Bush Legacy Will Be A Mixed Review

Joe Bell

President George W. Bush will soon leave office and the discussion of his legacy is already in progress. A recent analysis by the Associated Press began this way: “Wars. Recession. Bailouts. Debt. Gloom. The unvarnished review of George W. Bush’s presidency reveals a portrait of America he never would have imagined.”

History scrutinizes presidents with the keen eye of dispassion whereas emotional overload, particularly where Bush is concerned, makes immediate assessments excessively bleak. Within one year of Bush taking office the nation suffered the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Years have passed since that horrendous day and, as the Bush administration successfully took measures to thwart any subsequent attacks, America’s collective memory has faded. The human suffering, the crashing of the Twin Towers and the insistence that “everything has changed” has succumbed to the reality that, in the arena of American politics, very little has changed. The left remains immune to facts and will go to any length to shove them aside if they counter their preferred version of reality. One of the most blatant examples of the left’s effort to advance its agenda, even at the expense of security, occurred in April 2006, when Bush released portions of the National Intelligence Estimate, which had been used to support the October 2002 Use of Force Resolution to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The NIE had been submitted by George Tenet, who was appointed director of the CIA by President Bill Clinton in 1997. Among other revelations, the report said Iraq was continuing to develop its Weapons of Mass Destruction programs in defiance of U.N. resolutions.

In their new book, “Party of Defeat,” David Horowitz and Ben Johnson write, “The idea of publishing the information was to persuade the Democrats to desist from continuing their defamatory campaign, which had shredded America’s image abroad and undermined its morale at home.”

The left would not be influenced by facts. After the release, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi accused Bush of manipulating intelligence “for political purposes.”

Pelosi’s logic is straight out of George Orwell’s “1984.” Confirmation that the Bush administration did not mold intelligence was proof that it had.

Here is the overriding fact that will be affirmed by history: For all his missteps and errors, and there have been a number, the fact that Bush kept America free from attack after 9/11 is an accomplishment of enormous proportion and it will stand at the top of his list of successes. That many Americans have taken this for granted and even criticized steps initiated to ensure their safety says more about the complainers than the achievers.

But the Bush legacy will also include the blunders that have saddled the nation with more exorbitant programs and greater debt. During his 2000 campaign, Bush spent a great deal of time trying to convince voters he would institute a smaller, leaner federal government. After he was elected, he did the opposite. President Bush presided over a federal spending spree that was unprecedented. From 2001 to 2006 spending on elementary and secondary education rose from $27.3 billion to $38 billion, almost a 40 percent increase. There is no evidence that the 40 percent rise in spending produced a corresponding increase in student achievement. Part of the Bush legacy, especially for Republicans, should be the recognition that achieving goals requires us to do more than merely throw gobs of cash at an issue in an attempt to appear as “caring” as Democrats.

Sadly, today Republicans talk about smaller government more than they work towards the goal. In a December 8 column in the New York Times, William Kristol pointed out that former Florida governor Jeb Bush recently said, “There should be no such thing as a big-government Republican.”

Of course he’s right. However, Kristol pointed out that during his two terms in office “state spending increased over 50 percent – a rate faster than inflation plus population growth.”

President Bush is continuing the Spendapalooza until his final day in office. A January 12 story by the Associated Press reported, “A request for the remaining $350 billion in financial industry bailout funds could come as early as Monday as the Bush administration and President-elect Barack Obama tag-team uneasy lawmakers for money.”

Bush should not be joining forces with Obama to throw more money around the landscape like confetti on a carnival midway.

President Bush’s legacy will be a mixed review, as it has been with all leaders. President Lyndon Johnson, convinced that Washington could spend America out of poverty, launched the War on Poverty. It failed. However, he also signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark piece of civil rights legislation that prohibited literacy tests and resulted in an increase in the number of minority voters.

President Ronald Reagan stood firm against Soviet Union expansionism. In December 1988, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to unilateral reductions in the Soviet military and agreed to remove a number of troops from Eastern Europe. Three years later the Soviet Union crumbled. Reagan brought the Cold War to an end, yet upon leaving office conceded his major disappointment was his inability to fulfill his promise to balance the budget.

The negativity regarding the Bush legacy ironically revolves around his greatest achievement – keeping the United States safe. The economy is now the top issue. Here Bush has not done well. From increased spending to signing into law new and unaffordable programs to his support for federal bailouts, Bush has increased the size and scope of government with the zeal of a liberal. With a Democrat in the White House and Democrat majorities in both chambers of Congress it is likely, and regrettable, that that part of the Bush legacy will endure.

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Joseph Bell has hosted a radio talk show and is a former editorial writer/columnist for several Connecticut newspapers. A former liberal Democrat, Bell has not been on the conservative side of the aisle for very long. He voted for Clinton/Gore in 1992. Abandoning the convictions that he had held and defended through adolescence and into adulthood was not easy. Sincere soul-searching and a commitment to distinguish fact from fiction compelled him to accept that liberal ideology was bankrupt.

jbellopedresponse@hotmail.com