Bush's search for a legacy

[babylonsister]

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/91910/3/Bushs_search_for_a_legacy

Bush's search for a legacy
Robert Shrum

snip//

History will judge Bush harshly for all this and more abroad—as well as for a shameful record at home. He waged class warfare with a tax cut that redistributed wealth to the top while middle class incomes stagnated. His reflexive pursuit of deregulation, combined with his fiscal recklessness, has resulted in an economic crisis that could end in national and global depression.

Along the way, he trashed the Constitution, defaced America with Guantanamo and torture, responded to the health care crisis with another proposed tax cut for the wealthy, let the polluters write energy legislation, and publicly doubted the danger of climate change until the last gasp of his presidency. There is hardly a great issue where Bush hasn’t been wrong—not just in terms of ideology, but measured by the hard calculus of the public interest.

In fairness, there are two exceptions: immigration reform, where Bush lost and promptly gave up—and AIDS in Africa, where he vastly increased the Clinton commitment. But even there, he devalued his own achievement by spending two thirds of the money targeted for prevention on promoting abstinence.

This, of course, is part of the base strategy that salvaged Bush's reelection in 2004 by playing the politics of division and intolerance. Bush got reelected, barely, by stoking bigotry against gays and then he rewarded the religious right by packing the Supreme Court with Justices determined to overturn Roe v. Wade. How can he expect to be rehabilitated by history when he stands so resolutely on its wrong 0D side?

And the test Bush fails is not primarily a matter of political philosophy. In addition to his considerable achievements, Ronald Reagan met the other, perhaps more enduring, test of presidential greatness: like FDR and JFK, he enriched and deepened America’s conception of itself. Lincoln was the master here. But despite Frum’s best words, Bush will be remembered for a kind of cheap, frat boy rhetoric that has diminished the American idea. The yearning for a higher, better standard in part explains the powerful appeal of Barack Obama.

It’s hard to be a worse President than James Buchanan, who almost lost the Civil War before it started. But it’s perhaps harder still to make a case that history will rank George W. Bush anywhere except in the bottom tier. Bush would be better off, and so would we, if he was Benjamin Button, growing younger, undoing the damage of his tenure in the White House. Or better yet, perhaps we could just go back and correctly count the ballots in Florida—then we wouldn’t have had to live through this movie.

[Cary]

1. That one man could be so horrific is entirely plausible.

That he could be re-elected in 2004 is mind boggling.

Even today a large part of our population is still in denial regarding the perverse ideology behind this man, and while I have hope I also have doubts about Democrats really doing the hard work that needs to be done in order to undo the damage.

[acmavm]

3. He wasn't elected in the first place so he couldn't be 're-elected'

in the second.

[Cary]

10. Whatever.

I don't care what anyone calls it anymore. All I want is to be done with rightists' stupidity for a long, long time and get this nation going in the proper direction again.

My only trepidation right now is whether Democrats are up to this task. I hope they are but I know they're still politicians, and that worries me.

[acmavm]

11. This is NOT a case of whatever. No wonder they got away with

it.

[Cary]

12. Right.

and it's all my fault. :sarcasm:

[acmavm]

14. Yep, you and a lot of schmucks just like you.

[Cary]

15. What have you done about it?

Other than to shoot your mouth off and make broadsweeping accusations against people whom you know absolutely nothing about?

What a disappointment you are.

[acmavm]

17. I can't be a disappointment to you. I'd have to care about what you

think first, and that'll never happen.

[Cary]

18. So you deny that you are a disappointment to me, but. . . .

you admit that you shoot your mouth off and make broadsweeping accusations against people whom you know absolutely nothing about.

Dumbass.

[acmavm]

19. No one admitted anything. See, this is exactly what I mean. You

need to go play with people on your own intellectual level.

Maybe a playground with lots of nice swings and a slide.

[Cary]

20. Hey pal, your admission is in your own words.

And here you are once again shooting your mouth off and making broadsweeping accusations against people whom you know absolutely nothing about.

Dumbass.

[acmavm]

21. Last retort you little bucket of snot and it's just to say that rarely do I get

to watch someone who thinks they're sooooo tough when in reality they're just a mouthy punk.

Toodles.

[zbdent]

2. He has a legacy ... they just don't want to admit that it is there ...

they want to believe that there's one to be established ...

[Captain Hilts]

4. He's got one all right - a poisined one. Bad decisions. Incompetent management. Good riddance!

[dy900]

5. Almost the best President Bush we ever had

Next to the best

[babylonsister]

6. Are you saying he's the best we've ever had? I can't quite

decipher your post.

[Doctor_J]

13. He is the 2nd best Prez Bush we ever had

I thought GHWB was a disaster but Junior made everyone forget his dad's train wreck.

[WCGreen]

7. I think he has a better chance of finding those pesky WMD's than a legacy....

[pipi_k]

8. In addition...

we'll probably find Noah's Ark, the Holy Grail, and the Area 51 Aliens before Bush finds a legacy.



On second thought, he does have a legacy...it's just dripping with blood.

[sarge43]

9. Looking for the pony in the big box of crap. n/t

[lenegal]

16. Mr. Bush, your legacy will be that you are the worst, most inhumane, most corrupt , cruel,

cruel, diabolical president in the history of the US. I consider you to be the Antichrist.