Bush is an honorable man. He failed in some areas, succeeded in others.
That's not enough for the whining, immature children who wanted him to be something he was not, who refuse to accept political realities. These same people seem to think RWR was perfect, when an inspection of both men's records show good and bad, wise choices and foolish.
I don't defend some of the genuinely poor choices and foolish mistakes Bush made, but the ferocity of the hatred for him here is quite curious. Those who bleat “Harriet Miers!” conveniently ignore that she never got a hearing and base their position on hearsay and cherrypicked pieces of information—I don't see them posting “Sandra Day O'Connor!” all that often. Those who scream about “Jorge!” never bring up that while Bush SUPPORTED amnesty, Reagan SIGNED amnesty into law.
And so on and so forth...
The point isn't that Bush is perfect, or even “Yeah, well nobody is” and letting him off easy. He deserves criticism for not taking control of the message, for having ineffective spokespeople, for not having mass firings soon after 9-11, for many things.
But how much worse off we'd be right now with a Gore or Kerry presidency. Admit it or not, THAT is the reality of the situation. Administrations don't happen in a vacuum. If they did, we could easily dismiss most of them, because none would be as we wish them to be in total—we'd toss out those plans and start again, making it perfect this time.
That's not the real world. In the real world, Bush did things I disagree with, but I always felt he meant well, tried to support what this country is and what it is supposed to be. I don't feel Gore, Kerry or Obama believe that—I think they hate what this country is and is meant to be and want to make it something else.
When I think of that, the bitchers and moaners here look very, very small, and completely out of touch.
A fine post, which will be ignored by those who most need to read it.
President Bush took hits from all sides,(rats, media, culture, and this forum) all the time, from the beginning. His domestic enemies would have rejoiced if all he did was spend time defending himself against their petty and idiotic attacks. I fault our pubbie congressmen and other party leaders for not publicly defending him.
Oh, and the BDS-ers somehow forget his success in Iraq, Afghanistan and protecting us from major terrorist attack.
Great post. On the money.
Excellent post.
George W. Bush did a hard job during a hard time, amidst growing treachery from the Left and their lackey press. I am more than willing to read his yet untold side of the story.