Before we begin to look ahead at what the Barack Obama administration has in store for America, let’s take a moment to honestly reflect on the closing of the Bush era. There is no denying that Bush has left behind a tarnished legacy; one marred by incompetence, inconsistent ideology and missed opportunities. Even so, the hysterical outcries directed against Bush during his last few years in office have grossly misrepresented his views and policies and overlook some of his more successful ventures as president. So, before the next age in America begins, let’s take one final look at the closing of another.
History will be the Final Judge
A few years ago, as Bush was readying the nation for war, he remarked on national television that history would judge his actions. It struck me as a particularly insightful comment, as historians often look back on presidents from a far different vantage point than their contemporaries. Given the luxury of hindsight, history is a far more capable judge of people and events than popular opinion polls taken during a president’s term.
Yet, after the speech I was talking to a left-leaning friend of mine who thought it was an absolutely ridiculous comment for Bush to have made. When I tried to explain the wisdom behind Bush’s remark, my friend brushed it aside and continued on Bush’s shortcomings. This was the same friend who criticized Bush’s war efforts due to the budget deficits it caused but now supports Obama’s mind-boggling spending program that will leave America with almost a trillion dollars more debt. Of course, despite the attempts of my friend and other liberals to brand Bush as a failure for life, it will ultimately be history that judges him as a president.
In fact there are several past presidents whose actions and policies surrounding their time in office that would seemingly contradict the popular image and historic status they enjoy today. Consider:
Q: When he was first elected president the country was deeply divided over important social and cultural issues. Shortly after taking office he led the country through a war that was sharply criticized by a growing faction of antiwar activists. In order to protect the country during this time of war he suspended
certain constitutional rights of American citizens. In his reelection bid he won a narrow victory over a former war hero. Who was he?
A: Abraham Lincoln
Q: As president he was dedicated to the Christianization of America and openly declared that the Federal government under his presidential authority would be the right hand of God. He engaged in a foreign war that many of his contemporary critics thought was unnecessary and unrelated to American interests. During the war he effectively shut down publications that opposed his administration’s war policies by labeling them
unpatriotic and treasonous. Who was he?
A: Woodrow Wilson
Q: His first
presidential election victory was one of the narrowest in our country’s history. Many of his critics believed he effectively stole the election due to his “connections” in one of the crucial swing states. Who was he?
A: John F. Kennedy
Ironically, all of these statements could arguably be applied to Bush as well, yet all of these presidents hold positions of endearment in the collective American public’s memory and are generally recognized as good presidents by historians and academics alike. While it might take historians and academia longer than usual to fairly and accurately judge Bush’s presidency, it is fair to say that his legacy might be remembered far differently than the way the American public currently esteems George W. Bush.
A Tale of Two Images
If one were to listen to talk radio these days, one would easily gain the impression that President George W. Bush ruled as a quasi-liberal. Conservative pundits maintain his popularity only sunk when he abandoned the conservative principles that he gave credence while he was elected. Conservatives cite his actions and stances on issues like education (his major educational legislation was a compromise with perennial left-leaning Senator Ted Kennedy), immigration (Bush pushed for amnesty for all illegal immigrants) and his
Keynesian response to the recent economic crisis and credit crunch as primary examples of what has driven his approval ratings to record lows.
Amazingly, if one actually watched network news they might come to the exact opposite conclusion: that Bush reigned as a thinly-veiled right-wing fascist with American imperialist ambitions. Indeed, most liberals believe Bush’s dismal approval ratings stem from the fact that he has governed from the radical right. Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam comment on this paradox of impressions Bush has seared onto the consciences of opposing political factions in their book, Grand New Party. They write:
The reality, of course, is somewhat more complicated than these two caricatures. Bush is a conservative, as the liberals argue, and he has been willing to deviate from conservative orthodoxy, as his right-wing critics complain. But neither quality, nor the combination thereof, doomed his administration to Carteresque approval ratings. Bush may be remembered on the left as a crypto-fascist extremist who hijacked American democracy and dragged it rightward, and on the right as a well-meaning crypto-liberal who sold out the legacy of Ronald Reagan…
The truth, as Douthat and Salam point out, is more complicated and subtle than the broad strokes of rhetoric used by media personalities from the right and left. In other words, Bush implemented both conservative and liberal policies, enjoying both successes and failures along the way. As Douthat and Slam write:
…neither of these images do justice to his distinctive political achievements or to the potential that his administration once held for American life. Observers on both sides of the aisle have soured on Bush, and justly so, but reckoning with failures shouldn’t mean ignoring his successes.
