Comments on: On the defining issue of our time, how will history view President Bush?

By: forest hunter

forest hunter — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 20:17:57 +0000

GWR:

By: omapian

omapian — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:54:33 +0000

Imagine it is 5 AM on September 11, 2001. Nineteen foreign nationals are preparing to board commercial airlines which they are prepared to hijack and crash into building causing death and destruction. If FBI & CIA agents had asked the Supreme Court for warrants to arrest the terrorists, the Court would rule they had insufficient probable cause. If the agents arrested the terrorists without a warrant, the ACLU would demand their immediate release in time to catch the planes for which they had legally purchased tickets. The US Supreme Court would agree.
Fortunately the Constitution is not a suicide pact. The President, NOT the Court, is charged with providing for the common defense. The President had a choice of arresting killers after the fact, or confronting them before the acted. President Bush decided to provide the greatest protection for American Citizens. He may have been more popular if he just asked the UN to condemn repeated acts of terror and simply send crime scene units to sort through the rubble.
The President decided upon acting in the desert and gave the fanatics a choice to either target American civilians at their residents, and workplaces or drive our military from their holy lands. For eight years, terrorists have assembled and acted in the deserts on foreign soil and not in our back yard.

By: Great White Rat

Great White Rat — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:44:23 +0000

What he got wrong:

– Not enough vetos. He needed to slap down the spendthrifts in his own party during the first term, and never did. This set the stage for losing Congress two years ago.

- Illegal immigration. We’ve been over this before here.

- A maddening inability to capitalize on his successes. He should have been shouting about the post-surge progress in Iraq on a daily basis – instead, Obama is positioned to take the credit for a strategy he opposes to this day. During the recovery from the recession he inherited, he should have been pointing out the progress often.

- Too conciliatory to people who hated his guts. Teddy Kennedy, for example.

What he got right:

- The Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito will be a lasting legacy, and all for the good.

- Standing firm on taxes. It would have been better if the cuts had been made permanent, but cutting them is what fueled the recovery.

- Restoring a sense of honor, class, and decency to the Oval Office. When he arrived, the White House could have been confused with a frat house. Not now.

- The War on Terror. Here, he has been steadfast, even as many in his own party went wobbly. No amount of leftist historical revisionism can erase the fact that the USA has not been attacked here since 9/11, despite the best efforts of the islamofascists. His strong leadership in this area has given us the very real possibility of a democratic ally in Iraq for years to come. And to me, this overshadows all the negatives, as this is the president’s most important task.

I didn’t agree with you all the time, but on the whole, well done, Mr. President. History will be much kinder to you than you think.