The Legacy of George W Bush

I've been putting this off for a while, as it's easier to work on the news and opinions of the day than to drag up all the old crap of the prior eight years. But, with little more than a month left (and Christmas and the grandeur of The Office of the President-Elect *gag* eclipsing his final days) its time to take a hard look at the legacy of President George W Bush. To do so will require to examine some of the key events and legislation that has marked the two terms he has been our president. Most of my info on this does come from Wikipedia in case you're wondering.

One note before I begin, though. This assessment will be based on whether he followed the conservative principals we elected him for back in 2000, and without standard Bush-hater assumptions that he's a liar, a bitch for the oil companies, and an overall soulless bastard. As such, I will not be tolerant of rank moonbattery in the comments section. I will say that every president (Democrat or Republican) has believed what he was doing was right and the motivations of anyone who assumes the drizzling shitstorm that is the presidency are not wholly selfish. To quote John Adams: "No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it." So with the though of how thankless the job really is, let's begin:


The 2000 Election or Dude, Where's my Mandate?

First of all, George W Bush was elected president in 2000. The bullshit chant of 'selected, not elected' is nothing more than sour grapes on crack. Our system only works, however, if we accept the results of the election, and (if it's as close in Florida as it was) the normal recount process. I'm not going to argue every charge, counter-charge, or bullshit argument. Bush was ahead in the initial count, and stayed ahead until the Supreme Court stopped the incessant recountery. And after 2004, there was So like I've told the bitter Republicans this year: Suck it up. It's over, he's president.

However, due to the murkiness of the final result, the Bush administration started out late and with excessive uncertainty, without much of a mandate, and with a (larger than usual) hardcore bunch of people with venom for blood with no objectivity whatsoever screaming for impeachment or blood. Of course, this meant, despite control of Congress, it was kind of shaky for the first eight months.


9/11 and the War or The War to End All Bipartisanship

The first defining event of the Bush administration was the terrorist attacks of that dark day. From it, Bush was handed a mandate to fight a new kind of war against an enemy without a country and with an evil resolve that makes the Japanese of WWII look like the (surrender-happy) French in comparison. In the beginning, The president (and many of his programs) had bipartisan support. But as issues arose and campaigns marched (and we slowly forgot), it degenerated into partisan bickering. Which brings us to the fronts of the war:

Afghanistan - An easy and clear-cut enemy in the beginning, the Taliban were direct sponsors of Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden himself was hiding there. We whooped them, but missed Bin Laden. But as the Afghans are wont to do, they didn't bring much of a democratic process to the table. In addition, their porous border with Pakistan, plus the nature of this tribal area, has made it pretty damned hard to get to him. In addition, Iraq has sucked a lot of attention and time and troops from the theater. But with victory there, we can reengage and find the bastards, a policy likely to continue into the Obama administration

Iraq - The mother of all political messes. (Note: this part is not a vindication or condemnation of Bush, merely an attempt to lay out the facts as simply as possible) After Saddam Hussein's continued threats, defiance, and general asshattery in defying the US and the UN since his defeat in the Gulf war, as well as intelligence to support that he was moving to make another play with his WMDs, coalition forces from 20 nations entered and liberated Iraq from the tyranny of the Hussein regime. However, the happy ending did not come. For three years, an insurgency of both Saddam's stalwarts and Al Qaeda transplants, as well as sectarian violence that had been suppressed for decades tore at Iraq, costing us 4000+ soldiers, and many more Iraqi lives. During this, free elections were held in Iraq, Bush was reelected, and the fervor of antiwar sentiment continued to grow here at home, fueled heavily by the Hate Bush Brigade.

However, after the troop surge of 2007/2008, the situation has stabilized and we are rapidly approaching the day where we will leave Iraq, for better or worse, with an elected government. And the success or failure of Iraq (yet to be determined) will be the greatest factor in Bush's legacy concerning the war.

The Patriot Act - Both this and FISA are war measures, designed to combat a specific threat that uses our legal system and free society as a weapon against us. Now there are elements of each that need to be examined, moderated, given oversight, and sunsetted. But precedent is with the president on this, as the security (and survival) of the country demand that every action that can be taken to fight our enemies must be taken, with the subsequent oversight designed to determine if it waas right to do so. In that light, these measures, which are designed to target foreign terrorists operating around the world and here in America, it is not necessarily excessive, or a clear violation of Constitutional rights. However, it became more fodder for the Haters, giving them tisted reasons to compare him to Hitler (as opposed to Lincoln (suspending Habeus Corpus) and FDR (Japanese internment camps)).

GITMO and Waterboarding - The Geneva Conventions wer esigned to give soldiers in conflicts legal protections and to bring some sense of civilization (ha) to war. However, they were not designed to accomodate the terrorists of the world, who fight undeclared wars on civilian populations. The purpose of GITMO is to secure these murderous pieces of shit until we can either try them for crimes or hand them over to their countries of origin to be dealt with. Both detention and harsh interrogation techniques were used, to gain the intelligence required to continue to hunt down the enemies of peace. Naturally, this was more fodder for the "human rights for the inhuman" crowd. President-elect Obama has stated he intends to close GITMO and eliminate these interrogation thechniques, which he apparently terms as torture. Their elimination, and the results of such, may show Bush's decisions on these in a different light.


