MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“Bush, Bam go on tours to fix image”, Ellis Henican Column, amNewYork, November 12, 2010
It’s Tour Week for two American presidents: George and Barack have taken their solo acts on the road.
What a contrast these two men make.
One has a book to sell. The other has an economy to save. Call it “Decision Points” versus “Indecision Points.”
George W. Bush is all over American TV, settling old scores from his time in the White House, while Barack Obama is barnstorming Asia to try to make some new scores before his term runs out.
Just look at these guys. Both of them appear exhausted. The presidency does that.
Bush is sitting down with pretty much any interviewer who will throw a cover shot on the screen.
No longer the center of American political life, the ex-president’s uniquely dual nature had almost faded from memory—his charming awshucks persona, and also his dissociation from the job he held for eight years.
He’s blaming others for the recession. He’s calling himself a “dissenter” from his own policy in Iraq. He’s labeling Kayne West’s Hurricane Katrina snipe that he didn’t care about African Americans as one of the low points of his presidency.
Most historians—and all Democrats—are laughing at these claims.
But as Bush flogs his book and polishes his legacy, Obama is racing across Asia trying to equalize trade policy and save American jobs.
You don’t get the feeling it’s going too well.
All those countries are happy to sell stuff to Americans. When the goods are moving our way, the governments are champions of free trade.
But just try leveling the field and you’ll get the answer Obama got on Thursday in Seoul: take our Hyundais and LGs, but keep your Chevrolets and your—oh, that’s right.
In this free-trade era, America doesn’t make TVs any more.
Travel, they say, is broadening, even for presidents. But that doesn’t mean it’s always pretty.
E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
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