Saturday, January 17, 2009
Looking back on George W. Bush
Two recently widely-linked columns almost perfectly capture my own ambivalence about George W. Bush and his administration. Pro, and con. Odd as it may be, I find myself mostly agreeing with both of them.
7 Comments:
By 
Mark Tempest, at
Sat Jan 17, 06:45:00 PM:
Truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle.
Of course, we could speculate on how a Gore presidency or a Kerry presidency would have changed things...
By 
, at
Sat Jan 17, 09:39:00 PM:
No, the article in the Torygraph was mainly the internationalist view which tries to vindicate what Bush did as a matter of foreign policy. The responses tend to indicate how deeply the general British populace has been inculcated with the leftist tran-nationalist veiwpoint; an of course it was all the Joooos fault (and those nasty neocons!).
Deroy Murdock's analysis was a more profound American-centric analysis from the perspective of American political conservatism (ala the Bill Buckley variety). Viewed from the lens of a Republican Conservative philosophy, the Bush presidency was not a success, or anything to be particularly proud of.
I cannot say for sure whether it was the weakness of the Congress in disciplining itself, poor leadership overall in the Republcan party or the fear of the Democract taking control (which they have, in case anyone has noticed) because the Republcans were too stingy with the public purse.
The truth seems to be that most people want the Federal budget spending cut, unless it affects them, and then they want more of it.
So now we have the worst possible outcome for the Republican Party; overall political weakness, an erosion of principles, no visible national party leadership, and being unremitingly villified in the public media and the popular culture.
Pretty much a ringing success story, no?
And I voted for Bush twice, and would vote for him again over McCain or Obama, which sort of indicates that either I am extremely stupid (actually very possible!) or that the general level of political leadership in America is that bad.
Or both.
-David
By , at
Sun Jan 18, 02:04:00 PM:
The truth isn't in the middle. George W Bush has been the worst President in my lifetime, maybe in our history, little more than the puppet head nominal leader of a corrupt Republican party that badly lost its way. As a small "l" libertarian, I have no one to vote for anymore. Under the watch of Bush and the Republicans, we've seen such unbridled growth in federal spending that we're on a fast track to becoming nothing more than a big Argentina. Ironically, a Gore or a Kerry wouldn't have done as much damage, because a Republican congress wouldn't have let them get away with it.
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By , at
Sun Jan 18, 06:54:00 PM:
And anon, would you also say that Barack Hussein Obama is the greatest President in the history of the universe? Just askin'.
By , at
Mon Jan 19, 09:27:00 AM:
Bush was a great success in his anti-terror policies. His Bush Doctrine started off very well indeed, but the second term Rice State Department has been a disappointment in many ways. Domestically, Bush has been a standard issue Democrat in his fiscal policies, which I never liked. I also felt his abandonment of partisanship in his treatment of the Congressional Democrats, in the spirit of "let's work together during wartime", never was an effective policy and an affront to his voters. Lastly, I think the failure to put a younger GOP leader in as Veep during the second term, so that someone could run for President with the mantle of incumbency, was a nasty slap to the head for Republicans. That decision alone did more to open the door for Obama's success, so Democrats celebrating Obama's ascension tomorrow should say silent thanks to Dick Cheney for sticking around. Heh.
All in all, I think Bush will go down as a bipartisan, wartime President who was largely successful at his most important job, protecting the citizenry, and largely mediocre at most everything else.
By , at
Mon Jan 19, 09:35:00 AM:
From Link (anon) to Meta-4
I'm far from an Obama fan. I actually suspect that he's up to his eyeballs in Rezko-related graft, something our MSM studiously avoided reporting, and just the qualification we want in a President about to commission a trillion dollars in public works projects.
Obama beat Hillary and others for the Democratic nomination by running as the anti-Bush, which won the hearts and minds of the move-on.org crowd ... which was a necessary first step in his run to the White House. If Bush wasn't deeply hated by much of our electorate -- not just the moveon.org crowd, Obama wouldn't have gotten elected ... evn with the big assist he got from our MSM.
To me, Obama is a cipher with a messianic complex. I fear that he's a closet socialist. My liberal friends profess that he's a pragmatist. Let's hope for the best.
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By , at
Mon Jan 19, 10:52:00 AM:
The standard defense of Bush today is that "he kept us safe." The premise is that if Bush & Co hadn't done what they did, we would have seen a lot more terrorist attacks. This premise is hard to validate without revealing secret intelligence. But let's credit Bush & Co for it, at least for the moment.
But our invasion and occupation of Iraq had little to do with any success we had in preventing terror. If we hadn't done Iraq:
Bush could have used his 9/11 capital to push through any number of needed programs
For example, with the money we spent on Iraq we could have done something like triple our nuclear plant capacity to make serious progress in energy independence
The US would have had a freer hand in running clandestine operations. I doubt we'd ever have heard about waterboarding
Afghanistan could have been done better. Maybe we'd even have gotten bin Laden. By fixing Afghanistan by force, we would have impressed our enemies ... and instilled fear
Bush wouldn't have needed to be profligate in spending to win the 2004 election ... things like committing $1.4 trillion over ten years for prescription drugs. Instead, Bush has presided over the biggest growth in federal government since FDR.
Instead, Bush could have won 2004 in a landslide and had a real mandate. He might even have had the mojo to veto a spending bill or two
Bush would have left office with us more united as a nation. There might even have been a Republican getting inaugurated tomorrow
As he left office tomorrow, we'd be talking about Bush 43 with allusions to the wartime FDR, and even the god-like Reagan
We "did" Iraq to satisfy the personal agendas of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the neo-cons. Before 9/11 happened, there was plenty of evidence that this was in their plans ... so 9/11 was a pretext. WMD was also a pretext. Saddam was no threat to the domestic US. It was all unnecessary So here's the personal outcome:
Bush 43 wanted to outdo Poppy 41. Instead, Bush 43 will now be remembered as a failed President
Cheney wanted a new Cold War to show our power. Instead, we're in a much weakened state ... inviting calculations from states like Russia and others
Rumsfeld wanted a means to re-invent the military by demonstrating the effectiveness of an elite force of only 150,000. He won the war, but lost the occupation. We're stuck with the big ticket old line military
The neo-cons have put Israel in a worse position, with a resurgent Iran creating trouble. Worse still for Israel is the prospect of a weakened US becoming more isolationist on the world stage
I was born in 1957, here's the Presidents of my lifetime.
Eisenhower -- underrated
JFK -- overrated
LBJ -- bad ... Vietnam was his Iraq; his domestic policies led to much of our problems in the 1970s
Nixon -- near great, tragic, underappreciated in many ways
Ford -- good in the circumstances
Carter -- inherited a mess, made it worse, but a few good things to his credit
Reagan -- great
Bush 41 -- ok caretaker. Handled Iraq War I well
Clinton -- not bad, Gingrich & Co forced him to act like a moderate Republican
Bush 43
For me, Bush 43 is a lot like LBJ but is worse because Bush 43 actually started with a good hand to play and instead totally screwed it up. We'll be paying the cost for a long time ...
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