A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency Read Free Page B

Americans in the president assured that the outcome of the “debate” over going to war against Iraq was preordained. As had been true with virtually every issue, large and small, foreign and domestic, since the 9/11 attacks, the president’s will would prevail.
    In the midst of the Iraq debate, and largely because of it, the president’s soaring popularity also delivered, in November 2002, a resounding victory for his party in the midterm elections. Typically, and for many reasons, a president’s party loses Congressional seats in midterm elections, but not in 2002. The Republicans took over control of the Senate from the Democrats and increased their control in the House.
    The magnitude of their victory was historic. It had been almost seventy years—the 1934 midterm elections during Franklin Roosevelt’s first term—since a president’s party had gained strength in both the House and the Senate in a midterm election. Bush’s sky-high approval numbers reached into state elections as well. After the 2002 elections, Republican governors outnumbered Democratic governors for the first time in fifty years.
    The Republicans’ extraordinary national victory was plainly the by-product of the towering popularity of President Bush, buttressed by his bellicose posture toward Iraq, which became the centerpiece of the 2002 campaign. The nation had coalesced behind its president, and even though he was not on the ballot, the deep faith placed in his leadership among Republicans, Independents, and even many Democrats led to a historic victory for his party.
    The president’s popularity cannot be attributed exclusively to the happenstance of the 9/11 attacks. Particularly in the weeks and even months following those attacks, much of the president’s conduct generated confidence both in his abilities and in his judgment. As it appeared at the time, the invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent overthrow of the Taliban was a creatively executed and rapid success. Moreover, although his initial post-9/11 appearances were shaky, the president’s speeches quickly became resolute, eloquent, and even inspiring. He expressed a focused and restrained anger but steadfastly avoided vengeful rhetoric. He pledged to pursue the planners and perpetrators of the attack relentlessly, but appeared to eschew rash or reckless overreaction.
    And the president repeatedly emphasized that the enemy was defined neither as adherents to Islam nor as Middle Eastern countries and their citizens, but instead was a band of fanatics who exploited Islam as a pretext for terrorism and violence. In his September 20, 2001, speech to the Joint Session of Congress, he declared:

Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are the same murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for bombing the USS Cole ….
The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics—a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.

    And in the midst of emerging, isolated reports that American Muslims (or those perceived to be such) were the victims of attacks, and even of murder, the president pointedly emphasized:

I ask you to uphold the values of America, and remember why so many have come here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them [emphasis added]. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith. (Applause.)

    Three days earlier, President Bush had purposefully made a public appearance at the Islamic Center in Washington and afterward delivered this pointed statement:

Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of