Rod Dreher

View From Your Table

Bob Dole. Bob Dole!

By Rod Dreher • July 3, 2012, 8:31 AM

Jeanne Marie Laskas stops by to visit him:

Bob Dole is not a romantic, at least not an immediate one. Bob Dole is not one to waste a lot of time on metaphor. When he heard Sinatra croon, You’ll never walk alone, he heard, well, walk. Alone. He was a 22-year-old mangled soldier, sitting in a wheelchair that his arms could not even push, and he would listen to that song, think, and concentrate.

If I kept struggling to make my legs move, he would write, later, to put one foot in front of the other… All of heaven would help me; my upbringing would help, my grandparents, schoolteachers, athletic team coaches, university professors, my boot camp sergeants…

Dole spent three years in hospitals before emerging with a body that basically worked, minus a kidney, minus a shoulder, minus a functioning right arm. His left arm worked, but just two fingers on that hand worked, and thus empowered, unable to so much as write lecture notes, he trained his brain to memorize, and in time he earned a B.A. and a law degree, both magna cum laude. Don’t complain. Push forward. Don’t dwell on it. “Be a doer, not a stewer!” Years and years later, when he ran for the Republican nomination for president against George H. W. Bush in 1988, it bothered him to see those photos of Bush tromping all athletically through New Hampshire, shoveling snow, pushing stranded cars to show himself a man of honest sweat and brawn. That part did bother him. And again in 1996 when he got the nomination, ran in the general, Clinton golfing, Clinton at the C&O Canal clearing deadwood, heave-ho’ing big logs. Bob Dole couldn’t do any of that. Hell, he did not have the dexterity to pick up a Big Mac. He would never publicly appear…manly. He would never publicly expose his shrunken biceps. He would never himself look at his missing shoulder in the mirror, draping a towel over it when naked.

“Have you been out to Walter Reed?” he asks.

Kind of wonder what the country would have been like if we had elected him president…

[Via Sullivan.]

Posted in Politics, Republicans. Tagged Bob Dole.

29 Responses to Bob Dole. Bob Dole!

Turmarion says:

July 3, 2012 at 8:49 am

I voted against him, mainly because it would have been a fourth term for the same party, and I don’t think that’s good even for the party I support (although having changed my registration to “independent” this year, I guess I no longer support any party). He probably would have been a decent president, but given the tendencies of the Republican Party at that time, he would probably have kept on with the same Reagan-Bush policies that have, in the long run, had bad effects. If he’d been elected in the 70′s, he’d have governed like a Rockefeller Republican, and been a pretty good president, I think.

Then again, without Clinton as a whipping boy and the Epitome of All Evil throughout the 90′s, maybe the GOP wouldn’t have started the drift towards the lunatic fringe, and people like Newt Gingrich wouldn’t have come to prominence. Who knows?

Speaking of Dole as a person, I can certainly respect him more than I can most of the presidents of the last thirty years or so, and he’s the last Republican I can conceive of having voted for.

Slightly off topic, but–As I’ve said before here, I’m not going to vote GOP or Democratic this year. The only third party that will be on the ballot in my state will be the Green Party, I think. Not crazy about them, but I was figuring, “Least of three evils,” and then, on perusing their website, saw that one of the two people running for nomination for their party is Rosanne freaking Barr!!! I doubt she’ll get it, but that pretty much killed any credibility the party had with me. Come November, it’ll be write-in time, I suppose. Sigh.
Sam M says:

July 3, 2012 at 9:10 am

As an aside… Jeanne Marie Laskas is awesome. She worked with me at Pitt, and is one of the current masters of the bio piece. I find is fascinating that she picked Dole as a subject. She’s got enough juice to land Romney or even Obama. But this is more interesting, at least to me.
Al-Dhariyat says:

July 3, 2012 at 9:34 am

I consider myself a pretty informed voter but I don’t remember reading anything of Senator Dole’s convalescence back when he was running for President. His campaigns couldn’t have pointed out his recovery process… built something around the “have you been to Walter Reed?” question?

I suppose the pictures of Pres. Clinton and Pres. GHW Bush were worth more than 1,000 words but I find Senator Dole’s story to be very inspiring… and manly.
cadabramedia says:

July 3, 2012 at 9:36 am

It would have been a better country. Dole would have likely improved American confidence in the institution of the Presidency, much like Pres Ford did. Avoiding the clown car that was impeachment would have been a gift to America. From a policy POV, a Pres Dole might have built a model for consensus and a moderate GOP.
Moralistic Therapeutic Deist says:

July 3, 2012 at 10:14 am

I liked the first George Bush but I wonder if he took those brawny photos as a sly way to undercut Dole. He loses points if he did, for sure.
Sam M says:

