A Tribute to George W. Bush: Reviewing Dubya's Legacy

Hi everybody,

Well, I'm back in school now, and I'm taking this composition class. I've got this assignment tomorrow, it's a timed, diagnostic essay. Guess what the question was? "Some people say George W. Bush was the worst American president in history. Explain why or why not you think this is the case."

Wow. At least I got something interesting that I could write about, you know? My only issue is, I don't think an hour-long timed essay will do justice to all that needs to be said on this topic. So, tell you what, as your correspondent (sort of), I'll give you an extended, advanced version of everything I'll cover in the essay. Where do I start? I don't know how much of this juicy material I can cover in a single post, so to keep focused, I'll try to cover three main areas: national security, the economy, and overall management of the government.

George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency on a platform of what he called "compassionate conservatism". He claimed he was "a uniter, not a divider". However, the controversy surrounding his election in 2000 over Al Gore did flare up tempers on both sides. Some even claim the election was rigged. I don't claim that for certain, but the results are somewhat suspicious. Every time a recount was about to proceed, outside forces, ultimately the supreme court, stepped in to stop it.

Anyway, Bush assumed office in January of 2001, and the spring and summer of that year passed without event. Then came the defining moment in his presidency. On September 11, 2001, 19 crazed Islamist thugs hijacked 4 passenger jets, plunged 2 of them into the sides of the World Trade Center buildings in New York, and one into the side of the Pentagon in Arlington. A fourth hijacking failed, and the plane crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside.

This was Bush's chance to prove himself. Just the day after the attack, his approval rating soared to 90%. We were all united with one single purpose in mind. "Mr. President, do whatever you have to to catch those responsible," was the prevailing consensus among us all. He now had the opportunity to bring us all together, to truly be "a uniter" as he put it.

Sadly, this isn't what happened. Instead of bringing us together, Bush and those in his White House ultimately used this to build power for themselves and those of their party, to build what his chief strategist Karl Rove called "a permanent republican majority". This cynical exploitation got them short term gain, but in the end, it was what hurt him.

Who could have predicted 9/11? I would say nobody, but that's not entirely true. When Bush was vacationing in Crawford on August 6, 2001, a CIA adviser gave him his Daily Briefing, which on this day read "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US" in big, bold letters. The report goes on to say that Bin Laden's 1998 attacks on the Embassies of Kenya and Tanzania "demonstrated that he set up operations years in advance and was not deterred by setbacks". The report also guessed that a failed attempt to bomb LAX on New Years of 1999-2000 was Bin Laden's doing.

Of course, the Invasion of Afghanistan commenced, and the hunt for Bin Laden began. After two months in December 2001, the hunt failed to yield any results. As 2002 rolled on, more talk of Iraq was heard. Vice President Dick Cheney pointed to a meeting between lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in Prague on April 9, 2001. Yet the FBI had Atta in Florida at the time.

Then came talk of WMD's, the "smoking gun" and the mushroom cloud. Bush asserted, particularly in his 2003 State of the Union Address that Saddam had, among other things, purchased uranium yellowcake from Niger. Joe Wilson, an expert on tracking these things was sent there to investigate, and he concluded that it wasn't the case. It turns out lots of the info on these weapons was inaccurate or outdated. Some of it was withheld. As A Short History of the United States flatly wrote, just five years after the fact, "The trouble with the evidence was that none of it was true." Wow, no mistaking that.

Expert after expert raised red flags on it. Most of them were ignored, a few were discredited. Joe Wilson was disgraced after his wife was outed from her post as a counter-proliferation agent. Now, Wilson wasn't even an opponent of theirs. Indeed, he and his wife had donated to the Bush campaign in 2000. And yet, he and all the other experts who disagreed were pushed aside.

So how did Bush do overall on national security? One thing they never fail to remind us is "We've kept you safe since then." As someone pointed out, doesn't then count? When an aide informed Bush in a Florida elementary school that a terrorist attack was underway, he got this blank stare on his face and sat there reading a children's book for seven minutes. What was he thinking at that moment?

