Back
during the dog days of 2005, Pres. George W. Bush rather upended his administration
when he had them assemble an action plan for a doomsday pandemic scenario. He
did not think the nation would use it during his term, but he presciently
foresaw its need in the not-so distant future. Fifteen years later, the current
administration dusted off the Bush plan, because that is what they had. Without
George W. Bush, things would be even worse during this CCP-virus crisis.
Unfortunately, that is the sort of greatly needed perspective that is largely
missing from American Experience’s two-part George W. Bush, which
premieres this Monday and Tuesday on PBS.
If
nothing else, American Experience pretty much definitively proves the
left-wing bias of the media, because the vast majority of its talking heads are
journalists, nearly all of whom are determined to keep litigating the Iraq War.
Time and again we were told there were no weapons of mass destruction when the
truth is more complicated. Even the New York Times reported considerable
discoveries of chemical weapons, which definitely qualified as WMDs—they just
weren’t WMD-enough for the media’s preferred narrative.
Fittingly,
AMEX starts with the fateful day of September 11th and then
flashes back to Bush’s formative years in Texas. To give credit where it is
due, co-writer-producers Barak Goodman & Chris Durrance and their on-screen
commentators are relatively sympathetic when addressing the awakening of
Christian faith that transformed Bush from a hard-drinking slacker into a
focused professional—with political aspirations. Of course, much is made of his
somewhat strained relationship with his father Bush 41, as one would expect,
with good reason.
The
AMEX profile is also quite strong when it chronicles Bush’s political
rise in Texas (particularly his wooing of Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock), his
PEPFAR campaign to treat AIDS in Africa (saving approximately 5 million lives,
according to estimates), and his handling of the financial crisis (in fact, the
talking heads are so laudatory, it will start to make many viewers suspicious).
Weirdly, the pivotal and defining period of 9/11 and its aftermath is handled
rather perfunctorily, like it embarrasses Goodman & Durrance to consider
the full implications of a coordinated terrorist attack that killed nearly
3,000 people.