July 3, 2012 at 11:03 am

PS: I doubt the country would be much different. A lot of politicians have compelling personal biographies, but it never really seems to shake out in terms of “leadership.” But honestly, we should expect that. The president has a lot of power, sure. I can envision a revisionist history in which we did not invade Iraq, for instance. Still, there are huge, powerful forces at work. Bob Dole might have changed things on the margins. That’s no slight against him. It’s just the way things are. Realizing it is healthy, I think, and prevents us from idolizing the next new hero.
W.E.B. Dupree says:

July 3, 2012 at 12:02 pm

If he would have let loose his sarcastic sense of humor in public, that would have been an interesting thing to see in a President.
Brian says:

July 3, 2012 at 12:19 pm

Of all the nominees for president in the last few decades, Dole was the least memorable. I can’t think of a single meaningful position he advanced as a justification for his campaign, or even a single significant moment. On the other hand, I can’t think of a major gaffe or mistake he made. It was a boring, boring campaign. So boring that Slick Willie was somehow able to make “family values” his own theme that year, in perhaps the most intense moment of chutzpah in recent times…
Will in Mississippi says:

July 3, 2012 at 12:48 pm

The part of Dole’s story you highlight is impressive, but the rest not so much. A lot of the “greatest generation” hype misses the fact that the generation of Marchall, Eisenhower, Truman–and overseas, Adenauer, Gasperi, and De Gaulle–was much, much more impressive.

It’s notable to me that Clinton and Phil Gramm ran proverbial rings around Dole at different times; Gramm’s failure as a presidential candidate shouldn’t eclipse how he outsmarted Dole repeatedly in the Senate. The real question is what would have been different if Dole’s main competitor in the Republican primary had faced Clinton and won? Buchanan strikes me–and struck me then–as much, much more intellectually serious than Dole. He’s also kindly, especially to people he doesn’t need to impress, where Dole was grumpy and cranky. The temperamental difference matters even set against the story of overcoming personal disability. I suspect that had Buchanan won–and, if nominated, he had a better than fair chance–we would never have had a lot of later problems. Other problems, yes, but not the economic bubble, plus reckeless deregulation or foolish interventionism abroad.
Will in Mississippi says:

July 3, 2012 at 12:55 pm

I have often wondered whether Republicans were really serious about defeating Clinton in 1996. The Dole/Kemp ticket struck me as almost throwing the game. It would, as an earlier commentator noted, have been nice to avoid the squalid aspects of the Clinton impeachment, fault for which lies with Clinton. The whole “Emperor Jones” dynamic of Clinton’s second term, complete with swagger, set an awful tone that seems to have persisted in different ways with his two successors.
Marc says:

July 3, 2012 at 1:05 pm

If Dole in 1996 would have prevented Dubya in 2000 then looking back yes I would have been all for it.
Alex says:

July 3, 2012 at 1:33 pm

There might have been some changes. For instance, it’s arguable Dole would not have engaged in Kosovo, which was unpopular with Republicans. The impeachment circus would have been avoided. Hillary might not have risen to prominence independent of her husband. Importantly, if re-elected, he would have had to deal with 9/11 – and I think President Dole would have been a much better man for that job than President W. was. But other than that, I am not sure it would have been altogether very different from what the H.W. term was.

Turmarion – Gary Johnson will be on the ballot on all 50 states. Of course, the big parties will be reading all the Gary Johnson votes as “Ron Paul” votes (and if he does get a large percentage, I do think it will be thanks to Paul, not himself or the Libertarian party).
TTT says:

July 3, 2012 at 1:48 pm

Who can say? He seems to have always been a kindly, honorable man, who would have maintained seriousness and respect while in office. But even during the ’96 campaign I couldn’t get a clear picture of his stances, and to look at him now is to be blinded by nostalgia for an affluent and pre-9/11 life. Maybe we could have avoided the rise of Gingrichism and W, or maybe President Dole would have ignored his duties in office and relied on his advisors to run the show – in which case, who were they and what did they believe in?

Also, Dole would have filled the two SCOTUS seats that Clinton did, which by now could have cost us the Voting Rights Act.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

July 3, 2012 at 2:28 pm

There is a lot to like and respect about Dole as a person, but not much to admire about his politics. He was the typical Republican opportunist of that period, latching onto whatever was available to push an agenda that was all about what’s wrong with the Democrats, but not much about offering an inspiring vision for where he could lead the country with a better program.

What I remember best is how he and Hillary Clinton got the “It Takes A Village” question wrong in markedly different ways. She posed in her unremarkable book that in this day and age, government is the village that it takes to raise a child – which is both ludicrous and dangerous. Dole opportunistically announced “It doesn’t take a village to raise a child, it takes a family to raise a child” – which also sells the kids short to make a cheap political point. The village required is much more than the biological family – nuclear or extended – and markedly different from the apparatus of government.
Art Deco says:

July 3, 2012 at 3:16 pm

1. Robert Dole had never held an executive position, so one might wager it would have been unedifying for a time. Ron Nessen’s memoir of the Ford Administration might be instructive here.

