The Bush Era officially ends at noon Tuesday, an event for which many have been counting the days as if it was a wedding or prison release. I can't tell you the number of personal Web sites I've seen that had a Bush countdown clock.
In truth, though, Bush is already gone. He might as well have been in hiding since the November election for all the good he's done since then. He's been a nonfactor for the past two months.
You can bet Bush won't go out with a splash a la Bill Clinton and his last-minute pardons of a questionable nature. There will be no burning of midnight oil as Jimmy Carter did over the hostages in Iran. Really, the country's been run by Bush's old staff and Obama's new transition team. Bush? He's been the lamest of all lame ducks.
Like his father, Bush has had a wildly schizophrenic term in office, with extreme highs and lows. Because of this, he'll be difficult for pundits to rate, and historians will certainly have a different view of him in 20 years, one way or another. This isn't unprecedented, either. Harry Truman's widely considered a hero now, but he was nothing but a goat when he left office in 1953. I'm sure people counted the days until ol' Buck Stops Here Harry was to leave office.
Bush will primarily be remembered for two things: the economy's collapse, and the aftermath of 9/11. Although Iraq rightly hurt him in the approval ratings, it's the economy that really did him in. In the past year your investment portfolio became a wallet, and Bush sat on his thumb watching this happen.
For the most part, though, Bush got a bum rap on the economy. The President's role is not as great there as it is in foreign policy or setting the tone for the administration. Besides, the seeds for disaster have been in the ground since the days of Carter and it took a whole lot of manure from a Democratic-led Congress over the past two years to really nurture our economy into the fiasco it is now. Having a bunch of guys like Barney Frank and Harry Reid in the legislative branch did more damage than a platoon of presidents could.
But the truest test of Bush's abilities lie in the 2001 attack on America, and in our response.
Give him some major credit here. The Bush response after the bombings was a whole lot more decisive than the mamby-pamby can-we-talk that had been part of our usual dealings with terrorists. The invasion of Afghanistan was the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, the wheels came off due to the Bushian obsession with Iraq. Even the 9/11 Commission Report said Saddam Hussein's association with al-Quaeda was sketchy at best. While the earth is probably a lot better place without Hussein, the same can be said about many other heads of state and we're not making any effort to go after them.
Now, however, it would be a mistake to bail out of Iraq. The old souvenir shop rule applies here: You break it, you buy it.
The future will tell more about our domestic response to the 9/11 attacks, i.e. the advent of Homeland Security. Are we actually safer? Maybe a little. But at what price? Americans have again proved they're willing to trade off some of their rights for a little extra security. Do that enough, and the United States would be indistinguishable from a handful of other nations across the globe.
OK, we haven't had any further terrorist attacks. You can say it's from the enhanced security, but I don't think so. I really believe al-Quaeda shot its wad on 9/11, and it would take a long time to pony up enough resources to do anything significant again. Homeland Security had little to do with that.
OK, Bush wasn't the most intelligent guy to occupy the Oval Office. But then, Ronald Reagan didn't have the sharpest or most probing mind around either. But if sheer intelligence was overrated, Clinton and Jimmy Carter would be among our greatest presidents ever. Now Clinton, the Rhodes scholar, wasn't half bad when he was in even though he could have done a lot better at a) keeping pants zipped and b) convincing the public he was an honest guy. And Carter? It's a little hard to argue with a Nobel Peace Prize winner who studied nuclear physics in the Navy, but as President he was totally ineffective.
I guess hard work shouldn't be a criteria for judging a president, either. Carter was a legendary micromanager. Richard Nixon probably cracked under the strain of office, though most of his labor went into trying to keep from being indicted. Meanwhile, Reagan never let the rigors of the Oval Office get in the way of his nap, and Dwight Eisenhower didn't exactly kill himself with overwork either.
Without being a cloudy idealogue, you can't say Bush is a bad guy. By most accounts he's a good man, but so is Jimmy Carter.
My own grade for George Bush would be a low C. If it wasn't for his short-term response to 9/11, I'd have to give him a D minus. On the percentile scale, give him about a 32 or so out of 100. This is well ahead of the Fillmores and Carters, but put him at about the same level as the Hoovers and Tafts.
