This week, Slate is featuring a conversation about George Bush's presidency, prompted by Oliver Stone's film W. Participants are Oliver Stone; Bob Woodward, author of The War Within; Ron Suskind, author of The Way of the World; and Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy.
Dear Oliver, Ron, and Bob,
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StumbleUponThanks to the three of you for joining in the discussion. W. arrives at what looks like the end of an era—not just of a disastrous eight-year presidency but arguably of the conservative ascendancy that began in 1980. How the Bush family, which once typified pre-Reagan Republicanism, came to play such a pivotal role in this period is a central part of the story. If we want to understand recent history, we need to understand this unreflective family in a way its members will probably never understand themselves.
Oliver, you'll be glad to hear that I disagree with Ron about your treatment of the father-son relationship. To me, the evidence does show George W. to be engaged in an epic battle with his dad. That Oedipal struggle is at the very heart of his presidency's failure. The son came to define so much of himself—his personality, his religion, his decision-making—in opposition to his father. More important, 43 developed his substantive view of the world by rejecting his father's moderate, diplomatic realism. Seeing his father as a failed president (while at the same time wanting to avenge him), W thought the path to success on issue after issue was to reject 41's choices in favor of 40's. You've lost some nuance along the way, but I think you depict the contours of this vexed relationship accurately.
As promised, I won't waste your time complaining about small inaccuracies and changes made for dramatic effect. I do want to challenge you, however, on two places where your version of events is simply at odds with what we know to be true. The first is your basic interpretation of the Iraq war. A crucial scene in the film takes place in the White House situation room. The key players are all there (including Karl Rove, who would not have been). Colin Powell makes his case against the invasion to no avail. Then, Dick Cheney, played by Richard Dreyfuss, stands in front of an electronic map and delivers a lecture.
America's natural resources are being used up, Cheney says, and most of the world's oil and gas is right here in the Middle East. To remain rich and powerful, we have to exploit Iraq's huge untapped reserves. When challenged on the issue of exit strategy, he replies (if I've got this right—I was taking notes in the dark): "There is no exit strategy. We stay." Once the United States owns Iraq, Cheney declares, we'll be in strategic position to control Iran—"the mother lode." As the map lights up with red dots indicating American bases, he goes on: "Control Iran, control Eurasia, control the world. Empire—real empire. Nobody will fuck with us again!"
Oliver, if you'd played the film as a Dr. Strangelove-style farce, you might have gotten away with this. The scene is one "mwa-ha-ha" cackle from Dreyfuss away from satire. But we're meant to take this seriously. Do you really think Cheney persuaded Bush to go to war so we could get Iraq's oil and then Iran's? And if so, why do you think that?
Another case in point: The film depicts a meeting between George W. and his dad during the 1988 presidential campaign. The son pops the famous Willie Horton ad into the VCR and tells his father that "Karl" says this could win you the election. That's strong stuff, the elder Bush responds. Just make sure no one can connect it to the campaign. George W. says not to worry, they're going to run it through an independent expenditure committee. "Good work, son," the dad says. "You're earning your spurs."
Great scene, except that no one has ever suggested that George W. had anything to do with the Willie Horton ad, no one has ever proved that George H.W. approved it, and Karl Rove had nothing to do with Bush's 1988 campaign at all. If father and son conspired in the way you depict, they would have been guilty of a federal crime, namely evading contribution limits by coordinating with an outside group. I can't prove that this didn't happen. But as far as I know, you have no basis for thinking that it did.
Oliver, I know that you don't want to be thought of as a conspiracy theorist. But these are conspiracy theories with no evidence to support them. So, why did you put them in your movie?
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Movies are all about drama, not history-by-the-books.
Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser get it exactly right by focusing on Bush's character, not on trying to capture the verbatim history of events. There was a lot of good reporting, particularly by Bob Woodward, but no stenographers were in any of the important meetings. Therefore, everything is subject to speculation. And here is where Oliver and Stanley gave a fabulous, real, large, and acutely accurate psychological reading of W. and the events and people who surrounded him.
This film will be studied for generations. Not only is it fair to the subject, "W.", it is also fair to the real, underlying truth of the characters and the events. Which is a major-league accomplishment by the writer and the director. Kudos to both Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone.
--radlib1
(To reply, click here.)
While W's drinking and carrying-on didn't result in him getting fined, tossed in jail, etc., when he did achieve he didn't (literally) get the pat on the back either. Whatever W did was meaningless to him, whether it be crash the car into the front door or get elected to positions of incredible power and status.
