Nov 30 2008
Bush Seeks Positive Legacy
Firstly, the man has done a good job of keeping us safe. After eight long years of President Clinton, a man who refused to move an inch to defend the nation, despite being repeatedly attacked by a burgeoning group of violent terrorists, we finally had a leader who was gutsy enough not to blink, when faced with an intensely serious challenged. We were attacked and unfairly so. He recognized that you can’t just wheel and deal with everyone, that some people really only hoped to see the end of our country, and nothing more.
As he prepares to leave his home of nearly 8 years, President Bush has some final thoughts while he is still the Commander-in-Chief. In a recent interview with his sister, Dorothy Bush Koch, President Bush spoke about what he will remember most fondly about his 8 years in power, and what he hopes to be best remembered for. For the interview, which was collected for a historical archive project, Bush spoke on some favored topics, including his involvement with fighting AIDS and HIV, and how he has supported funding and increased medicine to be sent to Africa.
Bush stated, poignantly, that “I’d like to be a president [who was known] as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace… that focused on individuals rather than process; that rallied people to serve their neighbor.” Bush also hoped to be remembered as a leader who did not “sell his soul” to succeed in Washington, a town known as a place where all too often, good people get caught up in small things, and forget why they came in the first place. He also spoke approvingly of the famed No Child Left Behind initiative.
Though not widely endeared today, Bush leaves office in a similar manner to another now-much-loved former president, President Harry Truman. Truman left office with low approval ratings and little fanfare, though in his later years, would come to earn the wide respect and approval that his actions merited. Some of his personal insights were recorded in the hilarious and poignant book Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry Truman, by Merle Miller.
2 Responses to “Bush Seeks Positive Legacy”
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Apparently you’ve forgotten your history. Not only did President Clinton establish the first counter-terrorism office dealing exclusively with Al Qaeda, he successfully kept them from attacking inside the US for the remaining 7 years of his Presidency. Upon leaving office, his mid-East terrorism bureau gave warning after warning to the incoming Bush administration, all of which were ignored.
Clinton also sought to take out bin Laden in 1998, and was widely criticized by the GOP for wanting to do so, as the bin Laden family was crucial to their fund raising.
He launched missile strikes in Iraq, Somalia, Mogadishu, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan, and several plots at home and abroad were foiled by the counter-terrorism bureaus established during his tenure.
As for Dubya…there are too many failures to list. Ignoring the advice that could have prevented 9/11 tops my list, because the failures of Iraq, the Patriot Act, FISA, “extraordinary rendition”, torture, throwing out the Geneva Convention, eliminating habeus corpus, the politicization of the Justice Department, ignoring Afghanistan, and refusing to fund troops in exchange for a withdrawal timetable are all incidents that occurred as a result of ignoring those grave and accurate warnings.
Appointing Bush-loyal cronies to permanent positions in the private sector to further undermine the environment, public health and safety, and international relations are tips of a stunningly horrendous iceberg as well.
Katrina. Katrina. Katrina.
Well, I think that if one agrees with his social agenda, then it is possible to see some positive aspects of his Presidency. If, like me, you think that his agenda is tragically misguided, then you think he’s the worst ever. But I believe that the weight of history will crush W and he’ll be long remembered for just how awful he was. (Not that he’s done, he’s still jamming through horrible junk Obama will have to fix.)