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The New York Times offers the following on the Obama Administration's toxic asset relief plan: WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department is expected to unveil early next week its long-delayed plan to buy as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and related assets from financial institutions, according to people close to the talks. The plan is likely to offer generous subsidies, in the form of low-interest loans, to coax investors to form partnerships with the government to buy toxic assets from banks. To help protect taxpayers, who would pay for the bulk of the purchases, the plan calls for auctioning...

WASHINGTON - Former President George W. Bush can finally boast "Mission Accomplished" - if the mission is winning a chance to repair his legacy and be paid handsomely for it. Bush, who called himself "the Decider," scored a multimillion-dollar book deal to write a dozen or so chapters on how he decided everything from quitting booze while in his 40s to starting two wars. "My goal is to bring the reader inside the Oval Office for the most consequential moments of my personal and political life," Bush said in a statement Thursday issued by Crown Publishing. "I look forward to...

There have been fewer Presidents in American history who were more unlikely men for the job than George Walker Bush. Diplomatically called “a late bloomer,” Bush was a partying frat boy up to the age of 40, whereupon he quit drinking and focused on his professional goals. These included making money and securing the financial future of his family, but there is no evidence that, even then, he saw himself as a future political leader. The study of history and current events is captivating not because of the predictable, but precisely because the predictable is constantly thwarted by events. Events...

When the American Civil War began, president Abraham Lincoln was far less prepared for the task of commander in chief than his Southern adversary. Jefferson Davis had graduated from West Point (in the lowest third of his class, to be sure), commanded a regiment that fought intrepidly at Buena Vista in the Mexican War and served as secretary of war in the Franklin Pierce administration from 1853 to 1857.

Obama worries US debt may shape legacyTue Jan 27, 5:21 pm ET WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama told Republicans behind closed doors Tuesday that he worried about the soaring US debt because "I will be judged by the legacy I leave behind" on the economy, a source said. Wooing lawmakers openly hostile to his stimulus plan, Obama also warned that the current recession was "different, deeper, and global," and that inaction could cause "irreparable" economic damage, said a Republican participant. But "nobody is more worried about the deficit and the debt than me," he told Republicans who charge the...

Bush -- Man Of The Day Fools rush in every time something positive is written about President George W. Bush. Attacks on the writer, not on what was written, come from the dark pit of anger and ignorance where enlightenment is badly needed. By highlighting Bush’s achievements in a published editorial as he bids farewell to the nation, I “forced” Liberal extremists and their radical satellites on the edge, to stump their feet of disapproval and cry in pain! What I actually did was forced out of their system, their greatest hidden expertise on name-calling. When I wrote about Bush’s...

I had a chance to watch the coverage of President Bush’s return to Texas and I have to say, there is something that has bothered me ever since. He addressed the crowd from behind a podium bearing the Texas state seal and spoke in the same folksy manner we have seen from him since day one. As he finished his speech and went on to wave, shake hands and swagger through the crowd of well-wishers, there was one thought, more of a question really, that I couldn’t get out of my head. Why the hell have we abandoned this guy?...

The political postscript to all the hugs, kisses, personal Oval Office desk drawer notes and backslaps between POTUS 43 and POTUS 44 isn't exactly a warm, Pete Seeger, sing-along scene. I went to high school with Pete's Daughter, Mika; he was a great icon and true believer in harmony back then and still is, at a spry 90, leading a million-plus citizens in song last Sunday in DC. But partisans from former and current administrations are striking a very different tone. The smell of fresh upholstery hasn't even worn off the new, improved White House website yet and already there's...

Newsmax.com Editorial As Barack Obama assumes the mantle of the presidency and duties of the office, he has inherited from his predecessor a federal government that has a staggering national debt of over $10 trillion, a ballooning federal deficit this year estimated at $438 billion – and a government that recently assumed responsibility for some $5 trillion of the nation’s consumer debt. The irony is that George W. Bush, who billed himself as a conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan, leaves a legacy of profligate federal spending, record debt and an economy in shambles. A broad range of conservative...

George W. Bush is blamed for everything under the sun; but how will his legacy be judged by historians? What has he accomplished? Has he made mistakes? Sure, but does he deserve to be called the worst president of the United States as the polls suggest? Did the internet play a role? How about the media? What role did he have in the financial crisis? Did he fail in Iraq?

When George W. Bush leaves office Tuesday, he will do so with a 27 percent exit approval rating, lower even than Jimmy Carter’s was. I think he deserves better. Why? Because, while national security is not the president’s only job, it must be his first priority, and Bush has been an excellent wartime leader. Even when it cost him politically, he has remained a relentless and successful defender of this nation and its people. Like all of us, Bush saw those two great towers reduced to rubble, the smoke pouring from the Pentagon, the smoldering scar cut through a Pennsylvania...

Limited the overall size of the Federal Government by restraining non-security spending, simultaneously focusing on key priorities and limiting non-security spending growth to 3 percent, slightly above the rate of inflation.

Whatever history's verdict on the Bush administration might be, it is likely to be very different from what we hear from the talking heads on television or read from the know-it-alls on editorial pages. President Bush's number one achievement was also the number one function of government— to protect its citizens. Nobody on September 11, 2001 believed that there would never be another such attack for more than seven years. Unfortunately, people who are protected from dangers often conclude that there are no dangers. This is most painfully visible among those Americans who are hysterical over the government's intercepting international...

As President George W. Bush prepares to leave office a review of his eight years as the Nation’s chief executive is in order. While the end of his presidency has been overshadowed by economic problems and angry calls from the left about various aspects of the war against radical Islam, Bush did have some success which should be recognized.

GEORGE W. BUSH understands how history works. While the victors may write the history, sometimes history undoes the victors, and their victory is shown to be more shallow than at first glance. Looking at the Bush's poll numbers in his waning days of office, one might be tempted to conclude he was a "failure," as just about everyone has triumphantly proclaimed. But this president's success or failure will not be determined by what Americans—and certainly not by what Europeans—think of the man and his policies today, but whether those policies produce the intended results tomorrow. I believe that they will.

She was our calm presence after 9/11, a real lady. Fox News' Greta Van Susteran and others weigh in on the legacy of our departing First Lady.

ASK the average American about President Bush's health-care legacy and the most likely response is a snort. After all, didn't he refuse to fund medical aid for kids? Hasn't he spent billions on the Iraq war while shorting human needs at home? It's time to look at facts: Mr. Bush's record on health will stand as a great contribution to the well-being of mankind. Take, for example, the doubling of federal funding for community health centers since Mr. Bush took office. These not-for-profit agencies operate in underserved areas and treat people regardless of their ability to pay. According to The...

Before he was a war president, George W. Bush fashioned himself as an education president. He campaigned as a school reformer and held his first policy speech at a Washington elementary school, where he began laying the groundwork for the controversial No Child Left Behind education law. Nearly eight years later, Bush devoted his final public policy address to the same topic, traveling to an elementary school in Philadelphia yesterday to claim success in education reform and to warn President-elect Barack Obama against major changes to the landmark federal testing program. Bush argued that No Child Left Behind has "forever...

Conventional wisdom last week decreed that President-elect Barack Obama had done such a fine job culling his Cabinet that only one pick - Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder - would present a problem, but most likely, a surmountable hurdle. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson - Obama's presumptive commerce secretary - stepped on that happy tale when he withdrew his name from consideration Sunday in the midst of a federal corruption probe. Back to Holder. Inside money would bet that Republicans will use Holder's Jan. 15 Senate confirmation hearing to grill him on his role in President Bill Clinton's notorious last-day-in-office pardon...