The Legacy of the Bush Administration?

The American ^ | October 24, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

[neverdem]

This article appears in the "Geopolitics" section of the recent issue of The American.

By October, 15 months before his presidency would end, George Bush’s approval ratings still hovered around 30 percent.

His administration will go down, say historians such as Columbia’s Eric Foner and Princeton’s Sean Wilentz, as a disaster. As Wilentz put it, “Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.”

A new genre in American popular culture has arisen comparing Bush to Hitler — on the Internet, and in fiction, stand-up comedy, and drama. To the novelist Garrison Keillor, Bush’s Republicans are “brownshirts in pinstripes” — echoing Al Gore’s similar slur of “digital brownshirts.”

Even Bush’s supporters seem resigned to such abuse. They now talk not of a restoration in public esteem before the president leaves office, but rather of a Trumanesque turnaround: a once-despised president only years later becomes appreciated for his unpopular but necessary decisions.

But for now, Bush seems to have an orphaned presidency defended by very few. From the left, he is criticized for his tax cuts for the rich, his lack of concern for African-American victims of Katrina, his illiberal homeland-security measures — and always for Iraq, with shrill persistent choruses of “preemption” and “unilateralism.” Much of this anger against Bush is Pavlovian and superficial, deeply embedded within the president’s caricatured dead-or-alive, smoke-’em-out lingo.

As a result, the left gives the president no credit for policies that have irked his conservative base. In his first term, he increased federal spending at a faster rate than Bill Clinton. He extended the reach of federal education policy with his No Child Left Behind legislation, and he did not veto a single spending bill, instead sponsoring a major new prescription entitlement...

[jveritas]

They are simply wrong, and yes I know better than all of them combined.

[MEG33]

Did you happen to read the entire article?

[BufordP]

You can learn a lot from reading taglines.

Thanks!

[Choose Ye This Day]

THE greatest?

You’re joking, right?

You think he’ll be seen MORE favorably than Lincoln, Washington and Reagan? You think Bush will surpass them?

[Non-Sequitur]

There is much less violence than before. As I said before from all practical military perspectives both Al Qaeda and Taliban are utterly defeated.

How many times did they say that about the Viet Cong?

Violence is down because we have 170,000 troops keeping a lid on. If the violence keeps going down as we draw down our troops, if the Iraqi people continue to support the troops by providing information on the insurgents like they are currently doing, and if the Iraqi troops can start taking over the security needs for their own country then I'll be the first one to be saying that victory is at hand. Until then we've still got a war going on.

[Blue State Insurgent]

Before the SCOTUS vacancies, the lazy and apathetic GOP congress couldn’t even get the presidents lower court appointments approved in a timely fashion even though they were the majority. You would figure that they would be anxious to get down to doing the people’s business and start righting the wrongs of our justice system by returning sane, conservative justices to the federal courts but no, they were lazy, apathetic and not united.

So W nominates Meyers and, low and behold, the base rallies to the conservative cause and demands more conservative SCOTUS nominees.

W then gives them what we all wanted: the two most conservative Supreme Court nominees in a generation. The GOP is now gets what they wanted, are invested in the presidents picks and sees Alito and Roberts through without a hitch giving W what he had wanted all along.

In the parlance of Poker, Harriet Meyers was Bush’s throw away hand.

[Blue State Insurgent]

He’s already surpassed Reagan.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Not even close.

[OneHun]

“I think it's easy to see that his stance on illegal (criminal) immigrants, I mean "Guest Workers" as well as his refusal to secure the borders, will harm future generations.”

This is a serious matter for me, and I felt that I got a black eye from him when he voiced first time his opinion.  At that time I wrote him and others from the House of Representatives about my strong opposition to their plan.  He has some time to make things right with the base and with America.   

I share your concerns, but I have to wait with my opinion until the end of his term.

[Blue State Insurgent]

They are foreign fascists and homegrown gangsters. By the way, Islam is not the enemy.

[Blue State Insurgent]

You got that right. Bush didn’t cut and run from or negotiate with terrorists.

[Teacher317]

re: legacies... since those cited by the author think that GWB’s legacy is contained entirely within the manufactured scandals”, here’s a quick question: which post WWII president, other than Reagan, has had more of a significant impact on the US and the world than GWB? Clinton fiddles and diddled, GHWBush had 4 lackluster years, Carter was an abysmal failure by any objective standard, Ford didn’t do much with his time, Nixon had some policy changes but they were obscured by the Watergate scandal, Johnson was a schmuck, an JFK had no time (but stil was an immense figure in his short presidency)

[durasell]

That’s why so few high schools are named after him.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Reagan didn’t either—but Reagan was also busy dismantling the Evil Empire, bringing down the most oppressive and poisonous state in history. Different time, different enemy.

You won’t find many here who will agree with you that W is a better president than Reagan.

[George W. Bush]

I’m hoping my tagline doesn’t come true.

I dread the thought of Xlinton revanchism. Some folks take exception to my Cassandra like pessimism. I think we have squandered our fiscal sanity and small-government agenda for little in return. And, worse, we compromised our integrity in Congress, leading to the scandals like with Duke Cunningham, that caused our defeat in ‘06.

Without our clean small-government agenda, what use does the public have for our GOP? The country really doesn’t need two corrupt Democrat parties. And they remain frightened for only so long, as the Dem congressional majorities throughout most of the Cold War should tell us.

That’s a wise sermon you found. You should post it on the Religion Forum. They would likely enjoy it.

[Non-Sequitur]

They are foreign fascists and homegrown gangsters.

Those foreign fascists and/or homegrown gangsters almost killed a U.S. general today.

By the way, Islam is not the enemy.

It's just coincidence that those foreign fascists and homegrown gangsters just happen to be Muslim?

[Blue State Insurgent]

You may not consider cutting and. running from Lebanon significant but Osama sure did.

Under what circumstances would Bush arm the Iranian regime like Reagan did?

Reagan didn’t do anything different in confronting the USSR then what had been our policy since WWII. In fact, he was sort of beating a dead horse.

He also perpetuated the cold war policy of Realpolitik that traded off democracy for stability which led to 9-11.

I’m glad W restored our honor in foreign policy and doesn’t tolerate dictators let alone present them with pearl-handled revolvers.

[Blue State Insurgent]

No more of a coincidence then the American Soldiers fighting the fascists just happen to be Christians.

Most Muslims side with us against the fascists. Osama wants this to be a fight with all of Islam and you are falling for his trap.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Reagan didn’t do anything different in confronting the USSR then what had been our policy since WWII?

Um, go back to history class.

[ImpBill]

As one who has had plenty to be disappointed in GW your bottom line assessment is right on the mark. Even if I have had to pinch myself into remembering that fact often, it is indeed “the fact”!