George W. Bush: Good man, Bad Rap

Next month will mark the end of an era. For the first time in 20 years, the White House will not be occupied by someone named Bush or Clinton. To a majority of this country, this is good news. President Bush has one of the lowest approval ratings in history and many have expressed vitriolic antipathy for the president. Seemingly anytime anyone stubbed his toe in the last eight years, Bush has been blamed. But much like Harry Truman, I believe history will look favorably on this administration.

The Bush years got off to a rocky start with a comically long recount in Florida in 2000 and a recession inherited from the end of the Clinton Administration. Despite these challenges, the country was peaceful and mostly prosperous. The President went to Washington with the goal of being a “uniter, not a divider.” In accordance with that goal, he often reached out to Democrats, going so far as to let Ted Kennedy write the education bill that would give us the controversial “No Child Left Behind” program. Overall, it seemed that Bush’s time in office would be pretty mundane.

Then everything changed. Only eight months into his term, President Bush faced the country’s greatest crisis since Pearl Harbor. While many would have panicked in such a situation, Bush handled his duties masterfully. He comforted a grieving nation and provided charisma and leadership as the nation united against this foreign threat. He responded quickly, sending troops to Afghanistan and quickly removing the Taliban from power.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the unity ended and the Kool-Aid was passed around. In 2003, Bush pushed a series of tax cuts through Congress – not just for “the rich,” but across the board. As a result, the economy expanded and recovered from the recession quickly. The economy was rolling and the government brought in record tax revenues, yet Democrats were mad.

It really hit the fan that same year, as the President set his sights on Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Hussein was torturing his own citizens, funding Palestinian terrorists, violating U.N. resolutions, and shooting at our planes as they patrolled the no-fly zone. Under the agreements that ended the first Gulf War, burden of proof was placed on Saddam to show that he was not developing weapons of mass destruction. He failed to meet this requirement and even Bill Clinton said on multiple occasions in the late ‘90s that Saddam was pursuing WMDs. Intelligence reports agreed, with then-CIA Director George Tenet declaring the reports to be a “slam dunk.” Intelligence from other countries, with Britain being the most prominent, agreed.

This is important to note. Contrary to what you have been told for the last five years with the benefit of hindsight, you were not lied to as part of some insidious plot to invade Iraq. President Bush made what he felt was the most prudent decision based on what the intelligence showed at the time. The fight turned out to be much tougher than anticipated, and much of the intelligence proved to be wrong.

Bush refused to give up, and implemented a change of strategy proposed by John McCain that would send additional troops. It worked, and now violence in Iraq is below pre-war levels. Let me reiterate that: Iraq is safer today than it was in 2003. In fact, developers are currently planning on bringing a Disneyland-style amusement park to Baghdad.

George W. Bush is a good man who has always done what he believes is best for the country. For that, he has my respect. Unfortunately, his political opponents have gone beyond disagreeing with his policies and instead resorted to personal attacks. This sort of rancor doesn’t benefit anyone, and I hope to see an end to it in the future. You’ve probably seen people wearing shirts with Bush’s picture that say “Not my president,” but I am declaring today that Barack Obama is my president. I don’t agree with him on much of anything and I think he’s going to be a complete disaster, but I want to be wrong. I hope he does so well that I actually want to vote for him in 2012. I pray he succeeds because what’s good for the country is much more important than my politics.

[Andrew Lacy is a Broadcasting Major at UNL]