I didn't know GW was the least bit introspective. Nevertheless, the Guardian has a story discussing Bush's struggles in trying to come to terms with "his legacy." In the wake of Pete Domenici's defection, the Guardian says:
More defections are expected, and Mr Bush cuts a lonely figure, holed up in the White House fretting over his legacy.
My Views on his legacy appear after the jump...
This paragraph follows:
Professor Robert Dallek, author of several books about the presidency, said that while it was not unusual for a president to limp to the end of his term as a lame duck, he saw Mr Bush as a particularly pronounced case. "If you are looking at defeat, no one wants to be associated with the person responsible. This is the case with Bush. You do not see his party rally round. He has united opinion against him and it makes for a lonely, isolated position," Prof Dallek said. "Once a president loses trust, he cannot govern effectively."
I certainly had my doubts that Bush had any sensitivity at all to other's opinions or critiques. However, I find that the Washington Post reports that Bush has begun inviting various people (historians, analysts, philosophers and the like) to the White House to examine his place in history.
Friends worry about [Bush being lonely] as well. Burdened by an unrelenting war, challenged by an opposition Congress, defeated just last week on immigration, his last major domestic priority, Bush remains largely locked inside the fortress of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in the seventh year of a presidency turned sour. He still travels, making speeches to friendly audiences and attending summit meetings, such as this weekend's Kennebunkport talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. But he rarely goes out to dinner, and he no longer plays golf, except occasionally chipping at Camp David, where, as at his Texas ranch, he can find refuge.
"I don't know how he copes with it," said Donald Burnham Ensenat, a friend for 43 years who just stepped down as State Department protocol officer. Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), another longtime friend who once worked for Bush, said he looks worn down. "It's a marked difference in his physical appearance," Conaway said. "It's an incredibly heavy load. When you ask men and women to take risks, to send them into war knowing they might not come home, that's got to be an incredible burden to have on your shoulders."
So I suppose I should feel some sense of pity. "Bush cuts a lonely figure," does he? His immigration reform bill went up in flames because the President failed to corral sufficient support from his own party. There is little expectation for positive developments in Iraq, Iran, or Palestine. He has, it seems little, if any, hope of further achievement, and he must now live with the specter of the past.
If the Guardian indeed has it right, that Bush is sensitive enough to look inside himself and reflect upon his decisions, I can only express my profound regret that such reflection was absent when so many decisions were made that drained our resources, destroyed our reputation as a just and benevolent people, and placed the constitutional foundation of our government at grave risk.
The Post's article is filled with contradictions. Some see Bush as burdened, yet:
And yet Bush does not come across like a man lamenting his plight. In public and in private, according to intimates, he exhibits an inexorable upbeat energy that defies the political storms. Even when he convenes philosophical discussions with scholars, he avoids second-guessing his actions. He still acts as if he were master of the universe, even if the rest of Washington no longer sees him that way.
So forgive me if this newly discovered ability to think outside the context of the environs populated by his robber baron buddies and fundamentalist bigots is sincere, but I reserve my pity for the victims of the Texas junta.
In their incompetence and indifference, they have stripped the resources from such agencies as FEMA, and in so doing, exacerbated the effect of such disasters as Katrina and Rita. People died needlessly, and because of the decisions Bush and his henchman have ade.
In their greed for oil and thirst for revenge, they have led this country into a reckless war in Iraq, causing the deaths of over 3,000 U.S. soldiers (at this point in time), many many more innocent Iraquis, greatly damaged any prospects for stability within the region, distracted us from taking actions actually necessary for our protection (such as finishing the deal in Afghanistan, strengthening the security systems in our ports and dealing with Iran and North Korea without being totally spent. We are much less safe than we should be, because of these men, despite the countless dead in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a bid to gain office, they have bent the Supreme Court and made it an accomplice to a coup. In a bid to increase power, they have raised voter suppression and fraud to art level, receiving help from some of the very people who supply us with voting machines and vote counting machines. Our government, our demcracy, does not function like it should and indeed, hardly functions at all, except to enrich those who already have.
Finally, their complete disregard for decency, the rule of law, our history, and our democratic heritage has ruined and ended lives, and has made us feared, but not respected, outside our own borders. In labeling the Geneva conventions as "quaint" and then acting as though they were no longer applicable, we have done lasting damage to our place in the world as a protector of the rule of law. In advocating, participation in, and expediting others' use of torture, we have sunk so low as to make questionable any real difference between our government and the barbarians who seek to bring us down. The battle between terrorism and democracy is fought first in the mind, and it is their we must first win. Fairness, when displayed, makes its own case, and wins the battle without any real fight. But it is a case that we have failed to make; and so we lose.
So I save my pity for those who are dead because of this regime's foul decisions. I save my sympathy for those who are injured, whether by roadside bomb or by some exotic method of torture. My heart goes out to those who are detained for so long without ever being charged, without ever seeing a lawyer, or talking to their friends and family. And I pity us. I pity the people of the United States of America, because we could have prevented this. Bush stole the first election, but he was re-elected (and even if not, he used the identical tactics to stay in power as when he first sought it). In finishing, I will refer to a quote by John Cooke.
Mr. Cooke prosecuted Charles I, King of England and Scotland, under the bold and revolutionary philosophy that no one was above the law. Charles I, I may say, was shocked to hear it. Ultimately, Mr. Cooke successfully prosecuted Charles. The King was beheaded. Unfortunately for Mr. Cooke, Charles's son, Charles II became ruler upon the "restoration" of the monarchy, and Mr. Cooke was called to pay for "regicide." John Cooke's lament was:
We are not traitors or murderers or fanatics but true Christians and good commonwealthsmen, fixed and constant in the principles of sanctity, truth, justice and mercy, which the Parliament and army declared and engaged for, and to that noble principle of preferring the universality before particularity. We fought for the public good and would have enfranchised the people and secured the welfare of the whole groaning creation, if the nation had not more delighted in servitude than freedom.
(emphasis mine)
It is my desperate hope that we, as a nation, make a different choice and do not also "delight in servitude more than freedom."