Now, don't even bother to ask me to rate Dick (Deadeye) Cheney. The scale only goes to F.
In truth, though, Bush is already gone. He might as well have been in hiding since the November election for all the good he's done since then. He's been a nonfactor for the past two months.
You can bet Bush won't go out with a splash a la Bill Clinton and his last-minute pardons of a questionable nature. There will be no burning of midnight oil as Jimmy Carter did over the hostages in Iran. Really, the country's been run by Bush's old staff and Obama's new transition team. Bush? He's been the lamest of all lame ducks.
Like his father, Bush has had a wildly schizophrenic term in office, with extreme highs and lows. Because of this, he'll be difficult for pundits to rate, and historians will certainly have a different view of him in 20 years, one way or another. This isn't unprecedented, either. Harry Truman's widely considered a hero now, but he was nothing but a goat when he left office in 1953. I'm sure people counted the days until ol' Buck Stops Here Harry was to leave office.
Bush will primarily be remembered for two things: the economy's collapse, and the aftermath of 9/11. Although Iraq rightly hurt him in the approval ratings, it's the economy that really did him in. In the past year your investment portfolio became a wallet, and Bush sat on his thumb watching this happen.
For the most part, though, Bush got a bum rap on the economy. The President's role is not as great there as it is in foreign policy or setting the tone for the administration. Besides, the seeds for disaster have been in the ground since the days of Carter and it took a whole lot of manure from a Democratic-led Congress over the past two years to really nurture our economy into the fiasco it is now. Having a bunch of guys like Barney Frank and Harry Reid in the legislative branch did more damage than a platoon of presidents could.
But the truest test of Bush's abilities lie in the 2001 attack on America, and in our response.
Give him some major credit here. The Bush response after the bombings was a whole lot more decisive than the mamby-pamby can-we-talk that had been part of our usual dealings with terrorists. The invasion of Afghanistan was the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, the wheels came off due to the Bushian obsession with Iraq. Even the 9/11 Commission Report said Saddam Hussein's association with al-Quaeda was sketchy at best. While the earth is probably a lot better place without Hussein, the same can be said about many other heads of state and we're not making any effort to go after them.
Now, however, it would be a mistake to bail out of Iraq. The old souvenir shop rule applies here: You break it, you buy it.
The future will tell more about our domestic response to the 9/11 attacks, i.e. the advent of Homeland Security. Are we actually safer? Maybe a little. But at what price? Americans have again proved they're willing to trade off some of their rights for a little extra security. Do that enough, and the United States would be indistinguishable from a handful of other nations across the globe.
OK, we haven't had any further terrorist attacks. You can say it's from the enhanced security, but I don't think so. I really believe al-Quaeda shot its wad on 9/11, and it would take a long time to pony up enough resources to do anything significant again. Homeland Security had little to do with that.
OK, Bush wasn't the most intelligent guy to occupy the Oval Office. But then, Ronald Reagan didn't have the sharpest or most probing mind around either. But if sheer intelligence was overrated, Clinton and Jimmy Carter would be among our greatest presidents ever. Now Clinton, the Rhodes scholar, wasn't half bad when he was in even though he could have done a lot better at a) keeping pants zipped and b) convincing the public he was an honest guy. And Carter? It's a little hard to argue with a Nobel Peace Prize winner who studied nuclear physics in the Navy, but as President he was totally ineffective.
I guess hard work shouldn't be a criteria for judging a president, either. Carter was a legendary micromanager. Richard Nixon probably cracked under the strain of office, though most of his labor went into trying to keep from being indicted. Meanwhile, Reagan never let the rigors of the Oval Office get in the way of his nap, and Dwight Eisenhower didn't exactly kill himself with overwork either.
Without being a cloudy idealogue, you can't say Bush is a bad guy. By most accounts he's a good man, but so is Jimmy Carter.
My own grade for George Bush would be a low C. If it wasn't for his short-term response to 9/11, I'd have to give him a D minus. On the percentile scale, give him about a 32 or so out of 100. This is well ahead of the Fillmores and Carters, but put him at about the same level as the Hoovers and Tafts.
Now, don't even bother to ask me to rate Dick (Deadeye) Cheney. The scale only goes to F.
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