What can really be made of the last eight years of President Bush?
Unfinished business certainly rolls right off the tongue. After all, the list includes two wars and the war on terror, illegal immigration, the future state of Social Security, establishing a sustainable Republican majority and much more. Not to mention the debacle of U.S. aid and support in post-Katrina New Orleans.
At face value, it appears hard to defend Bush’s legacy in the history books, considering he has been the scourge of the mainstream media since the moment he took office, while plummeting to the lowest U.S. approval rating of any president before him.
The administration’s lack of articulation has detracted from the fact that there was quite a bit Bush got right. Bush now leaves the White House as an esoteric rogue cowboy in the view of much of mainstream media and the American people because of his attempt to consolidate as much presidential power as possible.
Consider for a moment Latin America and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, who has attacked Washington and President Bush on several occasions, in his own attempt to establish his increasingly iron-fist authoritarian rule in his home country. Rather than playing Chavez’s political game, the Bush administration — with all its accusations of being too trigger happy on foreign policy decisions — did about absolutely nothing in regard to Chavez.
Even as Latin American countries in general moved further to the left in the last eight years, the Bush administration is one of the first U.S. administrations in nearly 100 years to stay out of Latin American politics, thus alienating Chávez and showing it was ready to do business with his leftist neighbors as it currently does with China and India.
Then there’s Iraq. Faced with what most feared was an imminent defeat, and what Sen. Harry Reid referred to as a ‘lost’ cause, the Bush administration acted to counter all foreign support for the Iraqi insurgency by arresting and killing Arab and Iranian operatives inside Iraq. It then developed allies with local tribal leaders while enacting newer counterinsurgency tactics and deployed large reinforcements. All this culminated in a military success that has finally opened the door to political reconciliation in the once unstable country.
Let’s also not forget Bush’s credit for efforts that have prolonged millions of lives, thanks to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; under Bush, the U.S. quadrupled monetary support in helping fight and prevent AIDS in Africa. However, this side of Bush doesn’t fit the mold that media has designed for him where when Bush was in charge the rest of the world hated us.
One very important fact of the last eight years was that most of the Democratic candidates for president in 2004 and 2008 voted for the Patriot Act. They also voted for the resolution authorizing U.S.
military force in Iraq. But ultimately, it was Bush taking the heat for policy that was overwhelmingly supported by the rest of Washington.
Interestingly enough, Vice President-elect Joe Biden visited Iraq last week openly promising Iraqis that America would not withdraw U.S. and coalition forces in any way that would undermine Iraq’s security and stability in the region. Yet that was exactly what the Democratic Party advocated merely a year ago.
Former members of al Qaeda have told intelligence officials that they never thought that Washington would respond to the 9/11 attack as swiftly and vehemently as Bush did. They were expecting no more then a few bombs to be dropped, with no boots on the ground.
In the face of an unprecedented time, Bush refused to retreat in fear, no longer lobbing missiles at deserted terrorist camps from thousands of miles away and, most importantly, refusing to surrender our ideals of freedom and individuality that the enemy in the present time seeks to eradicate.
Joseph can be reached by e-mail at joseph.hermiz@asu.edu.
