In America, we tend to naively consider politicians to be pure embodiments of either good or bad forces. We seldom view their acts as the products of fallible humans. One bothersome side effect is our personal selective editing of the legacies of every President depending on our political allegiances. For those Presidents we like, we tend to overlook the harm they did and the mistakes and expedient compromises they’ve made; for those we don’t like, we tend to ignore any positive actions they’ve taken and focus only on the harmful.
For instance, though I like Clinton a great deal, and think that his effect on the nation was a net positive, it is sometimes hard to criticize some things he did without other Democrats considering me to be some sort of crypto-Republican. NAFTA, Welfare "Reform", his half-hearted integration of gender differences in the military, his creation and promotion of the DLC as a force within the Democratic party, his many personal ethical lapses, they are all part of Clinton’s negative legacy and they are decidedly not the positive parts of his legacy.
And on the other side, while I despise Nixon, I have to admire and laud his passage of the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air and Water Acts, and his proposal for a guaranteed minimum income for every American. He may have been a terrible person who was dangerously unsuited to Presidency, but some good work got done on his watch and he played a role in making some positive changes for the nation.
Politicians are people, not demiurges of good or evil. In the interest of historical perspective and to counter the far-too-frequently leveled allegation that we on the left are just "bashing Bush" when we criticize his policies, it behooves us to reflect and dig down deep and find some examples of Bush actions and initiatives that we applaud and support, or at least don’t despise.
Take the perspective of a historian 50 years in the future, if you must, to find some aspect of the Bush legacy that one can praise. Your praise doesn’t have to be unequivocal, and the issue doesn’t have to positive beyond any debate, just search for things that are arguably and/or mostly positive.
I’m not saying this will be easy – I am hard pressed to come up with any myself – that is why I am writing this. This is a project that clearly requires a group mind to do it justice.
Here’s my contributions:
- Though the bill and it’s implementation are severely flawed, the No Child Left Behind act established a bi-partisan precedent for addressing poor school performance (a traditionally state function) on a national level.
- By his utter and obvious favoritism toward Israel, Bush awakened many in the United States to the injustice of the apartheid system by which Israel rules the occupied territory, laying the foundation for popular American support for a just peace settlement.
- The speedy and flexible response to 9/11 in taking down the Taliban in Afghanistan was a model use of special forces to punish a rogue regime, despite the flaws in execution that allowed Al Qaeda to escape largely intact.
- The abuse of secrecy by the Bush Administration in the name of ‘national security’ to cover illegal detention, extra-judicial deportation, assassination, torture, illegal wiretapping and other crimes eventually awoke the American people to danger of not knowing what their government was doing, leading to the passage in the subsequent Administration of sweeping government secrecy reforms.
Now, you give it a try. What can you find to praise about the Bush Administration? Hopefully, at least a few can be less conjectural and backhanded than my poor few examples. Help create a list that liberals can use to prove that we are open to all of Bush’s legacy, not just the overwhelmingly evil super-majority.
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Giggity Giggity
Very well stated, x4mr. And, you make a really good point that the damage done by the Bush Administration will be with us for a long, long time.
Bush will go down in history as the most disastrous presidency in the history of this country, and his contribution will be come from the unfolding analysis and exposure of the unparalleled corruption, profiteering, bullying and intimidation, closed mindedness and obstinate devotion to pre-determined opinions with no willingness to listen or consider the thoughts of others.
To the untold detriment of the entire planet, this cement head has charged into the china shop and broken almost everything that could be broken, funneling TRILLIONS to his buddies at the expense of our children.
I will give Bush credit for this: As president of the United States (so far) he has not launched nuclear weapons on his own population.
The blood on his hands defies human comprehension, or is it his hands? I sometimes wonder if he is actually nothing but a puppet completely controlled by forces with IQ’s above those of the average Joe selected completely at random off the street, which our president DOES NOT HAVE.
Well, there you have it. President Bush created a generation of activists who otherwise would not be politically engaged.
Bush made me pissed off enough to actually get involved! Before the 2000 election, I was only mildly interested in politics, but now…
My lifelong effort has always been heavy on enviornmental concerns in Pima County and Souhthern Arizona extending to The Central Arizona Project concepts before it was built.
Having seen Mining in Pima County close-up having my Ranch bought by Annaconda in the 1970’s at Twin Buttes and the destruction of not only the surface enviornment but water tables thousands of feet deep , tailing dams polluting Tucsons water table as we speak and blowing local wells and dumping contaminants into homeowners water supplies,you name it has been drowned out by a War with no end in sight. My hope is more focus can be directed BACK to Southern Arizonas Water,Land and habitat use and protections before it is to late!
Liza;
As a member of Defenders of Wildlife I asked that question of there Lawyers, the answer is Yes!
Some aspects of The Healthy Forest Initiative are good for the forests as thinning IS necessary to keep out bug infestations etc; BUT on the other hand allows ROADS to be built to get at the overgrowth. Defenders Of Wildlife Lawyers say it IS the BUILDING of those roads that is the Problem. I agree but feel ways need to be adressed to get in and out of areas deemed problems to healthy forests that do not envolve roads. Defenders would accept the act in its entirety IF raods were OUT of the equation,as would I.
Wasn’t the Healthy Forests Act something like the Clean Air Act (or whatever they called it) that is really the opposite of it’s name? Clean Air allowed more pollution and Healthy Forests allowed more logging?
Wasn’t everything that Bush did somehow connected to enriching his friends and supporters? Did he ever do anything that did not put government money into the hands of some corporation or church that supported him? I can’t connect him with anything at all that was done for altruistic reasons.
He’s the worst.
azw88;
“BULLSHIT?”
The story about President Bush is widly known and has been posted on my web-site for over (3) Three years SIR!
I am getting very tired of your condesending remarks SIR!
I discussed the matter with local news reporters at the time SIR!
Dwight: BULLSHIT
President Bush called me from Air Force One while passing over Oro Valley observing the soot and ash flows running into Oro Valley and clogging our Water Systems;Etc, after the Aspen Fire and we talked about The Healthy Forests Act he proposed and signed into law. I was not happy with the way the fire was managed and let burn for over two weeks,with a second fire set in the Rincon Mountains that caused The City of Tucson to go into a Smog Alert from heavy smoke pollution.
It was the first in a series of events that highlighted the Federal Governments Failure to Manage Natural Disasters such as Katrina did later on.
Didn’t Bush authorize some nature preserve in Hawaii or something once? I guess that was a good thing.
The George Bush presidency gives hope to all American children with average or below average intelligence that they too can grow up and become the President of the United States.