The Phone-It-In President

Seems like it was only 8 years ago that Bill Clinton had Israel’s Ehud Barak and Palestinian Yasser Arafat at Camp David to try to settle up their decades-long differences in the waning days of his term of office. Now, with a year left to go on our nation’s sentence of Bush’s presidency, with his tenure’s wane getting a big head-start on his predecessor’s, Bush is trying to pull the same rabbit out of his hat.

Couple things bug me about this. For starters, one of Bush’s first foreign policy pronouncements après inauguration in early 2001 was that the U.S. was stepping out of the Israel/Palestine peace process. It was a big, fat loser for that unwholesome philanderer Bill Clinton only the summer before, and Team Bush decided not to invest what scant political capital they had ‘earned’ in the bitterly-contested election they had just barely survived on anything that was less than, well, a slam-dunk. So middle-east peace wasn’t just back-burnered, it was off the stove. And Clinton’s failed effort was the source of much derisive sniggering from the neocon geniuses who had recently inherited the mantle of power in DC.

Then 9/11 occurred, and suddenly the middle east looked a whole lot more interesting to the administration and the neocons running it behind the scenes. Not bringing peace to the middle east, but opening up a can of good old American whup-ass on it. Israel and Palestine were still left to their own devices (my guess: not enough oil there, nor dictators who had besmirched the good name of Bush by failing to be overthrown by W’s daddy when he had the chance in Gulf War I), but oh man, was it on with Iraq! Yippee-kiyo-kiyay, motherfucker! John McClane Diplomacy at its very finest!

But as I said, now with Bush’s approval numbers at record lows for months on end with no let-up in sight, some clever lad (or lassie) has had the bright idea to once again try to bring the bloody Israel/Palestine impasse to an end. After all, what has Bush got to lose? Like Clinton post-impeachment, Bush is looking hard at his legacy. And with even less to lose than Clinton – who, in spite of his impeachment, rolled out of office with approval numbers in the 60%s – he’s decided to go for the Hail Mary pass. If he fails, so what? So has everyone else since the establishment of the state of Israel after WWII. And if he pulls off the miracle, which is what it would take, maybe he can goose his numbers just enough to not leave office a total historical failure.

Here’s the other thing that boils me about this story, though, and it’s not just that Bush mispronounced both the foreign leaders’ names from the podium at their brief photo-op:

Whereas President Clinton’s efforts were characterized by a marathon of late-night, all-night, hands-on presidential arm-twisting and personal, 24/7 involvement on Mr. Clinton’s behalf, Bush flew in to the summit for two hours yesterday for an exceptionally awkwardly-staged photo-op (above), then high-tailed it back to the oval office, leaving the hard work of diplomacy to the hired hands. The Secretary of State, to be sure, but this is the same person (Ms Rice) who ignored the import of the PDB entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike within the U.S.” a month before 9/11, and occasionally misspeaks by referring to Bush as her husband. In terms of people who consistently don’t have their eyes on the prize, Ms Rice rates most highly.

But mostly, as usual, it’s the hypocrisy that motivates me to vent. The same idea (peace between the Itchy and Scratchy of the middle east) that was anathema to W when it was Bill Clinton’s end-term agenda is now the sole chunk of driftwood Bush is desperately clinging to in the ocean of bad calls, missteps and missed opportunities that characterize his presidency in a vain attempt to rehabilitate his train wreck of a legacy. And to add insult to the injury, he’s not even involving himself personally, he’s phoning it in, leaving the real work to the same clueless dolts who allowed 9/11 to occur on his watch.

Peace between Israel and Palestine? Not very likely, especially with the Keystone Diplomatic Corps in charge. Like his megaphone moment in the wake of 9/11, like his Blue-Light post-Katrina address to the nation, this “effort” is just another photo-op for Bush to fly in and out of between bike rides with Lance Armstrong. And checking the days off his calendar till January 20 next year. Come on, rubber-chicken circuit!

At least on that last point, the president and I can find common ground. Which, regrettably, is more than we can reasonably hope to accomplish with Condi’s efforts with Olmert and Abbas.