This is an excerpt from a larger National Journal article, "The Accidental Radical" - follow the link, and scroll down to find the whole passage. The article as a whole is quite interesting as well.
http://nationaljournal.com/members/news/2003/07/0725nj1.htm...In January 2019, 10 years after George W. Bush left the White House and retired from politics, a noted historian looked back on the Bush presidency.
"That it was a seminal administration is not in doubt. Bush set out to be a president who mattered, and this he achieved. He proved to be a risk taker like few the office has ever seen, and through his first term, difficult though this is to credit now, he seemed invincible.
"The war in Iraq went well, but the occupation afterward deteriorated into a slow bloodletting. Military personnel disliked and resented serving in Iraq; their families protested; the steady toll of casualties discouraged the public. Re-enlistment rates sagged and the military was pinned down -- all at a time when Bush was multiplying U.S. commitments. By the middle of his second term, American forces were spread thinner and scattered more widely than ever before, but readiness and morale were declining. In 2006, Bush was forced to float the idea of a military draft. His prestige never fully recovered from the ensuing backlash.
<snip>
"America was weaker, yet the threat had grown. Bush's pre-emption policy was read, first by North Korea and Iran, and then by other troublesome states, as an invitation to arm up with nuclear weapons before Bush could stop them. One member of the 'axis of evil' (Saddam Hussein's Iraq) had been defeated, but by 2006 the other two had become nuclear powers, and other nations were rushing to follow.
With so much nuclear proliferation on so many fronts, the administration found itself with few options but to downplay the very threats that it had once painted so starkly.
<snip>
"The Republican coalition, united behind Bush in his days of early success, splintered and then fractured as his fortunes waned. The Reagan-Goldwater wing abhorred the centralization and carefree spending; business deplored the fiscal crisis and price controls; hawks were dispirited by the country's inward turn. Weary voters grew nostalgic for the Clinton era, with its prosperity and moderation. They wanted a change. In the Democratic landslide of 2008, they got it. The window for a Republican political alignment, open when Bush took office, had closed, probably for a generation.
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