On Monday, President George W. Bush gave his final press conference, ending an eight-year relationship with the international media. He began his presidential swan song with, “We have been through a lot together.” Accurate. Cliche, but accurate.
And then, in a moment beyond irony, in a beautiful instance of Bush anti-poetry reminiscent of the Bushism days, the 43rd president managed to sum up his relationship with the press better than anyone else could have: “Sometimes you, uh, misunderestimated me.”
It’s the kind of line Jon Stewart wishes he had written. It’s a line that, by the property of a double-negative, seems to tell the members of the press that they’ve done exactly what they should have done: They analyzed, they assessed, they discussed, and more often than not, they estimated what Bush was doing, or trying to do. Bush never made it easy.
Over the years, we’ve seen many different sides of George W. Bush. He often presented himself to the press as many characters as opposed to one person. Sometimes he was playful, sometimes full of aggression, sometimes just confused and confusing. It was difficult to know which character to expect when our president would step into the public eye, but all of them managed to show up at Bush’s goodbye to the press.
There’s “Good Ole Boy Bush”: the silly, twangy, right-wingy cowboyish uncle who says odd things with very poor grammar. This is the Bush who tripped over words and pronunciations, and became the focus of wall calendars and late-night TV shows in the first few years of his administration. At this final press conference, Good Ole Boy Bush talked about the press’s “misunderestimations” and remarked that Obama “(is) a better speech-maker than me.” You don’t say.
There’s “Folksy Elitist Bush.” This Bush is able to snub and condescend like a teenager wielding Daddy’s credit card, but gets away with it because of his heartland-of-America Texas drawl. This is the Bush who loves to pass the buck and play innocent, saying things such as, “The rhetoric got out of control. … I don’t know why, you need to ask those who used the words they used.” Folksy Elitist Bush always manages to make himself the victim, and to take things more personally than they are meant.
There’s also “Stubborn Delusional Bush,” who is completely unwilling to listen to the other side, and sometimes even to his own side. This Bush is so clueless and misinformed that he believes that the world still fawns over America as a big brother to look up to. This Bush got defensive and yelled at the press on Monday to go to Africa, and India, and China, and “most countries is Europe” in order to find a positive view of America. Good luck with that. This is also the one who name-dropped Sept. 11 Giuliani-style on Monday, saying, “You remember what it was like after Sept. 11 around here?” Stubborn Delusional Bush steers his policy on constant fear and misunderstanding of the outside world. He is defensive when people criticize him for the Iraq War, and thinks that they are criticizing him for letting Sept. 11 happen, which is not the case at all.
Interestingly enough, though, another Bush showed up, one that we see rather infrequently: “Presidential President Bush.” This more gracious version is the one who opened the press conference with a fair amount of candor, class and ““ believe it or not ““ professionalism. He opened the conference with some very kind words for the press, complimenting them on a job well done. “Through it all, I have respected you,” he said earnestly. He added, “Always the relationship, I have felt, has been professional. And I appreciate it. … I’m interested in answering some of your questions, but mostly I’m interested in saying thank you for the job.”
It was a rare moment for Bush to appear humble, the way a president should be ““ as if he was just a regular guy who happened to be president. He joked with names, he joked about his age, he joked about retirement. “I’m not sure what to expect,” he said, predicting that on the morning of Jan. 21, he’d probably wake up in his country home, make Laura coffee, and then wonder what to do from there.
But in this final press conference, while we got to see all of these sides of Bush and more, we also got a glimpse of a newer Bush, a more recent development. He went beyond poorly spoken and beyond immature, beyond stubborn and beyond delusional. We saw a man who is bitter, worn and moody; a man who is defensive instead of full of confidence or conviction. We saw “Old Ornery Bush.”
Old Ornery Bush comes off harsh, aggressive, dismissive and defensive. This is the Bush that still doesn’t believe the Kyoto Protocol is a good idea. Old Ornery Bush still stands by Guantanamo Bay, giving it the nickname Gitmo, which doesn’t make it any more cute, or any less horrific. He still asserts that the Iraq War was necessary and vital to American safety.
Old Ornery Bush will almost never admit to a mistake, but will admit to “disappointments.” The response to Hurricane Katrina was a “disappointment.” The Abu Ghraib prison scandal was a “huge disappointment.” Iraq ““ you guessed it ““ a disappointment.
“Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don’t know if you want to call that a mistake, but it was a disappointment,” Bush said.
And currently, Lame-Duck Bush still looks to history to exonerate him, still talks about history in the future tense, and is certain historians will be his saving grace.
“History will look back and determine that which could’ve been done better,” he said. History is merely a study of the past, but Bush seems to insist that since he is still president, the past eight years don’t quite count as history yet.
So, as we count down to Obama’s inauguration, it seems we are counting down to the historical perspective needed to view Bush’s presidency as a low point in American history. At the end of eight long years, it’s sad that Bush, in any form, can’t admit to mistakes but admits to “disappointments” as some sort of lame appeasement. Clearly, things did not go like he thought they would. You could tell he wanted things to be different. And frankly, so did we.
If you’ve been beside yourself for the past eight years, e-mail Stoll at rstoll@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.