As President Bush completed his first 100 days in office last week, several people, including Mr. Bush himself, assessed the early accomplishments and setback. Mr. Bush said in an interview last Wednesday that he feels "pretty darn good" about his time in office thus far, while Democrats delivered a scathing evaluation. A true and accurate assessment of Mr. Bush's first 100 days lies somewhere between these two reviews. In fact, a simple assessment would find only one word to describe Mr. Bush's first hundred days: confusing.
Consider the budget, for example. After issuing a campaign promise to fight for the environment, Mr. Bush, appealing to his party and the many large businesses and industries that support him with hefty financial contributions, decided that the environment is one of the least important areas to be considered when allocating money. It is so unimportant, in fact, that instead of increasing funding for research of new sources of clean and renewable energy, Mr. Bush preferred to stick with the old and extremely toxic oil and coal energy, as we have seen by his cutting the environmental budget and decision to drill for the ten gallons of oil in Alaska. Perhaps Mr. Bush has reasons for cutting funding for clean energy research. Perhaps he fears that solar power will result in the depletion of the sun. Or perhaps he's afraid that using the wind for power will leave thousands of people without the summer breeze that he came to love when lazing about his whole life. Wait. That's not fair. We all know that he has only lazed about for three-quarters of his life. In any case, we have seen Mr. Bush's budget plan lay waste to any hopes of saving the environment.
The confusing part of this situation is Mr. Bush's response to the criticism he received for his budget plan. Rather than doing the respectable Republican action and ignoring the clamor that cutting environmental spending created, Mr. Bush has toned down his war on the environment. And for some reason, his aides have tried to convince Americans that Mr. Bush is actually one of the environment's best friends. By undertaking this endeavor, Mr. Bush's aides have made their workload extremely tough: not only do they have to fix all of Mr. Bush's misstatements, but now they have to convince Americans that he is good for the environment. And since Mr. Bush is as good for the environment as a freshly prepared batch of toxic waste, these aides are going to be at work for a long time. So why not make it easier for everyone (especially the Bush aides) by just going all out on the environment? Only Mr. Bush knows the answer to this, and he ain't telling.
Another point of confusion focuses on one of Mr. Bush's statements concerning Taiwan. For the past twenty years, the United States has adopted a purposefully vague response procedure if China were to attack Taiwan. The reason the U.S. has this policy is that it allows us to pursue political interests in the area (democracy in Taiwan), while also pursuing economic interests (business in China and Taiwan). The essence of this policy is that by keeping both sides guessing, things will remain peaceful because both sides are unwilling to find out what will transpire if China attacks Taiwan.
Enter Mr. Bush, who questioned this guiding principle during the campaign, and vowed that his administration would be "clear about Taiwan." Last Wednesday, during the same interview in which he said he feels "pretty darn good" about his presidency so far, Mr. Bush was definitely clear about Taiwan. Or was he? Mr. Bush's response to a question that asked if the U.S. would defend Taiwan with the full force of the American military elicited this answer from the president: "Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend theirself." Whoa. Even after deciphering what this means in real English, this statement is still confusing. Mr. Bush's declaration suggests a huge policy shift " a shift from ambiguity about what the U.S would do if China attacked Taiwan to assured assistance to Taiwan if they are attacked by China.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with a policy shift. The problem is that this statement was not supposed to give the impression of a U.S. policy shift, as Bush aides such as Condoleeza Rice quickly informed everyone that he was not changing policy. So what the heck is he doing? He's being confusing. And he's good at it too.
