You are invited to read this commentary from the Free Enterprise Foundation. It will make you think!

Free George Bush!

Secretary Kissinger used to say, “We do not develop intellectual capital while in office, we expend it.” Never was Dr Kissinger more “spot on!” In my experience, if you haven’t experienced similar mind puzzles elsewhere, the velocity of policy conundrums facing senior government officials almost daily leave you grasping for solutions The eyes of the world are on you, and the voices of those to be affected are loud and unceasing. For the President, you add the “buck stops here” reality that faces a Chief of State and soon appreciate the limits of the politically possible.

When events cause the public to realize that the security cocoon in which we live is just that, “gossamer;” the president gets the blame, any president. We react with anger that often becomes personal and plain nasty. I am sure a psychiatrist could better explain this reaction, but I suspect it stems from the fear that if it could happen to them, it could happen to us. In most cases, however our anger cools over time. President Clinton’s very public frailties have grown faint in our memories, and the public seems at peace with his place in history. It is too soon to tell whether Obama will get a similar break, but I suspect he will.

Regrettably the same does not seem to be true for the very raw feelings many have for George W. Bush. Sadly, no one came to my aid when I defended the former president’s character recently on Facebook. The particular charge seems to be that he is morally deficient for taking us into Iraq and cares more for protecting American oil interests than poor people in New Orleans.

That is totally unfair. Due to events that were not of his making or within his control, President George W. Bush’s (“43”) administration was filled with disasters. For a new President as well as the rest of us, 9/11 was the most traumatic, game changing event since Pearl Harbor. The attack was planned well in advance of his taking office. It took shape and was implemented over a considerable time to provide for financing, selecting and training the team and then implementing the actual assault.

As the news reached the President, he was in a classroom reading to a 2nd grade class. He is criticized for not leaving immediately but should be commended instead. So as to not unduly destroy his visit’s meaning for those involved or to frighten them, he remained there to allow security planning to proceed from what was evidently a shaky start and to withdraw without upsetting the participants.

The planned response to such an attack is first; protect the National Command structure, the President and Vice President’s safety being a key responsibility of that assignment. Once they are safe, you fully assess the threat. That is just what happened here, but “43” was very much in evidence atop a debris pile at ground zero several days later to rally the nation once the assessment process was well advanced, and when it was clear that he wasn’t in the way of rescue attempts for any buried survivors.

Up to this point the sympathy of the nation was with the President, and it seems to have continued to be so through the removal of the Taliban from power in Afghanistan but went downhill rapidly once the “Shock an Awe” phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom was not followed by quick restoration of peace in Iraq and degenerated into guerilla insurrection that kept the eyes of the nation on the bloody chaos that it turned into.

In Iraq, policy critics focus on the flawed implementation of the war plan. There is much to fault in conceiving a plan dependent on the Iraqi Army coming over in unit strength at the end of operations in order to make the boots on the ground component of the plan work. Why we sent that many armed battle trained men out on the streets without employment totally escapes my comprehension.

Personal critics, on the other hand, see total deceit at the core of the plan in the decision to go in the first place. They blame”43” for actively misleading them regarding the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the pursuit by Saddam of an active nuclear weapons program. They feel snookered and cannot accept that “43” was snookered right along with them. For reasons of political cover, they want to believe their actions were reasonable in providing support to “their President” and that he broke the rules by breeching that trust.

There is no credible evidence that any such allegations are true. It is a total fabrication borne of political convenience. Its effects however have been lasting and remain as a stain on any possibility of bi-partisan approach to foreign policy development and implementation in a truly dangerous world. At the time, our intelligence operations were only part of a consensus of allied operations spanning many nations that Saddam was possessed of such weapons and was pursuing actively the acquisition of nuclear weapons. For the President, any president, not just one who was sitting when a major attack on our homeland had been successfully carried out not to respond to what was another consensus national security threat with force is inconceivable.

The other canard that hangs around “43” is that he was insensitive to poor blacks in Louisiana, and it was this character defect that led to the atrociously inept rescue and recovery efforts. Let’s get this straight. Katrina was a once in generation natural disaster. No one had a hand in its genesis. The after affects are a different story. The delay in the declaration of a national emergency was caused by feuding between the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans. The event was so catastrophic, it probably would not have in the end softened the national pain at its occurrence, but the delay has become a handle for those who wish to vilify the President unfairly. Disaster planning deficiencies continue to be a bi-partisan problem. We all pay lip service to doing better next time and then refuse to pay the bill to keep NEPA adequately funded for a disaster that seems increasingly, “not this year” and therefore not a budget priority. That actuality is I believe even worse now that the agency has been lost inside Homeland Security.

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Copyright © 2010 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr., is president of the Free Enterprise Foundation. He is also the first BB&T Visiting Professor in Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel. A regular contributor to the Mercury, Prof. Freer may be reached at Robert.freer@citadel.edu. If you would like him to appear before your group or organization to speak on any of the subjects about which he writes, please contact him at The Citadel. Copies of his earlier columns may be found at The Free Enterprise Foundation