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[camlina]

I must say, I am incredibly impressed at how the Bush administration is handling the transition. Oh, I'm impressed at the Obama side too, but that's less remarkable. If anything confirms for me that, however misguidedly, Bush has been doing his genuine level best as he knew it for the country as President, this does. Ensuring as smooth a transition

Comments

[joshwriting]

I am impressed, too, though I disagree on the personal advantage aspect.

There are two key elements to the transition's importance to Bush:

1) Legacy/place in history - this is his last real chance to leave a good taste in people's mouths.

2) Board positions after he is out - whether his own foundation, ala Clinton and Carter, or, more likely, boards of directors, like his father and Ford.

Hmmm... do I detect a pattern here?

[joshwriting]

But, I meant to reemphasize that I am very impressed.

I come to the opposite conclusion - if he had conducted the rest of his presidency with the apparent efforts towards cooperation with others that the transition is showing, the last 8 years would have been radically different.

This "genuine level best" is far superior to much of what we've seen.

[camlina]

Ah, but see, I don't think he saw international cooperation as being seriously important to America's success in the world - he saw the aid and cooperation of other countries as more or less worthless and unnecessary because the US was plenty strong enough to go it alone. Of course, I think that was a fundamental miscalculation... but if he genuinely believed that international help was unimportant for US success, he had no particular reason to seek it.