Dream On, Beltway Pundits - the 'Grownups' in the Trump Administration Won't Save Us from His Presidency

Back in January of 2001, after a protracted post-election legal battle that ended with the Supreme Court seating George W. Bush in a 5-4 partisan decision, the Beltway establishment was giddy that the jejune Clinton administration was finally out of office and responsible adult leadership was back in town. The late conservative commentator Kate O’Beirne memorably put it this way on the eve of the inaugural:

There’s a whole lot less Hollywood this weekend than there is Houston, and it’s not a boomer — baby boomer inaugural, despite the fact that George W. qualifies as a baby boomer. The grownups are back in charge.

Whatever reservations Washington may have had about the incurious George W. Bush, they were soothed by the presence of the old Republican guard represented by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and others who reminded them of a time before Bill Clinton and his boomer buds roared into their “little village” and "wrecked the place."

The president himself was a man who acted like a frat boy most of the time and could barely string a coherent sentence together. Recall just a few of the memorable quotes from the man who would soon be sitting in the Oval Office as these pundits were excitedly welcoming the adults back to Washington:

“I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.” — Nashua, N.H., Jan. 27, 2000

“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?” — Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000

“We’ll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers.” — Houston, Sept. 6, 2000

“Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.” — LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000

It was obvious that our new president’s antenna didn’t pick up all the channels, if you know what I mean. But the pundits didn’t care because it wasn’t important. The grand poobahs of the GOP establishment would make America great again.

We all know what happened: 9/11. Democrats rallied around the president and he shot up to a 90 percent approval rating and stayed between 60 and 70 percent for the better part of the next two years. This was when the grownups led the nation — first into a war in Afghanistan that has really never ended, and then into Iraq, making their longtime fever dream of an occupation come true.

Their agenda had little to do with the challenges of terrorism. These men of the past were fighting the last war, the Gulf War of 1991, which many of them believed had been mistakenly left unfinished. Indeed, even the untried son, Bush junior, openly proclaimed that he was proposing the war as an act of revenge for an earlier assassination attempt on his father, President George H.W. Bush. And many members of the administration had signed on years before to an American imperialist agenda, with an invasion of Iraq serving as the fulcrum for “benevolent global hegemony.”

It turned out that these Ã©minencegrises, these respectable men in suits and ties who were going to bring honor and dignity back to the White House, were radicals. And the man they were charged to instruct in the ways of Washington was more than willing to be just as radical as they were.