President Bush the Elder famously proclaimed his distaste for "the vision thing" when it came to presidential leadership. The Elder was a consummate Washington insider -- congressman, director of central intelligence, vice president. He was a man who knew where to find the levers of power, who held them and who knew how to get them pulled. He worked his people and he pulled the levers and expected the largely effective results to satisfy the nation when it came time for his re-election.
That's why the Elder was sent packing by a disillusioned electorate in 1992. Bush the Younger must have been watching, because he didn't repeat that mistake.
The Younger is a president who understands "the vision thing," and his is a vision of such force and certainty that it will shape the politics of America and the world not just for the next four years, but for the foreseeable future.
Presidential historian and former Montgomery Fellow Robert Dallek captured the essence of "the vision thing" when he wrote: "The Bible tells us (Proverbs 29:18): 'Where there is no vision, the people perish.' The United States has been as subject to this principle as any other nation. Like citizens everywhere, Americans have wanted leaders who have had the capacity to imagine a better future." The pragmatics and delicacies of governing aside, presidents must be able to articulate a vision of the country and world they are striving towards -- how they plan to get there is secondary, at best.
To get bogged down in the minutia, or to lose sight of the destination is a surefire plan for failure -- as the Elder, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford can all attest.
The Democratic Party itself seems to suffer from an anemia of vision. If John Kerry had a vision beyond the scattering of platitudes and anti-Bush reprimands that characterized his campaign, he conspicuously failed to articulate it. Clinton and Gore practiced vision-by-focus-group, and while such political maneuvering was a formidable short-term strategy it has prove insufficient for continued electoral success. Even within their own party, the Clintonites have been ushered to the back -- the allure of such an opportunistic philosophy plummets when there is no power left to wield.
It is no coincidence that the Democrats' latest defeats have come at the hands of a president for whom vision has become a selling point. Bush's campaign theme of decisive leadership rested upon the foundation of his vision, and he has certainly read the success of the former as an endorsement of the latter.
And Bush, who is more ridiculed than acclaimed for his powers of rhetoric, nevertheless has the essential ability to articulate his vision to the public with clarity and passion. While he may stumble during set pieces or fidget during press conferences, it is when speaking about his vision that he occasionally borders on eloquent, as he demonstrated during his second inaugural address this past week.
That speech was all about vision, and represents the clearest and most forceful outline of Bush's priorities to date.
For the world, Bush's vision revolves around the redemptive power of freedom: "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time," he said in his address. "The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it. America's influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause."
For Bush, the war on terror and the war in Iraq are both components of this vision of freedom on the march.
Those who would debate his methods and their results must be prepared to offer alternative routes to the same visionary end, or they will find themselves in the unenviable position of appearing to argue against that most central of American values: freedom.
At home, that vision takes the form of the "ownership society" -- one of increased economic autonomy, and decreased governmental authority.
Tax reductions, the partial privatization of Social Security and increased choice in education and health care are all components of the ownership society, and are all meant to make "every citizen the agent of his or her own destiny." Bush's vision of the ownership society is so imperative that he is willing to grab the third rail of politics and engage many of the nation's most powerful entrenched interests to pursue it.
Once again, he has placed the onus on those who would oppose his vision to present a compelling alternative. The time to do so may be running out, for if the ownership society succeeds in giving citizens greater control over their own well being, then the case for a return to the old centralized ways will become increasingly difficult to make.
Agree or disagree with Bush's vision for America and the wider world, to ignore it is to invite irrelevance. For the next four years George W. Bush will be the most powerful man on the planet, and there is little doubt that he will devote those four years to the pursuit of his vision at home and abroad. The choices he makes and stances he takes in doing so will continue to influence domestic and world politics even after he himself has left the stage.
Staying the course or changing it will both require an understanding of the Bush vision, and for that his second inaugural speech is a fine place to start.