Compassionate Conservatism and Domestic Days
or The Manchurian Conservative

George W Bush was elected on a promise of a return to the conservative days we enjoyed under Ronald Reagan. And after eight years of Clinton, featuring leadership by poll, a graduate course on parsing the word, and other things that came to a head (gotta love 3 double entendres in once phrase) before he was impeached, conservatives were screaming to elect anybody else. And compared to his main primary rival (the damn-near liberal John McCain), almost anybody would have been more conservative. Except Algore (who deserved to lose because he couldn't even win his own home state).

Unfortunately, the "compassionate" part of "compassionate conservative" (as I have noted elsewhere) does some things to conservative principles that are just wrong:

The Bush Tax Cuts - I've never met an across-the-board tax cut I didn't like. The idea of removing tax burden from the people who pay it without prejudice is always a good idea in my world. With conservative principles that dictate reducing the size and scope of government, and a Republican Congress that will continue the shrinkage, it's a win-win situation. And that extra refund check for every taxpayer was pretty nifty too.

No Program Left Behind - When nifty ceased on the homefront it was replaced by the growth of more programs, some with a conservative spin in them (No Child Left Behind), others being expansion of the same thrice-damned programs that have been creeping outward from Washington since we were first saddled with the entitlement monkey back in the FDR days (Medicare drug benefits). Money and programs to fight manmade global warming, AIDS, poverty, and to add another department to the government (Homeland security) All came up under his watch. It was this failure to stick with conservative principles that contributed to the failure of the GOP in 2006 and 2008, along with....

Wherefore Art Thou, Veto - Considering we really didn't see this little power of the executive branch (one of 12 vetoes, with 4 of the 12 overridden), what more is there to say? Considering that between the stuff he pushed and the shit he signed off on, the national debt since 9/11 went from $5.8 trillion to around $10 trillion (WITH THE GOP IN CONTROL), I'd say he seriously skipped a lesson in fiscal conservatism. Which brings me to the granddaddy of all stupid-assed things to have come out of the Bush years (and the thing that will keep that debt skyrocketing past at least the first Obama administration).

Depression Ep II: Attack of the Bailouts - The Bush administration, in concert with GOP "leaders" and scheming Democrats, started the money throwing back around tax time when they decided on a 'stimulus package' to boost a slightly sagging economy. But this one wasn't a "taxpayer refund' like the first one back when Bush could call himself a conservative without me wanting to puke. No this was one to help out those who need it most. In liberal terms the EEEEEVIL RICH didn't get shit. It went to the poor, which meant more lottery ticket sales. Then when the economy really started to tank, after the gas price spike, Fannie and Freddie going belly up, the housing bubble exploding, and the subesquent death spiral for the banks that were tied to it all, our big government brothers and sisters (with a few decent exceptions and Dennis Kucinich) stepped in to throw almost 3/4 of a trillion bucks at the problem (with trillions more coming from the Fed). Oh, and they couldn't pass it until they loaded it with pork. And Bush signed it. And now it's a matter of when we bail out the car bastards. But they'll be under a 'car czar' or something to make sure they do right by the government. I guess that means their stockholders can go to hell. And it looks like this will continue into the Obama years, so guess where I'm probably going to start chewing his ass.

Miscellaneous - Other than Democrats who can't seem to take responsibility for their own mistakes, Katrina and the mess of New Orleans will not figure into the Bush legacy. He will also be noted for appointing Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, who turned out to be fairly strict in their constitutional interpretations so far.


The Verdict or How Much Does(n't) Bush Suck?

The Bush administration will be defined by several things. First, there's the 2000 election. All that will be remembered was that it was messy and Bush was elected. Except when the left wants to scream about Republicans stealing elections, of course. At which point I'll pull out the cheese.

Second there's 9/11 and the war. The images of that day will remain vivid in the memories of so many, as other turning points do, and Bush's actions in the days, weeks, months and years after. Iraqs outcome looks good. And the fact that we have not been attacked here will cement his reputation as a good wartime president, and a man who protected his country from enemies who seek our blood. For that, we can be eternally grateful.

Third, there's the economy, stupid. The fact that the downturn came in the final year of his administration will be enough to cement him as a weak president. Ask his father and ask Jimmy Carter. They both took a hit from hard economic times. And there wasn't much time for him to do anything, and an unsympathetic Congress that had no reason to save his ass. But for conservatives, as much as we are proud of his record in protecting us from terrorists, we can't quite forgive him for his apparent turn to big-government quasi-socialsim. Yeah, I just said socialism.

Conclusion (Finally!) - While we have had great presidents (Reagan, Kennedy) and we have had terrible presidents (Nixon, Carter), George W Bush will limp into the history books with either a slightly positive or extremely negative image (depending on how much of a Marxist the asshat writing the book is). And this will be becasue, while he served us well in one arena, he allowed himself to be savaged by his opposition without fighting back, and he failed on principles when the opportunity to show his conservative mettle was presented to him. And while I'll be grateful that he was elected the 43rd President of the United States, I look at how it ended and realize that we must be eternally vigilant over those we elect as conservative leaders, lest they fall.


Postscript - Finally, I figgered it would be a good strategery to end this with a little laugh. So in the spirit of making fun of, uh, um, all, uh, presidents, um (and , uh, presidents, um, elect), here are five Bushisms:

"The woman who knew that I had dyslexia — I never interviewed her."

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."


Note: Due to people not playing by the rules, I have disabled further comment.