Competence and Ideology
When Michael Dukakis launched his presidential campaign against George Bush senior in 1988, he declared that “the election is not about ideology, it is about competence.” Good line, but, it turns out, wrong on both fronts. Bush the elder was, if nothing else, certainly qualified to be president – challenging his skills may have seemed like a winner for dweeby technocrat Dukakis, but the election really was about ideology, as we found out when the moderate-talking Bush proceeded to govern like a right-winger.
These days, the Democrats seem to have the opposite problem. They’re challenging Bush junior on ideology when they should be challenging his competence. Again, it’s easy to understand. Bush’s approach to every issue, from foreign policy to the environment to the economy, is diametrically opposed to those preferred by most of the Democrats who might run against him, so it’s tempting to pick a fight.
But it’s a fool’s game. Ideology is Bush’s meat and drink. Like it or not, the man has strong beliefs and means what he says (unlike his father, for example). When he talks about whatever cockamamie policy or program he’s advocating, he comes across with genuine sincerity and purpose. He sticks to his guns – even when they’re a pair of cap shooters – and the public gives him credit for that. That’s leadership, y’see.
Debating ideology with Bush is like debating his religion. It will get nowhere and turn a lot of people off. The chink in his armor is that all of these policies are yielding no positive results. You can argue forever whether his approach is misguided, but there’s no denying the increasingly apparent inability of the administration to execute.
Look past the rhetoric to the facts on the ground. Ask Bush the tough questions. In the much-vaunted war on terror, where exactly is the man whose forces attacked America? Where’s Osama “wanted dead or alive” Bin Laden? How safe and stable is “liberated” Afghanistan? How long will Karzai’s government last once US troops are committed in Iraq? After all of this homeland security nonsense, how much safer are we from attack? What did we buy with all those freedoms we sacrificed?
On the economy, how exactly are those tax cuts helping? Where are the jobs? Where’s the stock market growth? What economist in his or her right mind has faith in the fiscal policies of the US government, now that we’re back to long-term deficits again? How long before the housing and refinancing bubble bursts? Republicans are trying to make the 90s boom sound like some kind of dark Clinton plot now, but the fact is that people had real jobs and real incomes in the 90s. Their money grew. They bought homes and sent their kids to decent schools and colleges. Where did that go, Mr. President? It’s your watch now.
Most Americans don’t care much what the rest of the world thinks of us, so Bush has been able to conduct his bully-boy foreign policy with relative impunity. Only now, when we need international cooperation to diffuse a genuine crisis in North Korea, we’re left to the tender mercies of China, Russia and the European Union to conduct diplomacy. Do you think they’re that eager to help us out after nearly two years of high-handed arrogance from this Administration?
And then of course there’s Iraq. At this point, even the supporters of the war are basically admitting that it’s about the oil. OK, oil is important. But when the body bags start coming back, and the sons and daughters of American families are being returned gruesomely killed or crippled by chemical weapons or suffering from some unidentified “syndrome” caused by biological agents, will it be worth those few cents we’ll be saving at the pump? And when the bills start coming in for the weapons, the occupation force, and the reconstruction of Iraq, will Americans start to wonder why they can afford to build schools and roads halfway around the world when they can’t afford them in their own neighborhoods anymore?
Sure, Bush is faced with uncommonly tough challenges, but the lack of results increasingly indicates that he and his administration are not up to the task. His steadfast commitment to his ideology is keeping the nose of the plane up. Unfortunately, it’s becoming clearer that despite his personal steadfastness, the country is in a tailspin.
Maybe it’s ideology that put us there, or maybe it was circumstances. Doesn’t matter at this point. Competence is required to get us out, and if Democrats can successfully point out that competence is in short supply in the current administration, they may be able to prevail.
9:17:42 AM 
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