Presidential Danse Hall Days

A few thousand years ago, Trojan War victor Agamemnon died of stab wounds in his bathtub. That his wife killed him wasn't the worst part. His glorious reputation tarnished by accusations of adultery and human sacrifice, the supreme allied commander kicked off without getting the chance to redeem his former glories in the eyes of the judgmental Argives.

In 1974, Richard M. Nixon, tangled up in Watergate Kudzu, went on national TV and quit, "effective noon tomorrow." Nixon's public standing, already rivaling that of the Tatars among residents of the Russian steppes, crashed and burned.

And in 1986 dictator Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines in shame. Only massive vote fraud had saved him from a crushing defeat in an presidential contest against a novice. Corazon Aquino's ability to use yellow as a political weapon without invoking Tony Orlando was her only asset. Nowadays people regard Marcos with amused indifference and remember him primarily for wife Imelda's footwear.

What binds these failed politicos together? None of them had a transition period. Unlike current lame duck George Bush, none had 11 weeks to cover up mistakes or to begin long-overdue policy initiatives. No time to look pensive in public. In some ways Bush has outdone these three fallen heroes in the twilight of his political career, but his seemingly altruistic activities in recent weeks raise disturbing questions about the cynicism of his entire presidency.

You might think at first glance that Bush, longtime public servant, is outdoing himself for the world's sake. Why feed the hungry in Somalia when doing so won't change your lame-duck status? Why consider sending troops to relieve the beleaguered Bosnians if you can't convince the Electoral College to pull a fast one on the American people?

Shouldn't Bush be too insulted and ashamed to do anything after the stunning no-confidence vote that Americans handed him on November 3? Sixty-two percent of voters cast their ballots for his opponents. James A. Baker III, his lifelong alter ego, deserted him in the waning weeks of the campaign. But despite the last few months' humiliation Bush still wears the presidential mantle, and he'll use it however he pleases.

There's a certain beauty, a certain crystal purity, in the idea that the president, free from all political obligations and consequences, would for once use American military might for a strictly humanitarian purpose. Perhaps Bush now gives us the leadership that Edmund Burke advocated: intelligent, deliberative, a product of judgement that stands firm against volatile public opinion.

But with Bush I doubt it. Throughout his public life expediency has colored Bush's every action. His 1980 abortion flip-flop is well-documented, but other signs of cynicism date back as much as a quarter century. Allegedly a moderate at heart, Bush opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1965 to curry favor with conservative Texas voters. He further betrayed his own moderation by allowing the religious right to dominate his 1992 convention.

But speculation that Bush had become a conservative True Believer dissipated when he harpooned his party's poorly calculated attempt at a divide-and-conquer electoral strategy. Given Bush's history, then, we can probably assume that specific political aims underlie his most recent behavior.

Bush's real target these days, it seems, is history. Public opinion matters less to him than what high-school textbooks will say about him. Regardless of the policy failures of his presidency, Bush will return to his Houston hotel room a happy man if he can convince The World Almanac in his last three months not to say nasty things in their capsule review of his tenure.

Americans derided Carter, a really bad president, so intensely that he will forever be remembered as really, really bad. Bush, also a really bad president, would like at least to be considered merely bad. American presidents can't help but make history, and the knowledge that his grandchildren will read about Iran-Contra, wonder why their grandfather did nothing to encourage Iraqi restraint before the Gulf War, and bear the brunt of borrow-and-spend economics probably bothers Bush.

A moral question: when you find yourself on the verge of making history, are you doing what you're doing because it's right, or are you doing it because you want to stoke your own reputation? Shouldn't Bush justify his martyrdom on his own moral and ideological terms and without viewing it through the lens of others' perception?

But perhaps your reasons don't matter if you're performing good deeds. Only the most heartless and brainless of isolationists could fault the U.S. intervention in Somalia. If we still cling to the notion that our legitimacy as a people derives from a humanistic social contract and an obligation to use our power as a moral force wherever reasonable, Operation Restore Hope is simply right. We should find no defects in Bush's actions.

Well, except for one. "Right" and "wrong" are for Bush mutable terms, and they change not with moral or factual context but with political need. Many observers claim the president held off on Somalia to avoid accusations of using military muscle for political gain. But Bush, in defending the no-fly zone in southern Iraq, threatened action anyway. Repelling Iraqi aggression was "right." It's more likely that Bush hesitated for the polls' sake and then intervened in the Horn of Africa because he thought historians would like him for it.

Yet the same reason--a desire for historians' esteem--motivated a less praiseworthy decision. Bush granted six Iran-contra defendants--one of whom was former secretary of defense and current perjurer Caspar W. Weinberger '38--executive clemency on Christmas Eve. Whether their actions were right or wrong didn't matter, he maintained, because the six were patriots, and it's wrong punish people for loving their country. Of course, that the pardons prevented six sticky trials which would have likely reveal the extent of Bush's participation in the scandals probably contributed to the outgoing president's decision. He could use his powers as he pleased, for whatever political reason. Bush's main motive is equally likely to produce desirable and undesirable consequences.

Lame-duckery has liberated Bush. It's ironic that he showed more vigor in December than he did in the 18 months before the election. Transition periods, more than just slowburns between the vital periods of two presidencies, become instead windows into what politicians would do if left absolutely to their own devices. And now President Bush has chosen, as he has all his life, to magnify himself at the expense of sound, consistent policy.

His machinations may backfire because historians may judge harshly a man who has tried so hard to second-guess them. Bush's efforts to prewrite the historical chronicles have been too blatant, too public. His attempts to seem statesmanlike instead paint the picture of the antithesis of a statesman: a politician too narrow in spirit to move beyond himself.

If Richard Nixon had left himself 11 weeks in which to spin-doctor his own reputation, we still wouldn't speak of him in hushed tones today. But he might have escaped disgrace. Major political figures usually have the power but seldom the time to save their reputations.

George Bush heard the call of history even over the din of White House staffers faxing their resumes to the Heritage Foundation, and he's had several weeks to gussy his presidency up. But Bush's danse macabre points to an unfavorable historical lesson.

Politics is a poor haven for the limited and self-conscious.