A Divider, Not a Uniter; Richard Cohen

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3767-2004Mar18.html
A Divider, Not a Uniter

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A31


For it was at Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 14, 1999, that Bush declared himself "a uniter, not a divider" -- maybe his most important promise and the one he has clearly not kept. He prefaced that vow by saying, "I reject the ugly politics of division." Instead he has reveled in it, pursuing policies and appointments that sometimes seem designed to do nothing more than energize the president's conservative base and drive everyone else up the wall.

This has been the greatest disappointment of the Bush presidency -- the president's most personal failure. I confess I am -- or was -- a bit surprised. Whether naively or not, I took Bush at his word and thought maybe, just maybe, he would do nationally what he had done as governor of Texas. Among other things, he won reelection there with an amazing 27 percent of the black vote and 49 percent of the Hispanic vote. For a Republican in Texas, those are heroic numbers. Bush could fairly claim to be a uniter.

That has turned out not to be the case. The country remains as divided as it was under Bill Clinton, who was such a divisive figure that Al Gore virtually turned his back on him. What's more, Bush has had the same effect abroad as he has at home. He has all but wrecked the Atlantic alliance. He is so unpopular in Britain that when he visited there in November, he had to remain in a security bubble. A recent poll shows that 57 percent of the British view him unfavorably. Bush has managed to put the vaunted "special relationship" on the rocks.

But Britain is Bush Country -- a virtual red state -- compared with some other European countries. The poll by Pew Research Center shows that in both France and Germany, 85 percent of the people view him unfavorably. In Turkey, another NATO ally, it's 67 percent, and in the Arab world . . . well, as Mel Gibson says about his father, don't go there.

Of course, as in the United States, some of this animosity or antipathy toward Bush has to do with policy and programs -- the war in Iraq in particular. But to a degree that is impossible to quantify, it also has to do with Bush's demeanor, a perceived smugness and a plain unwillingness to be what he promised he would be: a uniter.

Britain is not a "red state" btw

"I took Bush at his word", for the life of me I can't understand how fools like this qualify for high-paying columnist gigs. What a fool. And, of course, the mandatory dig at Clinton. Such a "divisive figure" that he carried a nearly 70% approval rating while in the midst of an impeachment trial.

And a "perceived smugness", please!!!

What a useless "voice for the left" is Mr. Cohen.