 |
||
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
|
|
Besides having a 20-year hold on the U.S. presidency, Yale men and women have a disproportionate share of jobs in journalism and punditry. Here's what some of Yale's professional opionizers have said about the Bush years.
Somebody who knew President Bush well once remarked to me. "You'll notice he never asks questions." "Why not?" I said. "Because he doesn't know what it's okay for him not to know."
The foreign policies that aroused the greatest anger and opposition were mostly pursued in Bush's first term: the invasion of Iraq, the rejection of treaties, diplomacy and multilateralism. In the past few years, many of these policies have been modified, abandoned or reversed. This has happened without acknowledgment -- which is partly what drives critics crazy -- and it's often been done surreptitiously. It doesn't reflect a change of heart so much as an admission of failure; the old way simply wasn't working.
We like democracy, except in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt -- anywhere important, we don't like it. We like democracy in strategically irrelevant countries.
For Bush, the problem with law is that it is supposed to apply equally to everyone. Bush wanted more flexibility, especially for the United States but also for its friends. . . . [H]e made policy -- and, as he saw it, a virtue -- out of adopting and applying a double standard.
At a South Carolina Air Force base yesterday, Bush mentioned al-Qaeda and bin Laden 118 times in 29 minutes, arguing that the violence unleashed by the U.S. invasion in Iraq would somehow come to America's shores if U.S. troops were to withdraw. But . . . the administration's own intelligence community has concluded that the war in Iraq has helped rather than hurt al-Qaeda.
Since Bush was not a conservative, arguably he did no harm to conservatism. His failings were not those of conservatism but rather of a Wilsonian absolutism: faith in the universality of his favorite religiously-based abstractions and in the ability of government to impose those abstractions globally.
At the end of the day, Bush may be the last neoconservative in office. He seems to me to truly believe that this Iraq thing, it's not just a good idea; it's truly working. . . . maybe what he needs is a therapist, not advisers on this. A democratic and modern Iraq would be a great model for the Middle East. It ain't happening. It may not happen for a while.
Dissected from context and magnified beyond proportion in the kangaroo court of world opinion, Abu Ghraib was a public relations disaster. For Bush to call it Mistake Numero Uno after recanting his own colloquial war rhetoric is unwise, weak and, therefore, quite dangerous.
[W]e don't know exactly when we've crossed the threshold to disaster, which could come in many different forms. The Bush administration says, "We don't know where that threshold is, therefore how could we do anything?" The rational person would say, "We don't know where that threshold is, therefore we ought to be damn careful as we approach it."
He had a certain charm about getting away with things, like DKE's custom of "branding" new members' on the butt, a less-than-noble tradition he managed to protect when it came under fire. Being that kind of bad boy may be OK if you're cutting a history class or smirking behind your hand at some radical grad student leading your discussion section -- but not when you're staging a commander in chief's flight-deck landing or a Thanksgiving Day pop-up in Baghdad.
Bush never felt he belonged at Yale. ... A C student . . ., Bush later said he "didn't learn a damn thing" at Yale. The reason was that he didn't try. . . . Outside of class, Bush staggered in his father's footsteps. Where George H. W. strived and excelled, George W. lazed and flopped.
The two candidates have something curious in common beside an Old Blue pedigree: that their bright college years were largely wasted on them. Yale was wasted on John Kerry '66 because he was too preoccupied with getting ahead. It was wasted on George W. Bush '68 because he was so busy falling down.
There were no speeches, only a presentation by the Whiffenpoofs of a plaque, two bulldogs, and an honorary membership in Yale's most celebrated singing group. The Whiffs confer nicknames on their own, a time-honored tradition; the newest member's was "Fermez La" Bush.
What of those animals of DKE last night? You couldn't distinguish them from the Elizabethan Club. "Let me put it this way: Nobody behaved like a Deke," said author Scott Armstrong, a member of the class of '68. Armstrong described the affair as "a vanilla concoction" with a "pretty placid group."
George W. Bush was hardly the obvious man for the job. But by a very strange fate, he turned out to be, of all unlikely things, the right man.
The British, like everyone else in Europe, have always had a love-hate relationship with America. You consume our mass culture but resent its impact on your own. You revile our politics, but often wind up imitating them. Somehow, Bush has come to stand for the hate part of the love-hate relationship, symbolising the downside of mass culture and the pushy side of American foreign policy, rather than the economic freedom and political openness that many admire.
If you think of W. I as the guy who was tapped for Skull and Bones at Yale, W. II was a kind of counter-W. I. We know W. II was soon to be replaced, because he's told us he stopped doing any Bad Things in 1974. Except liquor: It was then he turned into the hard-drinking W. III. To be succeeded in 1986 when he gave up spirits as well by the solemn and preachy W. IV we have today. My feeling is: Bring back W. II! I have a feeling W. II saw through the whole Skull and Bones charade, the pomposity of its ritual posturing, the preposterousness of its occult mumbo jumbo.
|
|
|
|
|||
|