Who knew that George W. Bush had such powers over the natural world? According to some pundits, Hurricane Katrina was Bush’s fault, as was the tsunami in Indonesia and now – if you believe James Ridgeway in Mother Jones – that Bush’s policy is responsible for the devastating effects of the 7.5 earthquake that decimated the poor country of Haiti.
But during the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency, we could depend on such ridiculous musings as Mr. Ridgeway displayed. I haven’t done enough research to determine if Bush was the most reviled president in our nation’s history – that might well have been Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President — but it’s not that hard to figure out that his coverage by the media was historically the most relentlessly hostile.
I first started writing my op-ed columns during the Clinton administration and while I may have disagreed with most of his policies I never stooped to the insulting, vitriolic language routinely leveled at President Bush. What also amazed me was the lack of outrage by the president and his administration officials. There is always the possibility that I might have missed their fury because the mainstream media was unlikely to report anything other than leftist propaganda. But I was a columnist for the only New York newspaper that covered Bush honestly and without bias from 2002 to 2008, when we died as a print publication.
The late, great New York Sun had headline stories reporting on the WMDs secreted out of Iraq. Its editorials were generally supportive of the president except when he swerved from conservative principles. In all matters, however, he was treated with respect.
I was assigned to the New York section of the paper, so my subjects were restricted to local interests but I tried to cover issues that revealed the leftwing distance from the war on terror and the growing amnesia of what happened on 9/11.
On January, 2007 I received and email from a certain Tim Goeglin that read “Your Columns are outstanding. I had no idea who he was but the address had a .gov in it so I asked him where he worked. He answered the “White House.” Seems that Mr. Goeglin was a special assistant to the president and yes, I know he resigned in 2008 after admitting to plagiarism. Nevertheless, it was interesting to know that the president did read the New York Sun. According to Herb London, who was a regular visitor to the White House, The Sun was read by all every morning. Then why didn’t the White House utilize this publication to make its side of the issues public? We could have used more direct access and for goodness sake, how many other female Puerto Rican columnists represented the right wing? Besides me, none. I’ve written for El Diario recently and could have advised him how to reach the minority communities more effectively than the Democrat Party ever could.
Republicans have always been somewhat dense about marketing themselves. Perhaps the Bushes are too patrician and actually believe that their messages get through to the salt of the earth voters. No way when the entire media is geared up in full armor to destroy you. I summed it up in a column I wrote back in 2004:
I watched our president being grilled this Sunday by Tim Russert on “Meet the Press.” Mr. Bush is admittedly not very telegenic. He is not glib. Words do not mellifluously flow from his lips. He tends to “er” and “umm” a lot. He is a good man, a decent man, and when Mr. Russert brought up the ridiculous charge of the National Guard again, his response was, “It’s fine to go after me, which I expect the other side will do. I wouldn’t denigrate service to the Guard, though, and the reason I wouldn’t, is because there are a lot of really fine people who served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq.
The trouble with both Bushes, pere et fils, is that they are too patrician. I would dearly have loved to see Dubya belt Mr. Russert during the hour-long inquisition for wasting his valuable time over the same dumb questions.
Oh that would have been a joy to watch.