Conservative Successes
An often overlooked aspect of Bush’s presidency has been his high number of appointments to the federal court system, particularly his appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. These two appointments, when coupled with the high number of conservative justices appointed to lower posts, ensures that conservative voices will be heard in the judicial system for years to come. David Yalof writes in
UConn magazine:
Stated simply, George W. Bush may have done more to transform the constitutional landscape in a conservative direction than any president in the past century, including Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.
Yalof continues:
Bush’s appointment of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito to replace William H. Rehnquist and O’Connor, respectively, has shifted the calculus dramatically.
Simply replacing the aging Rehnquist with a 50-year-old ideological compatriot in the Court’s center seat helps to establish stable conservative leadership on the Court for decades to come.
Yet, substituting Alito for O’Connor was the true masterstroke. By replacing the Court’s “swing vote” with a consistent conservative vote, Bush has effectively relegated moderates and liberals to the dissenting camp for the foreseeable future.
Even if a Democrat wins the 2008 election, the newly elected president will most likely be looking to replace liberals John Paul Stevens, 87, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 74, before anyone else. Meanwhile, none of the Court’s more conservative-leaning troika of Antonin Scalia, 71, Anthony M. Kennedy, 71, and Clarence Thomas, 59, are expected to turn in their robes yet. The Democrats may have to win three or four consecutive presidential elections in a row to reverse the appointments of Roberts and Alito.
Bush has also stood firm on other social issues like opposing government-funded stem cell research despite outcries from the left. Bush signed into law a bill banning partial birth abortions, a practice Democratic congressman Daniel Patrick Moynihan once compared to infanticide. Bush’s
tax cuts spurred economic growth throughout much of his two terms and passed a
massive new prescription drug benefit for seniors that surpassed expectations of critics of the bill from the right and leftt. Indeed, the prescription drug bill might be Bush’s legacy to a large number of senior citizens in this country.
Missed Opportunities
On education, Bush started strong when he signed his signature No Child Left Behind bill into law early in his first term. Though it was riddled with problems, it was a solid starting point and could have been bettered in subsequent years. Yet as the bill’s glitches became more evident, Bush refused to tweak or alter the bill, eventually letting the problems fester and ruin the good name of the entire conservative principle behind the act: infusing much-needed accountability into the educational system. As Douthat and Salam write:
No Child Left Behind, for all its myriad faults, could have been a building block of a domestic policy that risked conservative wrath in order to co-opt Democratic issues and constituencies, accepting increased spending in order to inject higher standards, greater accountability, and even some free-market mechanisms into a sclerotic bureaucracy. But from 2001 on, Bush seemed to lose both his interest in policy detail and his willingness to fight battles with the interest groups in his own party.
Another missed opportunity for Bush was not addressing health care reform until 2007, making the proposed legislation little more than a lame duck bill and leaving the ball in the Democratic Party’s court on this important issue.
Dismal Failures
Unfortunately, Bush’s domestic policy’s success stories are overshadowed by its failures. These failures are, in large part, directly due to the Bush administration’s own incompetence and inconsistent ideology. Bush fruitlessly pushed for “comprehensive” immigration reform that would have effectively granted amnesty for all illegal immigrants while he was in office. Ultimately, this accomplished little more than alienating his own political base.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Bush bungled the federal government’s response, highlighting the incompetence within his administration. While the state and local governments deserve much of the blame for the post-Katrina mess, Bush could have capably led a national relief effort that circumvented the lower authorities’ own incompetence. As
Byron York writes:
As soon as the National Weather Service bulletins were warning of the possible destruction of an American city, Bush should have rode herd on the tangled homeland-security bureaucracy and, once the storm hit, federalized the response to save New Orleans from the incompetence and limited capabilities of its state and local governments.
While in office Bush spent more than his Democratic predecessor did and taxed less. This inarguably helped the economy in the short run but also led to a mushrooming national deficit. Furthermore, in his last few months in office, Bush oversaw a disastrous economic bailout of several financial institutions. This infamous bailout violated every free market principle in the book, was implemented with money the government did not have and which had to be borrowed from foreign countries and, when all is said and done, will probably raise the Federal deficit by nearly a
trillion dollars. As if all that weren’t bad enough, after the first $350 billion of the bailout money was spent, no one seemed to know
where the money went. In many ways the bailout fiasco is a microcosm of the Bush presidency: good intentions grounded in questionable ideology followed by incompetent execution.
The War on Terrorism and Iraq
For better or for worse, though, Bush’s presidency will probably be judged by the success of the war Bush waged relentlessly against radical Muslim terrorists after the attacks of 9/11. More specifically, the legacy of Bush’s presidency will ultimately rest on the decision to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether Bush’s decision to invade Iraq actually prevented future terrorist attacks on U.S. soil can be debated forever without a concrete conclusion being reached. What cannot be debated is that, as a point of fact, America has not experienced another terrorist attack since 9/11 – a remarkable feat. Obama would do well to look at Bush’s response and try to imitate Bush’s success in this arena.
