Faithful to his upbringing, Bush told the American people that winning is not the time “to gloat.” He didn’t want to allow himself a feeling of personal exultation. But he could hardly be blamed for declaring victory over an even bigger bogeyman than Saddam. “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!” he exclaimed to a group of state legislators at the White House. The remark was unscripted–a brief burst of spontaneous joy at the end of his prepared remarks.
To a nation oppressed by the sense of decline, jaded by two decades of failed presidencies and political scandal, Bush’s performance seemed like deliverance. Even more so because it was unexpected, coming from a man who had been widely dismissed as a whim and a lapdog. To the American people today, the W word is “winner.”
Certainly the Democrats think so. They eye the president’s record-breaking approval rating–89 percent in the latest Newsweek Poll–and wonder if they will ever see the inside of the White House again. There was a flurry of excitement last week in Democratic circles when party elder Robert Strauss called a council of veteran campaign operatives. Was it to map a political counterattack? To announce or anoint a new challenger? Well, not quite. Strauss wanted some help thinking up jokes for the annual Gridiron Dinner.
Perhaps Bush has always been underestimated. True, there were always the images of young George as a prep-school Lochinvar, the teenage naval aviator, his plane in flames, boring in to deliver his bombs. But a more enduring political image is of Bush trying, by small tinny sounds, to placate the Republican right. Less well known are the examples of Bush showing fortitude behind the scenes. It was Bush whose coolness restored calm to the White House in March 1981 when Ronald Reagan was shot and Secretary of State Alexander Haig bizarrely declared, “I am in control.” Self-exiled to passive veepdom for the rest of Reagan’s two terms, he seemed politically finished by a third-place showing in the Iowa caucuses in 1988. But he counterpunched (some would say rabbit-punched) to the nomination and then to the presidency.
Bush spent his first months in office quietly but surely showing that he was not Ronald Reagan. He came to work at 7 a.m.; he did not fall asleep in meetings; he remembered names and facts. He met with the press so often they grew tired of it. Along the way, he established a comfort level with the American people that would prove useful when the crisis came. The chattering classes may have doubted Bush, but the public believed in his leadership skills over the last six months, and they were rewarded.
Bush is now urged to use his immense political capital to push through some kind of New American Order at home. “If LBJ had won this victory, he would have doubled the War on Poverty,” said Harry McPherson, a lawyer and adviser to Lyndon Johnson. “If Ronald Reagan had won it, he would have cut back the role of government more. Bush could do gutsy stuff.” In all likelihood, however, he won’t. He doesn’t believe the country’s problems are susceptible to easy or quick political solutions. His approach is pragmatic, in a country-club Republican sort of way. Some problems, like the recession, will cure themselves. Others, like the poor, are always with us. His more cynical political advisers are just thinking about re-election. Their plan is, not surprisingly, to blame Congress. “If the Democratic Congress would just move out of the way, we could get some major things done,” groused a senior Bush adviser. Like what? he was asked. The adviser paused. “We’re working on that,” he said.
Bush will have plenty of opportunity to show leadership in his preferred arena, foreign policy. War in the Middle East may have created a sudden chance for peace, if the Arabs and Israelis can see their way clear of tedious enmity. But the region has been a graveyard of diplomacy. The collapse of the Soviet Union could pose problems that even General Schwarzkopf couldn’t solve. The next two years are far more likely to produce mushy compromises or paralysis than quick and clean military victories. Americans will soon enough relearn the limits of power. Already, pundits are warning against incipient “triumphalism.”
Washington will no doubt return to normal. Briefly chastened, the press will carp again, the leakers will leak, the special interests will continue to slice up the pie. The nation’s problems will be addressed only fitfully and sometimes wrongly. But for a moment last week, the nattering and knifing stopped, replaced by a kind of awed surprise–and gratitude.
