Monday, July 6, 2020

A review of PBS’s “George W. Bush” (American Experience)



“A year ago, my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my vice president had shot someone … Those were the good old days.”

– George W. Bush, in a series of jokes at a White House dinner (28 March 2007)

To begin with, this documentary is a hatchet job …

I normally love documentaries, and have watched more than a hundred of them. This included many about American presidents, and I wanted to add this one to the list. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a hatchet job, with extreme left-wing bias. It is so biased, in fact, as to be factually inaccurate, in ways that I shall describe below.


George W. Bush

Actually, Bush did win Florida in the year 2000, and the recounts were fraudulent …

Their coverage of his personal life has a modicum of sympathy, despite their extensive coverage of his drinking. But when they get to his political life, their bias becomes clear. This starts even before they get to the 2000 presidential elections, but ramps up even more when they get to that particular election. For example, when discussing the hanging chads, PBS asserts that there were “incorrectly marked” ballots – and more specifically, “imperfectly cast ballots, holes that hadn’t been fully punched through, lines that hadn’t been fully connected” (to quote their exact words). It would seem that the holes hadn’t been “fully punched through” because these voters didn’t want them to be, and that the lines hadn’t been “fully connected” because that’s not what these voters had intended. Thus, the Democrats modified these “imperfectly cast,” “incorrectly marked” ballots after the fact, by “fully punch[ing] through” these holes and “fully connect[ing]” these lines, to make them “correct” – a shady move, if ever there was one. The bottom line with these recounts was that they were fraudulent, and were stopped by the Supreme Court because of their flagrant disregard for laws and regulations.


Al Gore

Ironically, Bush’s lead actually went up during one of the recounts (which they omit)

It is still argued today that George W. Bush was a “Supreme-Court-appointed president.” To some extent, this point of view is echoed in this documentary (although I believe they don’t use the word “appointed” here). But the Supreme Court did not “appoint” him – they just stopped the seemingly endless series of recounts, all of which had resulted in leads for Mr. Bush of one margin or another. They ignore the fact that his lead actually increased when overseas absentee ballots were counted, which were predominantly American servicemen that were pro-Bush. They are right that his lead narrowed at times, but it also widened at least once, when the aforementioned military ballots were counted. (See the footnote to this blog post, for further details on this.) They also say that his $1.3 trillion tax cut was “mostly for the wealthy” (or words to that effect), ignoring the fact that the wealthy pay a disproportionate share of the taxes, and can create jobs for the poor when not hampered from doing so by excessive taxation.


“Butterfly ballot,” from the 2000 presidential recounts in Florida

Was it really possible for Bush to prevent 9/11? (In a word, no … )

They argue that he “failed to prevent” the 9/11 terrorist attacks (or words to that effect), showing a pre-9/11 government memo about Osama bin Laden planning to “attack” us as evidence. But they show nothing in this document that specifies the time and place for the future attack, the method with which the terrorists planned to carry it out, or any other information that could have enabled Bush to “stop” 9/11 before it happened. One presumes that PBS did not have such evidence, since they didn’t produce any here. I put these kinds of conspiracy theories on the same level as those that allege FDR to have “allowed” Pearl Harbor to happen, “sacrificing” the American fleet to get us into a war with Japan. To call these theories bogus would be extremely charitable, and I will not dignify them with a full response here.


Terrorist attack on World Trade Center – New York City, 9/11

Their assertion that we should have asked the Taliban to “turn over” bin Laden …

They say that he failed to engage in “diplomacy,” and further imply that we should have just asked the Taliban to “turn over” bin Laden, and “kick al-Qaeda out of the country” (or words to that effect). By that logic, we should have just asked Imperial Japan to “turn over” the masterminds of the Pearl Harbor attack, ignoring the role that their government played in these attacks. One’s diplomacy is not taken very seriously, if they allow such a brazen and blatant attack to go unpunished. In the real world of international relations, good intentions only get you so far, and should not be seen as a substitute for swift and decisive retaliation against any who dare to attack us on our own soil. Allowing such things to go unpunished is a sign of weakness (if not outright cowardice), and would have been a real possibility had Al Gore been elected instead of Bush. Such an outcome would have been disastrous, in my opinion, and is one of a number of reasons that my teenage self would have voted for Bush, if I had been of age to do so.


Osama bin Laden

What evidence do they have that Bush felt he “failed” the American people during 9/11?

One of their talking heads even says that Bush felt he “failed” the American people, by “allowing” 9/11 to happen on his watch (or words to that effect). It’s amazing how many of their talking heads seem to be endowed with mind-reading abilities, that enable them to speak with such “authority” about his inner thoughts and motivations. Here I thought only gods had that kind of power. There are a few people who claim to have actually heard him say certain things, but you can only do so much with hearsay evidence, and much of what they claim doesn’t even have hearsay status. They just assume that they know what was in his mind. For example, one wonders how they have such godlike insights into his motivations for going to war, and what was going on in his mind (among other things). Given that they dismissed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq on “hearsay” grounds, one wonders why they felt so comfortable relying extensively on hearsay evidence (or worse) in this program.