The invasion of Iraq also accomplished tangible goals in that country and the Middle East. In the
National Post David Frum writes:
Last week, the Iraqi parliament approved a status-of-forces agreement authorizing the continuing presence of U.S. troops inside Iraq. The Iraq war is ending in political reconciliation within Iraq -- and with hope of an ongoing alliance between Iraq and the United States. Since the 1960s, Iraq has been the most destabilizing state in the Arab world, ruled by a succession of radical anti-western regimes. Bush leaves office with Iraq ready at last to become a more normal country, at peace with itself and its neighbours.
Bush’s hopes for a more democratic Middle East have not been realized. But here’s what has been accomplished throughout the region: Libya has ended its nuclear program, paid damages for the Lockerbie bombing and reoriented its regime to the West. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have toughened their banking rules, ending their old double game on terrorist financing. Hamas fundraising operations in North America have been rolled up: Just this past week, a Texas court convicted the officials of the Holy Land Foundation, Hamas’ main U.S. front group, of providing material support to terrorism. The second Palestinian intifada has been crushed, confronting the Palestinian leadership with the hard truth that their aspirations cannot be attained by violence.
Besides accomplishing worthwhile goals, however, Bush’s initial decision to invade Iraq will undoubtedly be judged more fairly by historians than modern day liberal pundits. British historian and author
Andrew Roberts explains:
The next factor that will be seen in its proper historical context in years to come will be the true reasons for invading Afghanistan in October 2001 and Iraq in April 2003. The conspiracy theories believed by many (generally, but not always) stupid people – that it was "all about oil", or the securing of contracts for the US-based Halliburton corporation, etc – will slip into the obscurity from which they should never have emerged had it not been for comedian-filmmakers such as Michael Moore.
Instead, the obvious fact that there was a good case for invading Iraq based on 14 spurned UN resolutions, massive human rights abuses and unfinished business following the interrupted invasion of 1991 will be recalled.
Similarly, the cold light of history will absolve Bush of the worst conspiracy-theory accusation: that he knew there were no WMDs in Iraq. History will show that, in common with the rest of his administration, the British Government, Saddam's own generals, the French, Chinese, Israeli and Russian intelligence agencies, and of course SIS and the CIA, everyone assumed that a murderous dictator does not voluntarily destroy the WMD arsenal he has used against his own people. And if he does, he does not then expel the UN weapons inspectorate looking for proof of it, as he did in 1998 and again in 2001.
Mr Bush assumed that the Coalition forces would find mass graves, torture chambers, evidence for the gross abuse of the UN's food-for-oil programme, but also WMDs. He was right about each but the last, and history will place him in the mainstream of Western, Eastern and Arab thinking on the matter.
This is not to say that Bush’s war against terror has been waged perfectly. James Robbins believes Bush’s failure to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice will forever leave a sense of incompleteness hanging over Bush’s legacy.
Robbins writes:
In assessments of the Bush presidency, the failure to bring Osama bin Laden to justice should be noted as a significant disappointment. On the bright side, al-Qaeda has been prevented from mounting any significant attacks on the U.S. homeland. In that respect the most important objective of the antiterrorism strategy has been met. But Bush leaves office with a lingering sense of incompleteness, having not achieved the one thing that would have enabled him to use the word “victory” in the War on Terror without caveat.
Yet one cannot help but appreciate Bush’s war efforts to keep Americans safe from further terrorist attacks since 9/11. Compared to Lincoln’s, Wilson’s and Roosevelt’s wartime policies, Bush comes across like a Constitutional purist. Thanks in large part to his unwavering stances, a brutal dictator has been deposed of in Iraq, the Taliban has been defeated in Afghanistan and America and her allies are safer for it.
Conclusion
Like many presidents before him, Bush’s time in office is a mixture of successes and failures, triumphs and defeats. Despite conservatives’ attempts to paint him as a quasi-liberal in Republican clothing and liberals’ desire to draw a caricature of him as a radical right-wing theocrat, Bush will probably be remembered as a moderate politician with conservative instincts but one who was far from grounded in conservative ideology. It is also doubtful that Bush will be remembered as one of America’s worst presidents or that he will be appearing as the fifth president on Mount Rushmore anytime soon. Once time passes and the hysterical claims from both sides of the ideological fence calm down, history will pronounce its final judgment on the Bush presidency; until that time this is how I think he will be remembered.
