Tuesday, January 20, A.D. 2009

Bush Departs

We are at the end of the presidency of George W. Bush. You can find some of my reflections on the current president in “Letter to David Frum” and “As the 2008 Election Nears, a Personal Story.” Let me just say here that I think that Bush was an honest, principled, and good man who tried to steer a centrist course in unprecedented times. It is ironic that his popular image is so different from the real man. Related to such, Jay Nordlinger’s account of his meeting with Bush in December is an interesting read—“POTUS speaks” I am not sure how to estimate his administration, but I do know that he does not deserve the ingratitude and invective that he has received over the last eight years. I wonder if Americans will have the hindsight or the honesty to feel shame for their actions and words concerning him.

That said, Bush is somewhat responsible for the slander. As I have previously written, Bush has continuously allowed his enemies to “frame the narrative” of his presidency, to use Leftist lingo. By trying to compromise, by reaching out to Democrats, and by aiming for the middle, Bush garnered few friends and upset his supporters. It is funny that political analysts always tout the power of the “center”—yet, rarely does that sort of program lead to success. Centrist regimes get toppled in Banana Republics. In the United States, where we remain Anglo-Saxon enough—for the time being, at least—to limit coups to the media, centrist administrations simply tank in the polls.

Besides allowing the Left to define his presidency, thereby insuring the next administration, Bush had many other failures. He allowed rampant illegal immigration to continue, and he parroted the self-defeating rhetoric of the multiculturalists that would have the United States follow the Brazilian socio-ethnic model. He followed his predecessors in facilitating the deindustrialization of our economy, and he did not work to correct the unpardonable trade imbalances that impoverish our country. He betrayed conservative principles in his support of affirmative action, in his profligate public spending and public debt, in his unwillingness to veto Congressional pork spending, in his aggrandizement of the federal bureaucracy and its powers, and in his general social conservative but socialist “compassionate conservative” agenda and outlook. Moreover, the Harriet Miers fiasco was ridiculous, Katrina should have been managed better, and Bush should have reigned in his cabinet officials long before crisis mode set in. Perhaps most egregiously, he let his “ownership society” compassionate conservative rhetoric trump good sense and solid monetary policy.

Unlike most folks, however, I refuse to blame Bush for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is too early to tell how successful Bush’s strategy will be, and armchair and hindsight strategies are not the luxuries of a sitting president. I agree that something had to be done, but I am not sure what the best, feasible path would have been. I cannot fairly state that Bush was mistaken or that anyone else would have chosen superior alternatives.

Anyway, I wish our president well. May he rest after eight tumultuous years. Let him know that many Americans are grateful for the good that he has accomplished. No one believed on September 12, A.D. 2001 that we would not have another terrorist attack in the United States before Bush left office. Bush appointed two stellar justices to the Supreme Court. He lowered taxes, at least temporarily. He tried—but failed—to reform Social Security and the health care financing establishment. Bush consistently defended the sanctity of human life and the importance of traditional cultural values. After the scandal-ridden, corrupt Clinton years, Bush cleaned up the White House and the executive branch. Unlike the crooks from Arkansas, he did not use political power for personal gain. He was no Reagan, and he certainly was no Coolidge, but he was better than most of our elected leaders.

President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, many years and many blessings to you both!

Posted by Joseph on Tuesday, January 20, Anno Domini 2009
Philosophy | Politics • (0) Comments