Posted on 09/13/2008 3:46:21 PM PDT by tedbel
[The left has mercilessly attacked Bush and demonized him and most people believe that he is the worst President ever. But it is not true. Read this article and decide for yourself.]
As the George Bush presidency comes to an end it may help to put on the record his many epic accomplishments which have been so distorted by his political adversaries. Throughout it all, President Bush and the Bush family have been unfailingly civil and courteous to their worst domestic adversaries, like the Kennedy family and the civil rights leadership, almost to a fault, while the Kennedy’s, the civil rights leaders and those on the left continue to try and demonize him with the most vicious calumnies and personal slurs any modern president has been labled with. Yet George Bush smiles, keeps his cool, and wins almost all his political battles.
It all began in 2000. After a successful stint as Governor of our second largest state, re-elected by a larger margin than his original victory against Democrat icon Ann Richards, George Bush was elected US President after his opponent, Al Gore, tried every trick in the book to try and overturn the results of the flawed Florida vote count. Every one of the offending precincts that had had voting problems in Florida were run by Democrats, yet Al Gore’s campaign claimed the election was stolen, and he demanded a selective re-count, not across Florida, but in only certain Democrat-controlled areas. Then the Democrat controlled Florida Supreme Court blatantly misconstrued the Florida constitution and had to be over-ruled by the US Supreme Court. Finally, Bush had won. The left has never forgiven him and he has been under a relentless barrage of public and personal attack ever since.
(Excerpt) Read more at israpundit.com ...
Note to self: read this.
Coincidentally, I posted this on another thread recently. The short-term Bush legacy has been sunk by the press’ war of attrition.
“Consciously or not, the media has a “throw everything against the wall and see what sticks” strategy. They’ll print all the suspicion and innuendo they can get their hands on, and eventually the public will assume that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Take Bush. In the beginning, people knew he was no genius, but they liked him. In the end, people don’t necessarily hate him, but they think he’s at worst corrupt and at best completely incompetent. Why? The media won through attrition. Negative story after negative story sunk Bush.
No one seemed to care about the eleventh-hour cocaine story. The national guard hub-bub barely made a dent. I remember back in 2001 when stories criticizing Bush for reading children’s stories while the towers burned or Cheney’s shadow government made me laugh.
Then there was Iraq, and unlike the rest of what I’ve recapped, that was a real story. After the fall of Saddam and prior to the Surge, the media had a free-for-all. Troubles in Iraq lent credence to each and every criticism of Bush. Under the weight of yellow-cake, Scooter Libby (perhaps the thinnest presidential scandal in history, in my opinion), Harriet Meyers, Dubai, Katrina, Alberto Gonzales, et al., who could help but believe that Bush was a disaster.
History, I think, will confirm that Bush was no genius, but a good guy. Even if Iraq ends disastrously, it won’t be near as bad as Vietnam. Even if the media holds onto Scooter Libby and the rest of the “scandals” as firmly as it does Watergate, it won’t be near as bad as Nixon.
In the meantime, the name Bush will be tarnished with far too many people.”
Ummmm.... Does he really want to claim this in light of the mortgage crisis?
It's mostly about foreign policy stuff and the WOT. Only one line to point out the biggest of Bush's failures - the deficit spending and bloating of govt.
Unfortunately, Bush’s major failure was his inability to curb wasteful government spending and earmarks passed by Republicans and Democrats alike, which, with the wars on terror and liberation in Afghanistan and Iraq, caused massive budget deficits.
He could have used the veto. Let's hope when Palin becomes president she uses it like she did in Alaska.
Through eight difficult years, President Bush has always been a gentleman and conducted himself in accordance with the honor of his office.
later
I have always been most frustrated with the communication aspect of the Administration. The endless unanswered attacks, and cheap shots, and never a clear strategy to address them.
How is it Bush's fault that thousands of people bought adjustible rate loans on houses that no way in hell they could afford? They bet against teh economy and they lost their asses.
For whatever reason, the Bush administration early on chose never to fight back. They chose never to go to the people and over the heads of the MSM. They chose chose to effectively respond to all the smears of the left, but instead chose to let them get away with sliming him.
Therefore, the left, and the MSMs (same thing), strategy to throw everything possible against Bush worked, in large measure because Bush decided not to respond. And it is largely for this reason that Bush unnecessarily has rotten poll numbers and is viewed somewhat toxicly by the public at large. They partisan left threw and threw and the Bush administration stood there and let it stick.
Of course the left is trying the same thing with Palin, and why not? It worked so effectively against Bush.
I don't know if Bush just felt that making a case to the American public was not fitting or that responding to the merciless onslaught of relentless attacks by the left was giving in to partisanship, but the fact is, Bush allowed them to slime him with relative impunity and thus is where he is today as a result of that decision. Not only did it hurt him, it also hurt the Party brand as well, and it was almost completely unnecessary and in large measure avoidable.
If President Bush only prevented a repeat of 911 on our soil, he should be accorded a place as one of our greatest leaders.
He seems well on his way to doing just that and so much more.
He is going to stand out as an extraordinary leader— I think he may surpass Reagan. He will certainly be seen as analogous to Reagan on the Cold War but on the hot war of Islamic fascism.
