Newspaper OpEd (2008)

Robert P. Watson

NO ONE AT THE HELM

Jobless numbers are skyrocketing, housing sales are at their lowest point in a half century, the stock market is destabilized, and the American auto industry has joined the banking industry in teetering on the brink of collapse. Yet, President Bush has been absent from discussions about the economy and silent on the specifics of his own administration’s controversial bailout.

During this crisis, the White House has offered no Rooseveltian "fireside chat" to calm a jittery public. There has been no Lincoln-esque vision for what lies beyond the storm nor, shockingly, even a Clintonian show of "feeling our pain." The "Decider" has been utterly AWOL.

Many analysts have observed that Bush has become irrelevant to the policy process and that he has failed to lead in the final days of his presidency. True, but this has been the case for much of the past two years. Most policy debates and deliberations in 2007 and 2008 did not even include him, as he was neither consulted nor listened to by lawmakers.

So too did Bush go under ground during the presidential race, failing to participate in a single open, cameras-welcome campaign event since August of 2007. No one running for office wanted to be seen with him. Indeed, the President has gone from being a lame duck to being an albatross around the necks of his party and his countrymen.

This is not entirely a bad thing, as it may have prevented Bush from doing more harm before leaving office. But that is precisely what is happening. With the nation distracted, Bush has been quietly pushing a host of alarming regulatory changes.

Ever since John Adams’ last-minute appointments in 1801, administrations have sought to pass a flurry of initiatives while on their way out the door. Known as "midnight" regulations, such efforts are neither new nor illegal. But never have they been so brazenly damaging or consciously orchestrated as now.

The law is such that initiatives enacted more than 60 days before the end of a presidency are much harder to overturn. As such, the Bush administration has been reviewing rules and regulations for the past year and has spent the month of November forwarding over 100 proposed changes. These include opening up sensitive lands to oil shale development and mountain top removal, allowing protected waters to be fished, weakening air pollution standards and protections for endangered species, and relaxing everything from disability rights to restrictions on the number of consecutive hours truckers can be on the road without sleep.

All this amounts to 100 parting shots from potentially the worst president in history. Democrats and some Republicans are now scrambling to use an obscure 1996 law (Congressional Removal Act) that might permit the new Congress (seated in January) to review and reject Bush’s midnight regulations. The Obama administration will also likely get to work immediately overturning them.

Still, it is unforgivable that these midnight regulations – rather than the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression – were what roused the President from his premature retirement.  Bush has abdicated leadership while soldiers continue to fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan, while America’s trade deficit grows ever larger, and while an array of problems from healthcare to immigration smolder. Bush has always been detached but national policy is now, at best, rudderless, and, at worst, in free fall.

For all intents and purposes, Bush has given up. But, given the fact that his policies have failed and his government didn’t work (and, at times, didn’t even try to work), perhaps it is best that the captain was the first to abandon the ship of state. In doing so, at least he has spared us from watching the last painful throes of his administration and from him inflicting further damage to the Republic.