Social Security was the death knell of Bush

By Fester:

Vanity Fair has an interesting article comprised of various players in and around the Bush Administration on what went right and what went wrong.  As we should expect, everyone has an agenda, and for the Bush loyalists, part of the agenda is a long term rehab of their work and Bush's reputation.  I think this is an impossible task, but if they are able to blame acts of God for their downfall, and have it accepted, the task becomes slightly easier:

On Hurricane Katrina:

Dan Bartlett, White House communications director and later counselor to the president: Politically, it was the final nail in the coffin.

Matthew Dowd, Bush’s pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign: Katrina to me was the tipping point. The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn’t matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn’t matter. P.R.? It didn’t matter. Travel? It didn’t matter. I knew when Katrina—I was like, man, you know, this is it, man. We’re done.

This story is wrong.  Pollster.com has Bush's approval ratings trendline since 2005.  As you can see, he won re-election with roughly 50% approval.  After his second inauguration his ratings started to tank in a linear fashion.  The downwards trend in his approval rate did not change after Katrina.  It just continued to drop at roughly the same rate as they had in the time from March to mid-August.  So it is hard to argue with a straight face that Katrina caused Bush to be unpopular.

Instead, we have to ask, what happened between January 2005 and August 2005?

Why, President Bush decided to push the privatization and eventual destruction of Social Security, a very unpopular act.  And for once, the Democrats as a party did not seek to shoot themselves in the foot on either political or policy grounds.  They opposed a damn dumb policy proposal and won. 

Why is this important? 

Simple, Social Security privatization started the burial of the Bush Administration and the creation of the longest Lame Duck period in my life time.  It rendered him politically weak and less relevant.  It paved the way for Democrats to win in 2006.  And it was a completely voluntary choice. 

It was the choice of pursuing unpopular, destructive policies that caused Bush to be reviled as a failure.  It was not an act of God that people don't want Social Security privatized.  It was not an act of God that caused him to invade Iraq.  It was not an act of God that Terri Schiavo's family court battle became a federal issue.  It was not an act of God that the CIA was told to stop worrying about covering their asses.  It was not an act of God that Bush hired and endorsed the actions of Yoo and Addington which led to throwing out the Geneva Convention because it was perceived to be inconvenient. 

These were choices made.  And their consequences are the political and historical responsibility and weight upon the Bush Administration.    

Comments

[Pococurante]

The mind boggles to think how the current financial mess would look if any appreciable percentage of retirees had their retirement in the market at this time.