Schlesinger for President 2012

Arthur Schlesinger’s book, War and the American Presidency, was published around the time of the 2004 Presidential Election, and by no coincidence criticizes the idea (and execution) of “preemptive war”, since at the time America was faced with the choice of whether or not it should perpetuate war in Iraq under the Bush Administration’s second term, or turn a new leaf by electing a new leader. Unfortunately, the American people did not collectively realize their government’s mistakes and voted to continue America’s unsuccessful stint in Iraq, and in doing so, gave Schlesinger’s book even more weight through the events that unfolded as a cause of this decision. Schlesinger’s main argument was that although the military has intelligence and capabilities to achieve great things, it could only do so to achieve limited goals that must be realistic and valid. He also examines a variety of aspects that affected the way the war in Iraq was framed, but specifically focuses on how the government and the media seemed to work together to portray the war as both a realistic endeavor and an action backed by valid reasons.

Schlesinger first attributes the idea of “preemptive war” to American isolationism, and the general cultural belief Americans feel when it comes to conflict, they are better off alone than with the help of other nations. He goes further in pointing out how isolationism led to Bush’s unilateral approach to combat, which ended up depriving the US military, media, government, and most importantly, people of actual facts about the invasion and if any other approaches were possible. From there on, the book discusses a variety of ways in which the Bush Doctrine set the US up for failure on a global scale with not only foreign relations, but with national patriotism. Countries that used to praise the United States now turned away with contempt, while the American people continued to operate under false pretenses in their blind patriotism. In his discussion about how patriotism is supposed to be perceived, Schlesinger states that, “true patriotism consists of living up to a nation’s highest ideals” and that the US allowed itself to divert away from that since everyone was reluctant to admit any faults in these operations at the risk of seeming unpatriotic. By monopolizing the public’s opinion through the media, and keeping out foreign opinions that criticized his actions, the Bush Doctrine made the United States look like a global bully with no morals and no respect for history. According to Schlesinger, this disrespect to its own heritage created an imperial image of the US because not only did we forget the Alien and Sedition Acts, the internment camps of Japanese and Italian Americans, and the Palmer raids, but we forgot how our own people felt when we were on the receiving end of the same kind of treatment. In summation, the most valuable point of this book is that wars increase executive power because they allow the President to manipulate any and all information about the war at hand.

As someone studying journalism, reading this book made me feel ashamed of our government and our media, as this “preemptive war” tactic was a textbook definition of indexing (the tendency of the media to gravitate towards powerful sources for information and heavily depending on the government). I found myself nodding to myself as I read the section discussing how shocking it was that even the New York Times (!) wouldn’t go against the Bush Doctrine in criticizing what was about to happen. What’s more, it is completely illogical to me (and was illogical at the time, even though I was an uninformed high school freshman) that a leader can shove his country into an uninformed war so readily.

There was a time when the media and government to created propaganda to beat the Nazis while raising national morale, but it came at a cost as we turned our backs to internment camps and war crimes like the bombing of Dresden. Clearly, we had not learned our lesson and allowed Iraq to happen, and torture to occur. I completely agree with Schlesinger that the Bush Administration’s manipulation of the way our society operates is ruining our nation’s ideals, and hope our nation will finally realize that we can’t exist as a nation of one opinion who believe we are the only ones who matter in the world.