2. Dole knew as well as anyone how to work Congress.

3. Dole had an allergy to public sector borrowing which no other Republican nominated since 1956 has had. I would wager we would have had four balanced budgets between 1997 and 2006.

4. I would wager a more circumspect response to 9/11, but about the degree, uncertain.

5. If not a signed and sealed reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac accounting practices, then at least no political pressure to slash underwriting standards.
Sean Nelson says:

July 3, 2012 at 4:15 pm

He would never publicly appear…manly. He would never publicly expose his shrunken biceps. He would never himself look at his missing shoulder in the mirror, draping a towel over it when naked.

This saddens me deeply. It’s bad enough that we live in a culture of testosterone, in which “swagger” is considered among the qualifications for the Presidency. But a man of Bob Dole’s unquestionable “manliness” shouldn’t live with that burden, let alone absorb it so thoroughly that it interferes with his ability to look at himself in the mirror. My heart goes out to him.

Would he have made a good President? Probably. The late 90′s would have been better off without the circus of non-issues. But if you compare his biography to the last few Presidential candidates, who even approaches the service and sacrifice of Bob Dole? Kerry’s the only recent nominee to have even served his country. (I don’t count GWB as having “served”–he didn’t even show up for his monthly ARNG drills.) On a “demonstrated personal willingness to sacrifice for his country” scale, the closest competition is JFK, then Eisenhower.

I mention all of this because those Presidents who have ACTUALLY SEEN war seem to be less likely to start a new one. We could use a President whose “manliness” lies in his understanding of the burden of his office, rather than in his willingness to kill bad guys.
Art Deco says:

July 3, 2012 at 5:53 pm

I mention all of this because those Presidents who have ACTUALLY SEEN war seem to be less likely to start a new one. We could use a President whose “manliness” lies in his understanding of the burden of his office, rather than in his willingness to kill bad guys.

Robert Dole voted for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and the authorization for the 1st Gulf War.

Truman, Kennedy, and the elder George Bush had all been in combat.

Somehow I do not think Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to ask for a declaration of war in 1941 (approved unanimously by a Congress peppered with World War I veterans) was a function of his lack of combat experience.
Peter says:

July 3, 2012 at 6:12 pm

America seems allergic to electing presidents with real experience of warfare.

McCain v Obama
Kerry v Bush
Gore v Bush
Dole v Clinton
Bush v Clinton
Joel says:

July 3, 2012 at 6:28 pm

Would that Buchanan have been the nominee in 96!
Art Deco says:

July 3, 2012 at 6:55 pm

America seems allergic to electing presidents with real experience of warfare.

Albert Gore, Jr. was (for about five months) an army newspaper reporter proximate to battlefields but never in combat. The elder George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, whose military service consisted of a couple of years as an army typist after the Korean War.

Six of our last 20 presidents saw combat at one or another point in their lives. I would wager that proportion well exceeds that of the whole population of men born between 1842 and 1962.
Art Deco says:

July 3, 2012 at 7:00 pm

(I don’t count GWB as having “served”–he didn’t even show up for his monthly ARNG drills.)

George W. Bush was on active duty for two years and did in fact meet his obligation to muster for an addition three years until his discharge in 1973. The notion that he failed to show for drill is rather inconsistent with his honorable discharge and was in any case debunked eight years ago when microfiche images of his pay stubs were retrieved and made public.
Brian says:

July 3, 2012 at 7:43 pm

Art Deco: Don’t bother Sean with the facts. George W. Bush skipped every single TANG muster because he was off having carnal relations with a plastic turkey. And nothing will change anyone’s mind about the truthiness of that statement.
Turmarion says:

July 3, 2012 at 9:00 pm

Alex, I forgot about Johnson, but I wouldn’t vote for him. I admire the opposition of Libertarians, by and large, to foreign wars; and they do stand up for civil liberties to a much greater extent than the major two parties. Still, their economic beliefs are absolutely atrocious, IMO, and I have a problem with the ultra-super-hyper individualism of Libertarianism. My political beliefs diverge too sharply in too many areas form the platform of the Librtarian party for me ever to vote Libertarian, even as a protest vote.
JonF says:

July 4, 2012 at 1:50 am

Re: If not a signed and sealed reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac accounting practices, then at least no political pressure to slash underwriting standards.

