BOORISH SON
Bush Senior must feel anguish as he beholds what his heir has done to his country
BY JOE SOBRAN

If the Bush family were the Ford auto dynasty, George W. would be its Edsel. Like many other people, I didn't think much of his father as a president, but at least the old man was a sane and decent human being, in touch with reality and capable of normal relations with others. 

Apparently father and son are hardly on speaking terms today. The old man must be appalled by his son's disastrous contempt for the lessons he drew from the first Gulf war. Rightly or wrongly, Bush Senior started that war for a limited and specific purpose, quickly achieved it, and brought the troops home. 

It was a clear-cut victory on his own terms, and he didn't waste his winnings on a long, futile, bloody occupation; nor did he give the neoconservatives the "regime change" they coveted. He was content to defeat Iraq, leaving Saddam Hussein incapable of threatening anyone. He had no grand ambition to transform the Middle East. He didn't seem to think God had anointed him for such a destiny. 

What a contrast with Bush Junior! The son is self-deluded, messianic, intolerant of contradiction, isolated from normal human contact, too stubborn to learn obvious lessons of experience. I always thought the old man, whatever his shortcomings in office, would be a pleasant next-door neighbor; I wouldn't even want to live on the same block with the son. 

Rumors of the son's foul temper abound. It was recently reported that he snapped at an aide, "Stop throwing the Constitution at me. It's just a goddamned piece of paper." That may be just a false rumor. But nobody would have believed it of the father; it sounds quite in character for the son. 

And one thing that makes it credible is that Bush Junior seems to pick flatterers for advisors, ensuring that he'll get only the kind of advice he wants. Harriet Miers is still presumably giving him the same constitutional and legal counsel she always has, assuring him that anything he wants to do, such as spying on U.S. citizens, falls within his presidential powers. Odd, but not unusual, how a man can call himself a sinner while remaining incapable of real self-criticism. 

As secretary of state, Colin Powell seemed willing to confront Bush Junior with unwelcome realities; naturally he was replaced by the more complaisant Condoleezza Rice, who can be counted on to mouth the boss' shibboleths about democracy and terrorism. All the younger Bush's worst tendencies are reinforced, accentuated, and as they now say "enabled" by such hardball players as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, two men nobody will miss. 

"I'm a uniter, not a divider," boasted the president who was to make the Clinton years seem an era of good feeling and who would, moreover, create a near-consensus of anti-American feeling not only in the Muslim world, but in Europe. Defying the world isn't usually the best way to unite it - unless, of course, you want to unite it against yourself. This too is something it's hard to imagine Bush Senior doing. He seemed to content himself with one enemy at a time. 

The self-described "compassionate conservative" is neither compassionate nor conservative, unless compassion is measured by federal spending and violating the Constitution is the way to conserve it. The great English conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott made a basic distinction between "nomocratic" and "teleocratic" governance: The first means the impartial rule of law, regardless of outcome, whereas the second uses law as a mere means of getting a desired outcome - the sin Oakeshott saw in socialist-style modern regimes, which he identified as "rationalism in politics." It's roughly the difference between the market economy and the Five-Year Plan. 

Such distinctions, which most of us grasp intuitively, are far too rarefied for Bush Junior, who sees government as a blunt instrument for getting your way. For him war is not an aberration, but a model, the very fulfillment of his idea of social organization. He has no other real concept, at least none he finds so inspiring. 

The marvel is that the elder Bush, an imperfectly yet instinctively civilized man, could have produced so boorish a son. He must feel a special kind of anguish as he beholds what his heir has done to his country.

Joe Sobran is an author, syndicated columnist and editor of a monthly newsletter, SOBRAN’S. See sobran.com for more information or to contact Joe, write to joseph@sobran.com.