Five More Days To Go

I've been reading a lot of Bush farewells and valedictories, and they are coming off as particularly nostalgic. Last night, Bush asked us not to judge him by his disastrous results, but instead by what's inside him (either a black heart or a black hole in his head, I"m not sure which). Anyway, the Economist had a particularly informative essay on his legacy.

[Bush] leaves the White House as one of the least popular and most divisive presidents in American history. At home, his approval rating has been stuck in the 20s for months; abroad, George Bush has presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America’s reputation since the second world war. The American economy is in deep recession, brought on by a crisis that forced Mr Bush to preside over huge and unpopular bail-outs.

America is embroiled in two wars, one of which Mr. Bush launched against the tide of world opinion. The Bush family name, once among the most illustrious in American political life, is now so tainted that Jeb, George’s younger brother, recently decided not to run for the Senate from Florida. A Bush relative describes family gatherings as "funeral wakes".

The three most notable characteristics of the Bush presidency [are] partisanship, politicization and incompetence. Mr. Bush was the most partisan president in living memory. He was content to be president of half the country—a leader who fused his roles of head of state and leader of his party. He devoted his presidency to feeding the Republican coalition that elected him.

This being the Economist, however, there comes late in the essay an attempt to throw Bush a bone. You can read it for yourself-- it doesn't amount to much, really.

Mr. Bush’s presidency is not without its merits. He supported sensible immigration reform. He proposed tighter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the now-nationalised mortagage agencies (note from the Daily Dude: not sure I agree with that assessment, but both efforts failed anyway, so big deal!) . . On trade, too, Mr. Bush’s heart was in the right place, though policy was at first subverted by political or strategic priorities . . .His administration’s handling of the financial crisis alternated between shaky and competent . . . The president’s legendary stubbornness paid off in one area: his decision to ignore Washington’s wise men and increase troop levels in Iraq, rather than preparing for withdrawal.

And in the end, Bush gets slammed on his economic record:

Meanwhile, his policy of cutting taxes while increasing spending—of simultaneously pursuing big government and small government—dramatically swelled the deficit . . Mr. Bush’s biggest failure, however, is on entitlements. In the end he achieved few cost savings, while adding a staggering $8 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liability. Between the Medicare drug benefit and the failure to restore solvency to Social Security, the long-term unfunded cost of America’s programs for the elderly had last year reached a stratospheric $43 trillion.