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APOCALYPSE AMERICA
Doubts grow over Dubya
From Daniel Jeffreys
IN NEW YORK
THERE have
been many things missing in New York this week but one of the most notable,
until yesterday, has been President Bush.
The absence has made New Yorkers angry - a feeling that may soon spread to
the rest of the country. So far the President, nicknamed Dubya, has received a
90 per cent approval rating for his handling of the crisis, but in the days
ahead Bush will face unique challenges. It is performance so far does not
inspire confidence.
His first address, from a school in Florida, revealed a man who was more
apprehensive than deleted.
U.S. columnist Mary McGrory captured the mood of many when she wrote: 'Bush
wore the deer-in-the-headlights expression made famous by his father's hapless
deputy, Dan Quayle. On a day when Americans needed to look up to a national
father figure, they got the dauphin son apparently scared out of his wits.'
Bush’s performance was not helped by the fact he uses words as if they are
unfamiliar objects which might be dangerous.
In his Florida statement he made the error of referring to the terrorists as
‘these folks’, as if the men who had bombed New York and the country's defence
headquarters were people who had decided to have a barbecue in the wrong place.
Phrasing like this, and there are many other examples, undermines the needed
Presidential gravitas. Hi is in danger of giving the impression of being just a
figurehead for a White House controlled by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Bush’s failings were vividly displayed as Tuesday's awful catastrophe wore
on. Instead of making haste back to Washington where he could have sent a
defiant message to the terrorists that he was fully in control, Bush allowed
himself to be sent on a lengthy tour around America's far-flung military bases.
While New York firefighters were diving into the inferno, Bush was racing
equally fast to rural Louisiana.
The administration has claimed the rambling flight of Air Force One was
dictated by a Secret Service concerned for Bush’s safety. This is, at best, a
fig leaf of a defence.
The message it sends is that America felt incapable of protecting its
commander-in-chief except by hiding him in a Nebraska air force bunker.
When he did arrive, Bush stepped off the presidential helicopter silently and
alone, as if unable to think of anything to say. Because of security concerns he
then entered the White House through a side entrance like a hesitant salesman.
His return conveyed no sense of a great leader grasping the reins of
power.
MATTERS have not improved much since then. His address to the nation was
uninspired. The TV networks made the extra mistake of putting the President on
air 20 seconds before he began to speak.
Bush could have begun to mend his mistakes had he finished his address with a
declaration that he was leaving the White House immediately for New York. By
then, with all U.S. commercial aircraft grounded, any danger was past. Instead,
Bush lingered in the White House and became largely unavailable.
By dallying, the Bush administration had to watch with barely suppressed
anger as former President Clinton beat his successor to the attack site by a
full 32 hours. That, of course, served to underline the huge difference between
the skills possessed by the two men.
Clinton would never have let himself be buried by his own Secret Service. He
would have made the suffering of New Yorkers his own and would have thus sent a
much clearer message of impending retaliation to the terrorists.
On Thursday, Bush made two widely televised appearances and in each one he
seem to be at something of a loss.On the first occasion he began to cry when
asked if he was praying for guidance.
Tears are no bad thing in a leader at a time like this but, if they were to
be shed, it have been on the ground in New York where they could have lent some
immediacy to the nation’s grief. Getting weepy in the Oval Office just
reinforced the impression that the inexperienced President felt lost and
overwhelmed.
Terrorists and their supporters must have been delighted to see the leader of
the free world so diminished.
In his second appearance, Bush allowed himself to be filmed talking with New
York's Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Governor George Pataki by phone, like a World War
I general who has no desire to be near the Front. This encounter, in which Bush
stumbled over his words and groped for ways of expressing his solidarity, merely
served to emphasise the distance between the President and the people who had
suffered most from the attack. Bush could learn much from the behaviour of Mayor
Giuliani, one of the few politicians whose national standing has been vastly
elevated events of this dreadful week.
FROM the start, Giuliani, himself trapped for 20 agonising minutes in one of
the World Trade Centre's neighbouring buildings, has been ever present, his
dust-streaked face embodying the grief of New Yorkers and their determination
not to be beaten down.
Whereas much about Bush’s performance suggested an uncertainty about how to
strike the appropriate posture, Giuliani conveyed steely determination wrapped
around a heart of pure gold.
Bush came to the White House with no experience of foreign policy, a narrow
education, a history of alcoholism and occasional meltdowns under pressure. All
of these weaknesses, except a fondness for the bottle, have been revealed hi the
last four days.
The terrorists chose to strike when America was in the hands of a man who has
fewer resources of leadership than most recent presidents.
Bush may yet recover from his mistakes this week. He must become the leader
America needs if it is to create a global coalition against terror and
re-establish its dented authority.
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