Daddy to the Rescue

Posted on November 13, 2006

The lead article in Newsweek examines the return of Bush 41, as Daddy steps in to fix his son's foreign policy fiasco. And I, for one, say that it's about time. Bush, Sr. has always despised Donald Rumsfeld -- since the Ford administration, according to Newsweek -- and now Rummy is gone. James Baker is heading a commission which has the job of figuring out what the heck to do next in Iraq. Bush Sr.'s former CIA Director Robert M. Gates has been named to take over for Rummy at the Pentagon. Gates has a reputation of being a hard-headed pragmatist when it comes to foreign policy. He is no neocon, that's for sure.

The American people, as politicians like to say, spoke last week -- and spoke in no uncertain terms. The 2006 vote does not suggest an eagerness for a sharp left turn. It seems, rather, to be a plea for a shift from the hard right of the neoconservatives to the center represented by the old man in Houston. The re-emergence of Iraq Study Group voices such as Baker, Gates and Alan Simpson -- all longtime friends of Bush Senior -- is not unlike the entrance of Fortinbras at the conclusion of "Hamlet." These are 41's men, and the removal of Rumsfeld-an ancient rival of Bush Senior's from the Ford days -- is a move toward the broad middle. The apparent triumph of pragmatism over ideology on Iraq was welcome news, at least to the public. In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, 67 percent favor Bush Senior's internationalist approach to foreign policy over his son's more unilateral course.
Did 41 help bring Gates to the Pentagon? The White House denies it, but, as a Bush friend told NEWSWEEK, "his fingerprints are all over this." (The friend refused to be identified for fear of alienating the family.) Given the mists of secrecy that envelop the 41-43 relationship, it is striking that the broad Bush circle believes he had a hand in the Rumsfeld succession: as an old CIA director, 41 rarely leaves any clues at all.

I've been saying for years that history will treat Bush, Sr. much more favorably than he was treated when he was president. In fact, he's starting to look like a foreign policy genius for refusing to invade Iraq at the end of the Gulf War. We are in desperate need of that kind of internationalist thinking.

But is there still time for Daddy to save the day and clean up Jr.'s mess in Iraq? Let's hope so.