The last few months have not been easy for the Bush
administration. Not much seems to be going right for our president
these days, and the things that have gone wrong went disastrously
wrong.
To put the situation in perspective, a recent History News
Network informal survey of 415 professional historians found that
eight out of 10 historians believe the Bush presidency to be a
failure. In fact, 17 percent rated the Bush presidency as the
biggest failure since President Richard Nixon’s, which
underwent the Watergate scandal, and 12 percent rated it as the
worst since President Herbert Hoover’s, which underwent the
Great Depression. Another 15 percent of historians rated
Bush’s presidency as the worst ever.
What’s mind-boggling about the situation is that Bush has
been staying even with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry
in national polls. A May 19 Fox News poll showed the two candidates
tied at 42 percent each.
It’s disheartening that our president can still have so
much support in spite of all the things that have gone wrong during
his presidency. To jog your memories, here is a short list of his
biggest failures.
First and foremost, there is the ever-deteriorating situation in
Iraq, where more and more American soldiers are dying as the
chances of a successful democratic transition grow slimmer. As the
power transition nears, coalition forces continue to undergo
attacks from insurgent militias. We started this war in Iraq
““ and we have left that country in a mess.
Then there is the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, which has
completely tarnished the United States’ reputation in the
eyes of the international community (regardless of whether it was
just the actions of a few soldiers). It also destroyed the fairy
tale of American soldiers as liberators from Saddam-the-tyrant; it
reinforced the views of American soldiers as an oppressive
occupying force.
There is also the recent Ahmad Chalabi intelligence scandal,
where the once-trusted Iraqi ally of the United States has been
accused of leaking sensitive U.S. intelligence to Iran that
“could get Americans killed,” according to one senior
U.S. official. While Chalabi has denied these accusations and said
they are part of a CIA plan to discredit him, there is an ongoing
investigation into who was giving Chalabi the intelligence in the
first place and whether or not he leaked it to Iran.
Iraq isn’t the only place where Bush’s foreign
policy has been failing. Let’s not forget about Afghanistan.
Due to massive security problems with militia warlords and a new
Taliban insurgency, the first round of elections that had been
scheduled for June have now been postponed until September. Local
militia warlords have overrun the countryside and now dominate
political control of the country outside of the capital city. The
warlords are so powerful that the transitional government has
decided to allow them to run for office and receive official
political powers if they resign their commands and disarm.
As bad as things have been going for Bush’s foreign
policy, they have been going just as poorly for his domestic
policy. He is the first president in 70 years to have experienced a
net loss of jobs during his time as president. At the same time,
spending has increased massively, especially for someone who claims
to be a fiscal conservative.
These increases in spending, along with the president’s
massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, are accruing a
massive amount of debt as his current federal budget proposal calls
for $367 billion of deficit spending. This figure is likely to grow
during the coming budget debates in Washington, with some estimates
projecting next year’s deficit to be around $477 billion.
Considering all of the negative impacts that these policy
failures have been having, it is a wonder they have not created
more of a ball and chain for the president. As the presidential
campaign has been fairly low-key since the end of the Democratic
primaries, American voters may not connect them to the candidates
until closer to election time.
With all these problems in mind, it is difficult to foresee Bush
maintaining his equal footing with Kerry in the polls for much
longer. These domestic and foreign problems are not just chance
occurrences; they are a direct result of the Bush
administration’s policies and agendas. If the United States
doesn’t wake up, we could be in for another long four
years.
Bitondo is a third-year political science and history
student. E-mail him at mbitondo@media.ucla.edu. Send general
comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.