Why not?

Jimmy Carter wrote " Why Not the Best?” when he was running for president, 30 years ago. Carter appealed to the best in Americans – and it certainly seemed we could do better than the criminality of Nixon or the tawdriness of Ford's pardon. Nobody doubted the ability of Nixon or the decency of Ford. After 6 years of George W. Bush, the bar has been set on its lowest rung. Presidential candidates can now shorten their appeal to “why not?”

Reagan succeeded Carter in a landslide. The old actor Reagan could not distinguish script from history – he believed, because he had seen a film, that he helped liberate Nazi death camps – but his directors could. They kept Reagan from doing anything profoundly stupid. Sure, they made bad movies, err, moves, such as Granada, Lebanon, and Iran Contra, but they were small budget, indie junk that his hard-core fans loved anyway. They had some lucky timing with big box office hits like the Berlin Wall but just as importantly, no mega-flops.

Bush is the apotheosis of Reaganism. Bush is the cheerleader who wants to be the Gipper, the hero, the decider. In this fantasy, Bush is a self-made man. The actual plot line is more prosaic: prodigal son follows dad into the family business. But he does more than just talk tough, buy weapons, and saber rattle: he starts a war, dons a flight suit, and declares he is bringing freedom to the oppressed of the world. Rewrite! Make that “oppressed-with-proven-oil-reserves of the world”. His agents know the domestic market perfectly. Sadly, they have a weak grasp on reality and, except for one plucky British distributor, have failed in the overseas market. They mired us in a long and draining war because they thought it was a really neat idea. A "high concept" idea can have perfect pitch over brunch then bomb like an improvised explosive device in the marketplace. You can put lipstick on a pig like “no child left behind” but no amount of makeup will make up for the hole in families and communities caused by the Iraq debacle.

Could we do worse? I doubt it. But I thought the same about Reagan.