Given history, Bush may have lurched much further left much earlier than transpired.
Thanks to screaming (insane) Al Gore and the sore loser Democrats, Bush was not able to transition properly. And the Clinton Whitehouse did him no favors.
He was barely beginning to get good and settled when 9/11 happened.
Bush’s first 4 years were all dominated by the war.
Had there been no 9/11, and Bush had governed as he did the 2nd four years, he might not have won the primary.
I defended Bush tooth and nail for 6 years. His last 2 years, he was nothing more than a liberal.
I get amused by all the people trashing Bush now. Bush had flaws, but he stood by his believe in tax cuts, and strong defense, and I think two very good Supreme Court Picks that were approved (not Meirs). Those are what I want most out of a President. I would actually tell you the Republicans in Congress were as big of detriment to Bush as anyone. They caved to Democrats and the media on the Iraq lies that Bush misled instead of pointing out correctly that intelligence since the 90’s pointed to WMD and pointing out the evidence that Hussien was still striving for those capabilities.
His last 2 years was screwed by the lame duck status and the Dem’s in control not much he could do. His biggest flaw was TARP, which I didn’t agree on. He tried to challenge the flaws with Fannie and Freddie but didn’t get enough support on that (again fickle Republicans in Congress wouldn’t help him).
Quite frankly too many people posting here are revisionist Republicans. Is it Bush’s fault that we came up with a crop of dud’s running for President. You guys all blaming Bush need to help me see who on the Republican side looks more conservative, in the entire scope of things. None of the current crop of candidates are looking that strong. Palin can but not sure she will try to run for President and quite frankly, as Obama is proving, you need to be concerned with her capability to run a country. I love her attitude but everyone is seeing first hand what happens with a President that doesn’t have the experience to run a nation.