{"id":13505,"date":"2019-04-22T13:05:57","date_gmt":"2019-04-22T17:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=13505"},"modified":"2024-09-11T16:11:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T20:11:59","slug":"george-h-w-bushs-forgotten-debacles-and-demagoguery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/22\/george-h-w-bushs-forgotten-debacles-and-demagoguery\/","title":{"rendered":"George H.W. Bush’s Forgotten Debacles and Demagoguery"},"content":{"rendered":"

George H.W. Bush’s Forgotten Debacles and Demagoguery<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

After former President George H.W. Bush died late last year, he was widely hailed as a great leader and patriot. At the National Cathedral funeral service, biographer Jon Meachan declared that Bush was a \u201ctwentieth-century Founding Father.\u201d The minister of Bush\u2019s church in Houston compared him to Jesus. Bush\u2019s gentlemanly manners were lauded by many people outraged by President Trump\u2019s behavior. But there was far more Trump-like demagoguery and conniving during Bush\u2019s presidency than most Americans remember.<\/p>\n

Bush was the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover. Like Trump, he spoke of the need for \u201clevel playing fields\u201d and \u201cfair trade.\u201d But Bush-style fairness gave federal bureaucrats practically endless vetoes over Americans\u2019 freedom to choose foreign goods. Bush\u2019s Commerce Department ravaged importers with one bureaucratic scam after another, using the anti-dumping law to convict 97 percent of imports investigated, claiming that their prices were unfairly low to American producers (not consumers). Japanese auto makers were convicted after Commerce bureaucrats compared the price of used cars sold in Japan with the price of new cars sold by the Japanese companies in America. Used cars were cheaper, so the Japanese were guilty of dumping. The Commerce Department compared the price of small kiwis from New Zealand sold abroad with the price of imported large kiwis sold here. The smaller kiwis were cheaper and that proved the foreigners were dastards, with no thought for American consumers.<\/p>\n

Bush also ordered the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate after ice cream imports threatened to exceed 1 percent of the U.S. market. (American companies realize that foreign names have more cachet, which is why New Jersey-based H\u00e4agen-Dazs did not name its product after Newark.) Bush also perpetuated import quotas on steel and machine tools, undermining the competitiveness of American manufacturers who needed access to the best building materials in the world.<\/p>\n

While Bush declared that trade was the key to spreading prosperity to poorer nations, he slapped new textile import quotas on Nigeria, Indonesia, Egypt, the Philippines, Burma, Costa Rica, Panama, Pakistan, and many other nations. Mexico was allowed to sell Americans only 35,292 bras in 1989 \u2014 part of a byzantine regime that also restricted imports of tampons, typing ribbons, tarps, twine, table linen, tapestries, ties, and thousands of other products. A 1989 White House report concluded that the trade restrictions added 50 percent to the price of imported clothing.<\/p>\n

Though Bush called for a \u201ckinder, gentler\u201d nation while campaigning for the presidency in 1988, he turned federal drug policy into a holy war, demonizing drug users while hailing DEA agents as America\u2019s \u201cgreatest freedom fighters.\u201d Thanks in part to Bush\u2019s tub-thumping, drug arrests surged by 200,000 in the first year of his presidency. His choice for drug czar, Bill Bennett, had no problem with beheading drug dealers, while his administration began deluging law enforcement with surplus military equipment that would lead to no-knock-raid and wrongful-killing disasters around the nation in the following decades.<\/p>\n

The Bush administration turbo-charged asset forfeiture, spurring seizures of private property on the slightest pretexts from individuals who were never convicted of crimes. Federal seizures of private property rose 300 percent during the Bush presidency. Abuses became so widespread that a September 1992 Justice Department internal newsletter lamented, \u201cLike children in a candy shop, the law enforcement community chose all manner and method of seizing and forfeiting property, gorging ourselves in an effort which soon came to resemble one designed to raise revenues.\u201d Despite media expos\u00e9s of gross injustices, the forfeiture juggernaut continues ravaging the rights of innocent Americans decades later and spurring delusions of absolute power in law enforcement. At a recent Supreme Court hearing, Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher even asserted that forfeiture laws entitle police to confiscate any car going more than five miles over the speed limit.<\/p>\n

Being \u201cinclusive\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bush was posthumously praised for his \u201cinclusive rhetoric\u201d but his drug war converted low-income Americans into third-class citizens. In a Supreme Court case, Bush\u2019s Solicitor General Ken Starr effectively championed police sweeps and warrantless searches of interstate bus passengers for illicit drugs. Police would order a bus driver to lock down a bus and then go down the aisle demanding that passengers open their bags for inspection. The Florida Supreme Court had compared such sweeps to Nazi and Soviet abuses but the Bush administration swayed the Supreme Court to define down the freedom of Americans who could afford nothing better than a Trailways ticket.<\/p>\n

Bush pushed into law one of the most intrusive and self-defeating paternalist laws of modern times. Bush said the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 \u201ccalls upon the best in the American people.\u201d The badly written ADA \u2014 also known as Attorneys\u2019 Dreams Answered \u2014 proved a disaster at helping the disabled find work. It converted disabilities into legal assets, thus spurring the proliferation of disability claims on college campuses by students seeking special treatments or waivers (25 percent of students at some schools now claim some type of disability) and the profusion of therapy animals on airplanes and elsewhere. Many ADA edicts defy common sense, such as the ban on a Los Angeles strip joint from having a shower stall on its stage. Because the stall was not wheelchair-accessible, the business supposedly discriminated against disabled women \u2014 even though no wheelchair-bound strippers applied for work.<\/p>\n