George W. Bush at Ground Zero, three days after the 9/11 attacks

Actually, the attacks on John Kerry by his former Vietnam comrades were accurate …

When covering John Kerry, they argue that the Swift Boat ads against him have the “aura” of Bush’s campaign about them, but produce no evidence to substantiate any connections to the Bush campaign. Even if they had come from the Bush campaign, though, I would not be scandalized by this, because (quite frankly) the attacks were pretty much all true. All of the evidence suggests that these ads came from others besides Bush, though, many of whom had served with John Kerry in the Vietnam War. John Kerry’s verbal attacks on fellow soldiers after Vietnam were both shameful and disgraceful. They did not vouch for his status as a true “war hero” (as PBS calls him), or as someone who told the truth about fellow Vietnam veterans.


John Kerry verbally attacks fellow Vietnam veterans

The protections of the Geneva Convention only applied to those fighting on behalf of a government, not to terrorists …

PBS argues that his use of enhanced interrogation techniques actually violated the Geneva Convention, when the cited protections of the Geneva Convention only applied to people fighting on behalf of a government. Thus, they did not apply to the captured terrorists from Iraq and Afghanistan – or at least, they didn’t apply until the Supreme Court later said they did. The interrogations of captured terrorists were thus entirely lawful at the time, not to mention necessary to save American lives. They argue that “enhanced interrogation techniques” damaged the American cause, because of the specific abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison. But the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not representative of American soldiers, or even of American interrogators. Other uses of “enhanced interrogation techniques” helped the American cause in many ways, by obtaining information that was needed to save American lives. For example, some of the information obtained by the Bush administration was later used by the Obama administration to kill Osama bin Laden. (Source: Washington Post column from 30 April 2012) The Obama administration does deserve some credit for the killing of bin Laden, but some of the credit should also go to the Bush administration, for laying the groundwork for it in the earlier years of the war.


Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay play soccer

The housing crisis was caused by the Democratic Congress, as was the 2008 recession …

They essentially blame him for the housing crisis, and for the 2008 recession. To quote PBS’s words here, people were able to get a loan even when they “didn’t have to have any income or any assets, and [they] could still get a mortgage” (to quote their exact words). They don’t go into the Democrats’ role in creating this situation with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or the role of their victory in the 2006 midterm elections. In my opinion, the Democratic Congress deserves the blame for this, not Mr. Bush. The crisis happened shortly after the Democratic Congress took office in 2007, and happened more than 6 years after the first inauguration of Mr. Bush.


United States Capitol

Actually, Bush did not “start” the war in Afghanistan (as they say he did)

They actually criticize him for withdrawing troops from Iraq, and then criticize him for not withdrawing troops from Iraq – an obvious self-contradiction, if ever there was one. They assert that “Bush never got the democracy in Iraq that he envisioned,” despite all the evidence of history to the contrary. Iraq’s democracy was actually thriving, despite all the efforts of liberals to paint it as otherwise. They also make the argument that the elections of 2008 were “a verdict on the Iraq war,” which is debatable at best. Conservatism was not on the ballot in the general elections of 2008, because Republicans had a moderate candidate named John McCain who did not excite his base. Conservatives lost the election in the Republican primary, before the general election had even started. But one of the most inaccurate claims they make is the claim that we are “still fighting two wars he had started,” as though Afghanistan and al-Qaeda had not attacked us at the Twin Towers. It is hard to understand how they could have concluded that “he” started the war in Afghanistan, which is essentially what they said in this quote.


Conclusion: This may be the most biased documentary I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen more than 100

So this documentary is a hatchet job, from the moment that they start to cover his political life through the end of it. In my opinion, it was also made too soon after the events of his presidency to be very objective about it. Greater distance would have been needed to give a modicum of objectivity. I watched this documentary to get the liberal version of the Bush presidency; and in this, I was not disappointed. But if you’re after a more accurate version of the Bush presidency, you won’t find it in this film. As I said earlier, this documentary is so biased as to be factually inaccurate, and unworthy of an otherwise good network like PBS. It may actually be the most biased documentary I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen more than a hundred, so that’s really saying something.

Footnote: Problems with recounts during the presidential elections of 2000

A number of Democrats challenged the legality of absentee ballots from American soldiers serving overseas, whose being counted increased the lead of Mr. Bush (at least somewhat). These arguments ranged from the votes being cast too late, to their arriving without proper “postmarks.” Some months after the election, the New York Times asked Gary King, whom they call “a Harvard expert on voting patterns and statistical models,” what would have happened had the overseas military ballots been discarded. Even he estimated that there was “only a slight chance” that discarding these ballots would have made Mr. Gore the winner, according to the New York Times article about it from 15 July 2001.

Even the New York Times study said that it “found no evidence of vote fraud by either party” (despite the aforementioned fraudulent nature of many of the Democrats’ recounts). The article also notes that the investigation “found no support for the suspicions of Democrats that the Bush campaign had organized an effort to solicit late votes.” (Source: The New York Times, 15 July 2001) Later, even Gore’s running mate Joe Lieberman went on “Meet the Press” to say that Florida should reconsider its rejection of military ballots (which would have been overwhelmingly pro-Bush). Nonetheless, a number of liberals continue to label the military ballots as “illegal” (including the New York Times article cited above). This is ironic, given that a number of Democrats defended absentee votes from non-citizens that would have been largely pro-Gore. How they defend the legality of these votes from non-citizens, while challenging that of American soldiers serving overseas, is very difficult for me to understand.

Liberals have repeated their version of these elections so fervently and so often, that the truth has become buried in a sea of embellishments, distortions, and even flat-out falsehoods (to put it bluntly). Ironically, the facts of these particular elections incriminate the Democrats far more than anyone else. It is ironic that they continue to call such attention to it, when their own guilt stands out so prominently to anyone who examines the more interesting truth of the matter.


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