--brewcrew2008
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This all reminded me of the reviews I read of one of the biographies of Ronald Reagan, I believe it was "Dutch" by Edmund Morris. After being at Reagan's side for years and interviewing everyone he could who ever met Reagan he couldn't believe what he had found. He learned that Reagan was essentially a stuffed shirt, a kind of empty vessel who, like Bush, was incurious about the world and didn't really know how to fix any problems. But Morris could not believe this. Surely there must be more to Reagan. Thus he chocked it up to Reagan be a mysterious, inscrutable person of endless depth. Despite his closeness to Reagan Morris never found the bottom of the man, at least he couldn't believe that he had. Thus to explain Reagan Morris had to make up stories about Reagan and insert himself into events he wasn't a part of.
Suskind believes that some future writer will get a better and truer grasp of Bush. But if there is nothing else to grasp then Suskind is sounding or acting like Morris.
--doughdee222
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One thing Mr. Woodward left out: yes, it was believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and, yes, we tried to make a case of it. And in the end we were wrong, but let's not forget, Saddam was less than forthcoming until the U.S.A was knocking at his door.
We can get all over the weapons-of-mass-destruction argument and bash Bush, Powell, and all the others who were wrong. But Saddam closed his doors to regular inspections by the U.N. (until the last minute) and kept his entire country under his thumb.
-Pachomius
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A big part of his election campaign in 2000 was that he was the "CEO president" - that he would surround himself with advisers who were experts and would give him advice, and then he would make the decision. A huge problem with a "CEO" president who takes no time to understand any issue is that he is completely dependent on his advisers, and in this case, they were all some combination of delusional, insane, ideologically corrupt, incompetent, or gutless. Of course Bush decided to invade, he was fed information that could only lead him to one conclusion.
And this bit about Bush telling Cheney he's the boss - that had nothing to do with Cheney's control over policy, Bush just didn't want Cheney to appear to be making the decisions, and he wanted Cheney to be deferential to him. The whole Bush presidency was about him looking presidential, and being elected twice, and making big decisions to be remembered by. He had no real plan that he wanted to implement, he just wanted to look like he was in charge, and he didn't want Cheney to alter that perception.
--kgsbca
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The points missing from the discussion are, first, the way people process information, and second, the fact that the political climate at the time created tangible benefits to Bush which disposed him towards war.
Intelligence assessments, the existence or not of WMD, possible links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda--all of the available facts and interpretations of facts available to Bush were heavily laced with ambiguity. When faced with decisions in the presence of even minimal ambiguity, almost no human beings can analyze them completely objectively, and most tend to be strongly disposed to make the interpretation that is most advantageous to them. This happens to all of us to some degree, without our awareness. We will interpret available facts, and even bend them, if necessary, in order to interpret them in a way consistent with our pre-dispositions, without even thinking about it.
Bush is clearly either less able or less willing to set aside his pre-existing beliefs than most people, and most people aren't very good at it. This must be considered against the fact that, during the spring and summer leading up to the Iraq invasion, in a political sense, war was working for Bush and Cheney. […] Although most people agreed that action against the Taliban in Afghanistan was justified, many doubted whether it would be effective. However, by early in 2002, the skeptics looked wrong. […] It was a huge political success for Bush at the time, and defining himself as The Anti-terrorist became the strategy used to help Republicans gain in the 2002 elections.
I don't know if Weisberg is right that a decision was made to go to war in Iraq in mid 2002. But a psychology disposed toward war was strongly entrenched, and continued to be further fortified by the political advantage the Republicans gained from exploiting the conflict. The result may well have been that no single over-riding reason was needed. Between all of the players involved, a group-think took over in which each could assemble their own justifications from a long list of possibilities.
When you have a democracy governed by a collective dominated by a group-think that has been re-enforced by tangible benefits to the leaders resulting their interpretation of sketchy data, and when that same collective has great control over the presentation of the available datta to everyone else, the only reasons that really matter are the ones that will sell the idea to the public.
--not_abel
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I wish I had the date of the speech so I could go back and listen to it again. During the 2000 campaign, I heard a snippet of Bush speaking on the radio in which he said something to the effect of, "We don't have a monolithic enemy like in the days of the 50s, we have instead this vague unstructured threat field" What struck me about it was that he sounded wistful, disappointed that he missed all the fun of facing down an evil empire, going toe to toe against Kruschev. He was right, of course, about the vague unstructured threat field, but I think he wanted to test himself against the consolidated forces of evil. So I think he was predisposed to look for a monolithic enemy, to see the actions of a terrorist cabal as one face of evil incarnate. He wasn't content to fight Al Qaeda, he needed to be god's warrior and declared a global war on terror.
--Swampdog
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(10/28)