do the same. This entrepreneurial philanthropy can thus have a kind of multiplier effect that uplifts not merely the checking-account balance but the soul.
This possibility of replication suggests there may be an even higher level of giving than Maimonides identifies, a level even beyond helping a person start a business. Perhaps the most estimable gift is that which inspires philanthropy in others, and which provides the philanthropist with an analytical framework that enables their gift to have maximal effect. Such philanthropy Maimonides himself has extended to the world for nearly a thousand years.
Andrew Carnegie well deserves his title of Patron Saint of Libraries.
And if, on this last night of Chanukah, anyone feels inspired to nominate a Nice Jewish Boy as the Patron Saint of Venture Capitalism, Maimonides certainly has my vote.
Israel’s Gaza Strikes: Pre-Emptive Responses to Chomsky-ite Left
Candace de Russy • December 28, 2008 14:13pm • Uncategorized
All the right answers, from Bradley Burston in Haaretz.
U.S. & Georgia Sign Security Pact
Brent Tantillo • December 28, 2008 11:24am • Uncategorized
Largely unreported in the mainstream media, but Wired Magazine reports that on January 4 the U.S. and Georgia will sign a “bilateral charter that will outline our enhanced cooperation to help Georgia advance security, democratic, and market economic reforms to strengthen Georgia, bolster our partnership, and deepen Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration. This charter is similar to the one signed by the United States and Ukraine on December 19 in Washington.”
The strategic implications of this pact are startling especially as Moscow sends warships to Cuba and Venezuela to shows its muscle in the Western hemisphere. The United States and Russia are jockeying for political power with Russia siding with rogues such as Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea, rather than making the decision to enter into the community of legitimate democratic nations. This is evdenced by the recent decision by Moscow to sell its missiles to Tehran. Even worse, the day after President-elect Obama was elected, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed Obama to the world stage by deploying nuclear-capable missiles to Russia’s border of NATO. This makes the planned nuclear missile defense shield all the more needed, and hopefully the incoming administration agrees.
The Bush Legacy
Brent Tantillo • December 28, 2008 10:56am • Uncategorized
Kevin Hassett writes in Bloomberg that “President Bush’s Legacy May End Up Better Than You Think”:
On foreign policy, Bush emphasizes that he pursued a “freedom agenda” and spread freedom to Iraq. While the Iraqi future is far from clear, it is possible that the country becomes a democracy and a reliable ally of the U.S. If that transformation is completed, then it could well be viewed as a turning point in the war on terror.
On the home front, to virtually everyone’s surprise, we’ve avoided a terrorist attack since Sept. 11.
Hard to Argue
So it is hard to argue that Bush’s policies were a failure. The unpopular war may have trashed his party, but it didn’t have the same effect on the country.
Hassett admits though that Bush’s domestic policies were less successful, and interestingly this lack of success may actually help his legacy:
Turning to the economy, the pro-Bush argument becomes more of a stretch. First, his accomplishments were few. He passed a relatively small tax cut and was unable to hold the line on government spending. As a result, the deficit skyrocketed and set the stage for his tax cuts to be reversed. The prescription- drug benefit wasn’t paid for, and the jury is out on his No Child Left Behind education policy.
The insignificance of Bush’s economic policy, though, might work to his advantage. We are in the midst of the worst recession of our generation, yet it is hard to attribute this crisis to anything that Bush actively did. If his large deficits produced skyrocketing interest rates that crushed the economy, then the argument that Bush caused the mess we’re in might hold water. If he was the one who deregulated the financial sector, then we could justifiably blame him for our predicament.
Before Bush
Instead, the forces that allowed the financial sector to blow up — deregulation, for example — were in place when he took office. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who failed to stem the crisis, was inherited from the previous president. Bush even tried to avert the crisis early and often in his presidency, as he sought strict limits on the actions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance companies that were at ground zero of the crisis.
Bush was unable to stop the housing crisis and its fallout, but he tried. In that failure, he is hardly alone. The crisis has touched just about everyone, wiping out wealth in countries run by both liberals and conservatives.
All told, it seems unlikely that history will blame Bush for the financial crisis. He may even receive credit for helping to minimize its impact.