Bush promised \u201ckinder, gentler\u201d policies but his administration chose bragging over benevolence. The Job Training Partnership Act (co-authored in 1982 by Sen. Dan Quayle) was a favorite applause line for administration officials, supposedly proving their concern for youth, low-income households, and minorities. But the Labor Department covered up the law\u2019s dismal failure, long delaying release of a report revealing that the JTPA was such a boondoggle that it actually decreased the earnings of male trainees. But the program was a windfall for businesses that received lavish subsidies to train employees they would have trained regardless, so corporate America continued cheering.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s contempt for property rights spawned legal brawls that continue to our time. In 1988, presidential candidate Bush declared that \u201call existing wetlands, no matter how small, should be preserved\u201d and promised \u201cno net loss\u201d of wetlands if elected president. After he took office, federal bureaucrats unveiled a new definition of wetlands that swept nearly 100 million acres of additional private land under federal control. Bad faith permeated enforcement: bureaucrats relied on \u201cthe glancing geese\u201d standard \u2014 if migrating birds glanced down and considered stopping at a water hole, then that land became involved in interstate commerce and thus fell under federal jurisdiction. Since many landowners could not afford to fight the world\u2019s largest law firm \u2014 the U.S. Justice Department \u2014 that type of bunkum sufficed to make people submit. The Justice Department and private landowners are still squabbling almost 30 years later, thanks in part to Bush\u2019s grandstanding on the issue.<\/p>\n

After he died, Bush was portrayed as a responsible, judicious ruler. But that hagiography ignores his de facto demolition of the work of Special Counsel Lawrence Walsh. On Christmas Eve 1992, Bush pardoned six Reagan administration officials for their roles in the Iran-Contra Affair, the illegal arms-for-hostage deal that blighted the final years of the Reagan presidency. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was scheduled to go on trial two weeks later on charges of lying to Congress.<\/p>\n

Walsh denounced the pardons as part of a \u201ccover-up\u201d and said that they undermined his investigation of possible criminal conduct by Bush himself. Walsh also reported that Bush\u2019s pardons prevented Bush from having to testify in court and face \u201csearching questions\u201d on his own conduct. Bush\u2019s pardons greatly reduced the likelihood that his co-conspirators would ever turn state\u2019s evidence against him. If Walsh\u2019s investigation had led to Bush\u2019s conviction, the Bush brand name might have been sufficiently damaged that his son would not have captured the presidency in 2000.<\/p>\n

The Iraq War<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably Bush\u2019s biggest folly was the Gulf War against Iraq. Bush said that that America had to restore Kuwait\u2019s \u201crightful leaders to their place.\u201d Why should Americans care which Arab dictators control which patches of sand? The United States had previously been arming and bankrolling Saddam Hussein \u2014 so he was probably surprised when the United States flipped on him. The Bush administration pushed bushels of falsehoods to spur public support for the war.<\/p>\n

At Bush\u2019s funeral, eulogists heaped praise on his supposedly lofty character. But nobody mentioned how he betrayed the Kurds in 1991, encouraging them to revolt and then abandoning them to Saddam\u2019s brutal crackdown. New York Times columnist William Safire scoffed, \u201cWhen our troops come home to a ticker-tape parade, perhaps room can be found for a small float carrying maimed Kurdish refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the Gulf War ended, Bush decided that the U.S. government and its allies had the right to permanently blockade Iraq \u2014 putting a stranglehold on their imports of food, medicine, and other items. Since the Iraqi people failed to overthrow Saddam, they did not deserve to eat, right? Vast numbers of Iraqis died as a result \u2014 but none of their survivors attended or spoke at Bush\u2019s funeral service.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s postwar dictates on Iraq helped sow perpetual conflict and paved the way to his son\u2019s 2003 invasion of Iraq. That part of the world has been an even bigger mess since then. Plenty of Washington whiz kids are now claiming the United States must intervene to take down Iran. But Iraq was containing Iran just fine before the U.S. government pulverized that nation.<\/p>\n

Given this disastrous record, why was the older Bush idolized after his death? One clue came from the funeral tribute from the former senator Alan Simpson. Simpson portrayed Bush as a hero for betraying his most important campaign pledge in the 1988 presidential race \u2014 his \u201cread my lips \u2014 no new taxes\u201d promise. The Washington establishment loved that riff \u2014 since that tax hike helped shore up Leviathan and signaled the end of Reagan-era anti-government rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s son George, the 43rd president, also spoke at the funeral service and declared that his father was \u201cno cynic.\u201d But George Herbert Walker Bush\u2019s betrayals on his tax pledge and his debacles at home and abroad turned millions of other Americans into cynics. Perhaps that is the most positive legacy of his one-term presidency.<\/p>\n

Democracy cannot afford to deify deceased presidents whose precedents pose continuing perils<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published in the March 2019 edition of Future of Freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George H.W. Bush’s Forgotten Debacles and Demagoguery by James Bovard After former President George H.W. Bush died late last year, he was widely hailed as a great leader and patriot. 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Bush was compared to Jesus and George Washington at his funeral but he was a typical demagogic president with a tawdry record","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/22\/george-h-w-bushs-forgotten-debacles-and-demagoguery\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/22\/george-h-w-bushs-forgotten-debacles-and-demagoguery\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/22\/george-h-w-bushs-forgotten-debacles-and-demagoguery\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/ffflogo.gif","contentUrl":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/ffflogo.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/22\/george-h-w-bushs-forgotten-debacles-and-demagoguery\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"George H.W. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13505"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20452,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13505\/revisions\/20452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}