What you say has a lot of truth. Bush’s abandonment of the bully pulpit was doubly harmful: not only did it let the media run wild, it added credence to the idea that Bush was too inarticulate to explain himself even if he tried.
“How is it Bush’s fault that thousands of people bought adjustible rate loans on houses that no way in hell they could afford? They bet against teh economy and they lost their asses.”
Well, it is partly his fault if he doesn’t do anything to stop the bailouts and the bailouts make things worse (which they will!).
I am really proud of W. Any person who has had to drag the anchors that he has and accomplished what he has is a great American. That each Democrat nominee gets unbelievably worse than the last one is proof enough of the lunacy of the left.
By the time McCain serves 8 years and Sarah serves 8 years maybe the left will have grown up and gotten off the dope.
So have far too many on the right, as can be seen to some degree even on this thread.
I will NEVER again consider myself a conservative because of the way so many self-professed conservatives behaved toward him.
Before any of you rush to point out that it's important to hold our leaders to account, I agree completely. But there is a very clear line between strongly disagreeing with someone, and savaging them. I've seen, and been sickened by the savaging of President Bush myself on the pages of FR for too long now. If the behavior I've seen here toward one of our own is any indication of what it means to be a "real" conservative, I want no part of it.
You are painting all conservatives by the behavior of a few here. Hardly fair and quite hypocritical on your part. You are what you decry.
IMO, Bush has had four major accomplishemnts as POTUS. First, since the 9-11 attacks, Bush has secured America from suffering further acts of deadly terrorism on our homeland. Second. Bush's three tax cuts stimulated spending and investment, enabling the economy to overcome 9-11 and Katrina, and enjoy a fairly steady rate of growth throughout his Presidency. Third, the surge has worked and the battle for Iraq has been won. Al Qaeda has been handed a serious defeat. Although hostilities have increased in recent months, the initial military campaign in Afghanistan was successful. The WOT isn't over, but so far, the US is winning.
On the downside. Bush promoted big government Republicanism with his liberal spending habits and expansion of the federal bureaucracy by adding a trillion dollar prescription drug program to medicare. Bush also promoted and advanced comprehensive liberal immigration reform and along with it, backdoor amnesty for 30 million illegals.
If Bush had done a better job with public relations, political propaganda and use of the Bully Pulpit more to his advantage, the last eight years could have been much more successful and better for his legacy.
Perhaps, but then I remember how so many of the conservative arm of the punditocracy deliberately started slamming President Bush on one thing after another within months of his reelection, just so they could prove their bona fides as being independent of the administration. And I remember self-described conservative caller after caller after caller on various talk radio programs slamming the President, often quite irrationally and unfairly.
In a big overreaction to FDR's near imperial presidency, the ill-considered 22nd Amendment was passed by Congress on March 21, 1947 and was quickly ratified by February 27, 1951. Since then, EVERY two-term president has been not a lame duck in his 2nd term, but an immediate sitting duck. Every one of them struggled in their 2nd terms. So I didn't expect President Bush to have clear sailing by any means, especially not with the powerful enemies arrayed against him. I did not, however, expect so many who presumably voted for him to turn on him as rabidly as they did.
Do you mean people who go, "I have been a Republican all my life, but George Bush is a terrible president, more corrupt than Nixon blah blah blah"? I always figured those people were lying about their right-wing credentials.
In a big overreaction to FDR's near imperial presidency, the ill-considered 22nd Amendment was passed by Congress on March 21, 1947 and was quickly ratified by February 27, 1951. Since then, EVERY two-term president has been not a lame duck in his 2nd term, but an immediate sitting duck. Every one of them struggled in their 2nd terms.
That's an interesting thought. I've noticed and heard others notice how hard second terms have been for presidents since WWII, but I never heard that explanation.
I know you think presidents should be allowed to serve more than two terms. Do you think they should honor voluntarily George Washington's precedent, or do you think the whole resistance to third terms in principle is ill-founded?
You have my position a bit wrong. It isn't that I think presidents should be allowed to serve more than two terms, but that I think the 22nd Amendment badly skewed the carefully constructed balance of power between the Executive and the Congressional branches. Presidents have less problems in their first terms because they have power equal to the Congress. They can be reelected, just as congressmen and senators can be reelected. Once they can no longer be reelected, presidents become convenient targets for every representative, senator and every presidential wannabe out to raise their own public profiles, not only from the opposition party, but within his own party.
In short, presidents become scapegoats, whose records and positions are easy to demagogue and distort.
People on this thread have blamed President Bush for his poor communications efforts, particularly when it comes to hitting back at his critics. Again, I don't necessarily disagree. However, I would ask the easy critics here to remember back to the 1990's, when President Clinton had huge help from many in his own party who would go on TV and relentlessly defend him.
There has been very little defense of President Bush from Republicans and conservatives throughout his two terms, but especially in his 2nd term. In fact, many of them turned on him when it was convenient for them to do so in order to boost their ratings (pundits) and/or election chances (politicians), sell their books, get attention for their blogs, show their "independence," and so on.
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