Who knows? But the abscence of another attack since has not been the only great fortune for Bush. The climate is now such that defense is now seen as a republican strength, and any tragedy similar to 9/11, were it to follow, would be the fault of the other party.

There's also the fact that a few key Bush Administration employees collaborated on something called the Project for a New American Century, which included Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. In fact, there's a publication on the project's website entitled How to Attack Iraq, which dates from November 16, 1998, long before the attacks. It seems many of these guys had been itching to get into Iraq for years.

So this politicization of national defense coupled with the militaristic instincts of many members created the toxic situation we find ourselves in now. The decision made by this president created as many problems as it solved, and it damaged our relationship with the world, which we need by the way. As much as some claim that "who cares about the rest of the world," the nations of the world need to cooperate. So, his national security record wasn't that good, in addition to brazenly overstepping some key ethical lines.

Now, what about the economy? It's pretty apparent now that the economic policies he embraced were counterproductive. Just look at the economic facts from 2008. Economists concluded that the crisis really began in December 2007. He, as most politicians have done in recent years, embraced deregulation. He embraced the unbridled free-market policies that favored cutting government out, and whoever is relying on those programs, well, good luck to them.

This deregulation frenzy included cutting regulations of the banks. This allowed people to take up loans they couldn't afford to pay off, so sooner or later, foreclosures began inundating (right spelling?) the market, spilling over into the credit market. Soon the stock market started tanking, leading to massive job losses, and that built up a vicious cycle of even more foreclosures.

This crisis, which was caused by faults on many parts, had been brewing for a while, but in 2008, it built up and then became too big to ignore. Eventually, even Bush had to abandon his ideology. But the government did as little as it could, offering a stimulus check to taxpayers in early 2008, and then when the banks began tanking that fall, arranging the bailout so that only the bosses at the top got the aid, and all those who lost their jobs were just out of luck.

Speaking of the government doing very little, in these years, the government generally worked pretty poorly. There are several instances of this that come to mind, but none more tragic and devastating than Hurricane Katrina. Nearly four years after terrorists attacked us, a giant hurricane stormed into New Orleans. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was staffed with a purely political appointment of Bush's, Michael Brown, as were the Justice Department, the Supreme Court, and almost everything else.

FEMA's response was two days late, and they missed lots of places. Red cross, other private relief agencies, and local governments were powerless to do much. Without federal authorities there, the citizens of New Orleans were screwed. This limited aid failed to reach many areas of New Orleans, like the poorer and, yes, minority neighborhoods of New Orleans. This led Kanye West to famously proclaim, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Overall, the government was more concerned with the ideology than the consequences of the ideology. Expert after expert emerged to tell us how deceitful, manipulative, spiteful the government had become. First Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, John Dean (an insider from a corrupt administration a generation earlier), then finally Scott McClellan, who as late as 2005 was trumpeting Mr. Bush's message loud and proud, now admitting that his former employer was corrupt.

So much for political capital. That famous (or should I say infamous) line reflected this attitude. The only thing that was important was ideology. It didn't matter that people, often Americans whom Bush was supposed to be working for, were losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their lives, in some cases. This disjunct between ideology and human lives and well-being needs to be addressed.

Mr. Bush, you liked to say that "history would judge." Well, history is finally here, and I'm sorry to say, it's not looking good. As for the answer to the question, I can't say for certain that Bush is the worst, but if he isn't, he's certainly a top contender. A poorly run government, an economic record that any logical observer would balk at, and his strong suit, national security, wasn't as strong as it appeared.

So, is there anything good we can say about this? I came of age during this whole thing, and I had to do lots of soul searching. I found it painful to learn that my country could stoop to this. I found lots of insights this way, which then compelled me to start up this blog. Turns out you can make good out of lots of things. This correspondent hates to get all self-centered and preachy, but I have learned one thing: it's that humans screw up pretty royally sometimes, but are capable of some really good things, too. So, if nothing else, thank you, Mr. Bush, for teaching us that great lesson.

At long last, This is the Daily Reeder, Over&out.