Fumble: Bush sets historians off to the races (and shoots his foot)

Veritas Team Huddle Compiled By Karl Baldauf

As Hollywood weighs in on the Frost/Nixon interviews with Ron Howard’s latest flick, America turned its attention to the sitting President’s eight controversial years in office. The legacy of George W. Bush was front and centre Monday when the President began the first in a series of exit interviews with ABC’s Charlie Gibson. For Bush, these interviews present the last chance to set the tone on seeing the country through a major terrorist attack, two wars, and a recession. Although considered by many on the Veritas team to be one of his best interviews to date, we cannot help but give him a Fumble. The overwhelming consensus was that W. didn’t take ownership for many of the actions that led to the faltering economy. The task for Bush was to either appear reflective and self-critical, or defend decisions in a convincing way. With either strategy, he failed. While demonstrating regret about bad intelligence on the eve of the Iraq war, Bush shockingly said that the high point of his career was his re-election. In politics the task is always to demonstrate you’re working in the public interest. Instead, Bush chose to focus on himself; not nation-building or protecting the country from a second attack, but his own personal gratification. For politicians at the end of their tenure, an exit interview is a good idea if you have something valuable to say and if you want to shine a positive light on your decisions. In being concerned with his own self-satisfaction, and by refusing to accept that the Obama victory was a repudiation of his administration, Bush fails to communicate responsibility and that he was, indeed, the decider.