That might have left the GSEs in a bit better shape than they are today, but it would have made no difference in the larger economy. By the time Fannie and Freddie were allowed to dip their toe in the subprime ocean, lending standards had collapsed across the board, spearheaded by phenomenally reckless non-bank lending houses like New Century and facilitated by Wall Street’s bottomless hunger for securitization matter.
Sean Nelson says:

July 4, 2012 at 2:39 am

I wrote:

Kerry’s the only recent nominee to have even served his country. (I don’t count GWB as having “served”–he didn’t even show up for his monthly ARNG drills.) On a “demonstrated personal willingness to sacrifice for his country” scale, the closest competition is JFK, then Eisenhower.

Wow. What a brain-fart. Obviously, Bush I and McCain served honorably. Half an hour after I posted my comment I realized my error, but by then there was nothing I could do. I have been away from the internet all day, drinking for much of it, and I’m just getting the chance to acknowledge my error.

So yeah, sorry about that.

Re: “Don’t bother Sean with the facts.”

GWB actually didn’t show up for muster, and that’s according to his pay records. So please don’t patronize me about the “facts.”

Art Deco: The notion that he failed to show for drill is rather inconsistent with his honorable discharge…

Really? You’re telling me that the son of a sitting congressman couldn’t possibly receive an honorable discharge despite having failed to complete his obligations?

Why don’t those microfiches that supposedly prove how reliably Bush served include his pay stubs, which show he didn’t?

The then-Speaker of the Texas House has already admitted that he routinely approved non-combat assignments as favors to other politicians during the Vietnam War, and GWB was among those he personally approved. So why should I buy the notion that his “honorable” discharge was any less the result of being connected?

The fact is, I don’t blame him: Vietnam was hell, and I would not have wanted to go there. (I’m an Iraq vet, and I would trade anything to have not experienced that, btw.) If I had been as well-off and well-connected as GWB, I would have done everything in my power to get out of going to Vietnam.

Just don’t tell me that GWB “served honorably.” That term is reserved for those who either were sent into harm’s way, or lucked into missing combat duty. GWB didn’t luck into anything. And then, he didn’t even bother with the pretense of showing up. Disgusting.
Art Deco says:

July 4, 2012 at 11:19 am

lending standards had collapsed across the board, spearheaded by phenomenally reckless non-bank lending houses like New Century

If I understand correctly, non-bank lenders are essentially marketers for banks.

If I am not mistaken, Freddie Mac cut its underwriting standards in 2003. From stats I have seen, the mortgages on nearly all underwater properties were originated in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Without a doubt you would still have had problems. The housing bubble appears to have had an autonomous driver not to be found in either domestic monetary policy or in underwriting standards and subprime and alt-A loans only account for perhaps 25% or
so of delinquent mortgage debt. (Dr. Bernanke has pointed out that the decoupling of home prices and nominal incomes began around about 1997 per Case-Shiller’s 10 city index).
Art Deco says:

July 4, 2012 at 11:31 am

GWB actually didn’t show up for muster, and that’s according to his pay records. So please don’t patronize me about the “facts.”

Yes, he did. The article you quote concerns only his last year of service (1972-73) and concerns a niggling dispute over how to interpret the records. During his last year, he did the statutory minimum. During the period running from 1970-72, he well exceeded that. During the years 1968-70, he was on active duty full time.

Art Deco: The notion that he failed to show for drill is rather inconsistent with his honorable discharge…

Really? You’re telling me that the son of a sitting congressman couldn’t possibly receive an honorable discharge despite having failed to complete his obligations?

His father was not a sitting member of Congress in 1973, he was the chairman of the Republican National Committee. If you make an allegation, you have to have evidence. Your foetid imagination is insufficient.

Why don’t those microfiches that supposedly prove how reliably Bush served include his pay stubs, which show he didn’t?

The microfiche were of his pay stubs and did show that he served.

The then-Speaker of the Texas House has already admitted that he routinely approved non-combat assignments as favors to other politicians during the Vietnam War, and GWB was among those he personally approved.

Personal testimony decades after the fact by a political adversary and contradicted by others is not credible. That aside, both the internal inquiry by CBS News and the producer of the segment that attempted to slime him have admitted that Bush made contemporary inquiries about serving a tour in VietNam and was told he did not meet certain standards as regards flight time, &c.

CBS News producers were trafficking in forged documents because it did not have any credible evidence for the point they were trying to make.

–

All of this was settled years ago.
Brian says:

July 4, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Sean: Thanks for self-identifying as someone either completely incapable or completely unwilling to obtain the basic facts, while simultaneously being 100% full of conviction in your own correctness, despite your views having been thoroughly debunked nearly a decade ago.

Thanks to events 236 years ago, it’s a free country, so you’re free to think and say what you want, but your choice to shout your ignorance loud and proud does make knowing how much credence to give your posts much, much easier. So thanks for that.
Sean Scallon says:

July 4, 2012 at 4:19 pm

“Kind of wonder what the country would have been like if we had elected him president…”

I don’t know, I wonder what it would have been like if Pat Buchanan had been elected President.