Looking Back at the Presidency of George W. Bush

As so many of us look forward to the inauguration of the new president (or focus on the current economic crisis we find ourselves in), I thought it would be useful to look back at the legacy of the departing president. For most of my readers, I know that it has been eight years of frustration. For some of my younger readers, the initial frustration and exasperation that I felt with Mr. Bush is probably a pretty faded memory-- interspersed among teen-age angst and turmoil manifested in dramatic form by High School Musical parts 1, 2, 3, and etc. (Actually, I probably shouldn't use that analogy, having never actually seen any of them. N.B.-- this is not criticism of the younger generation, merely recognition of the fact that this president has been in office eight long years. If you are 25 now, you were only 17 when the whole circus began).
So, here is the (roughly) chronological list-- off the cuff and woefully incomplete-- of a few events in the dismal legacy of George W. Bush:

NEGATIVE (listed first because there's more of it):

-- Bush's selection (not election) by the Supreme Court in 2000

-- Enron and energy policy; scandal over Cheney's secret energy policy meeting with energy executives, including Ken Lay, his good friend (this is often overshadowed because it occurred in the summer of 2001)

-- Iraq War

-- "Mission Accomplished"

-- No WMDs in Iraq

-- Paul Bremer and the frat boys in charge in Iraq

-- Abu Ghraib prison scandal and general chaos in Iraq

-- Torture at Guantanamo and various other places (Eastern Europe in particular)

-- Katrina and Rita ("Brownie's doing a great job!")

-- Warrantless wire-tapping

-- Denial of global warming (in face of scientific community; and editing by federal science agencies' reports for political reasons)

-- Cheney's assertion that vice-president is not part of the executive branch (wow!)

-- Outing of Valerie Plame and political fall-out

-- Afghanistan-- mismanagement after initial success

-- Economy-- he's not solely responsible here. So is Clinton, GHW Bush, Reagan, Greenspan, Congress for the last 20 years, etc. But he didn't help by feeding the deficit, thus putting us to our current terrible Hobbesian choice of massively increasing our debt or moving to 12% or worse unemployment

POSITIVE:

-- Afghanistan-- initial success (Northern Alliance and etc.)

-- AIDS program in Africa (most support to stop epidemic ever from US)

I'm leaving out a bunch of "policy" sorts of things--e.g., tax policy, gay rights, abortion, and etc. I am only trying to include specific issues or policies that were prominently reported. (Arguably, I shouldn't give him the AIDS thing, because I could just as well add that his foreign health policy also precluded financial support for any organization that offered family planning advice, including birth control options (condoms and etc.) or abortion rights because of the right-to-lifers in his administration who believe only in abstinence-- an absurd position that will be reversed in... let's see... 2 days.) I've got to draw the line somewhere! This is a blog, not an encyclopedia.

My personal feeling about Mr. Bush-- and it is problematic to take too much license, here, because I do not know the man personally-- is that he actually is a nice man but not a leader. He allowed himself to be overridden and influenced by other men with greater will and determination, men whom he appointed to high positions of influence. On the foreign policy side, this led to disastrous results. Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and (to a lesser extent) Bolton led us with neo-conservative idealism into war in the Middle East in Iraq and, more damning, convinced by their idealism, laid no foundation for the restoration of Iraq (its government, military, and economy) and proceeded without any understanding of the culture, history, or ethnic makeup of that country or the region. On the economic policy side, there was no vision-- only following the party line, trying to eliminate taxes on the wealthy (capital gains to 0%, elimination of the estate tax, elimination of social security), eradicate public schools, and erode labor rights; basically, an attempt to turn back the clock to late 19th century cut-throat capitalism-- the conservative ideal. Because the policy was so simple, other appointments were considered unimportant-- like Michael Brown's appointment as head of FEMA. Incompetence and cronyism reigned.

**

Good riddance. Open the window and let the fresh breeze in.