George W. Bush is a transformational leader. He's willing to take big risks to make big changes. Unlike most modern presidents - Ronald Reagan the notable exception - Bush is in high office not so much to be something as to do something. [...] In contrast to transformational leaders are transitional leaders - those who keep their desk tidy, make managerial decisions, and leave few footprints.
Who'da thunk it! Certainly not this Democrat in 2000! But Adelman was right - 100% right. Clinton was merely a mediocre transitional president. While Bush is transforming more than just foreign policy, the Middle East, and the GWOT - he's taking on long-standing domestic crises as well: Social Security; Medicare; taxes; immigration. He's proposing BOLD policies based on unshakeable FAITH in basic values and universal human rights, and employing them with great CONFIDENCE, if not RESOLUTENESS.
It may take forever for those afflicted with BDS to realize it or accept it, but he's ALREADY a great president!
What is it with the Left, anyhow - that makes them so impervious to the obvious!? Is it merely partisanship!? I dunno, maybe they just need some... perspective. That reminds me: I recently hitched a ride with a Leftie who was STILL BASHING NIXON (I forget why)! I offered a rebuttal to his view - and to what has become CONVENTIONAL WISDOM - that Nixon was bad. I gave him this simple recitation:
"In barely over four years in office Nixon ended the Vietnam War, ended the draft, invented detente and signed an arms limitation treaty with the USSR - and the ABM treaty, opened China, founded the EPA and passed the Clean Air Clean Water Act, tried the bold (and ill-conceived) Wage & Price Controls, made two extraordinary SCOTUS appointments, and realigned the national parties with his southern strategy. So say what you will about the man's obvious "partisan paranoia" (and I mean Watergate - which was NUTS! Heck: he would thrashed McGovern without a single dirty trick!) - Nixon was a transformational president whose good accomplishments have greatly improved the USA and the world in ways we are still benefiting from! What great things did Clinton do in EIGHT YEARS!?"
My friend nodded. He'd never realized - or accepted before how much good Nixon had accomplished, how many bold and important moves he'd made in just four years. The perspective - the distance of 30 years had allowed him to be OBJECTIVE. He had to admit it: Nixon HAD done invaluably great things (and a few bold bad things - like Wage & Price Controls).
And he also had to admit how few great things Clinton had accomplished in EIGHT YEARS: NAFTA, Family Leave, a big tax increase, Kosovo and... what else again? BUT: there sure were big failures, though: Rwandan, Bosnian, and Sudanese genocides; the Somalian debacle; the Haiti debacle; and the Khobar Towers bombings, the 1993 WTC bombing, and the African Embassy bombings, AND THE USS COLE ATTACK ALL UNANSWERED! And Lewinsky. And Impeachment. And shame, shame, shame...
Saying Clinton was "transitional" maybe putting it politely!
So, 30 years from I expect to be having the same type of conversation about Bush 43 with my Leftie friends (if there are still any around!) - and getting the same nods of grudging respect for Bush - God-willing!
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