Our View: George W. Bush's legacy, for better and (mostly) worse (Peoria Journal Star)

[struggle4progress]

Journal Star
Posted Jan 17, 2009 @ 06:04 PM
Last update Jan 17, 2009 @ 11:02 PM

... Even if 20 years from now Iraq is a prosperous, peaceful and democratic ally in a stabilized Middle East - and yes, absolutely we hope that happens - it doesn't change the fact that Bush/Cheney & Co. started a war of choice under false pretenses, from the weapons of mass destruction that weren't there to that nation's since-discredited connection to 9-11. The men and women who were sent to a faraway land to defend this nation's security, more than 4,200 of whom died doing so, were owed the truth as to why, and arguably they did not get it.

Whereas candidate Bush said he would never engage in "nation-building," President Bush did just that. Osama bin Laden, the devil behind the 9-11 attacks whom the president promised to capture "dead or alive," is still at large, in part because this nation took a detour in its otherwise necessary War on Terror. Against the backdrop of the administration's go-it-alone foreign policy, Pakistan is boiling, with India feeling the heat; in Israel, bombs are taking their toll on a two-state solution; Iran seems intent on doing its own thing, atomically speaking; we have a cooled if not quite Cold War relationship with Russia; "made in China" dominates this nation's store shelves.

At home President Bush gave us tax cuts, but at the price of record-shattering deficits. Ultimately even those couldn't keep the economy out of the tank. Indeed, his idea of wartime sacrifice was to insist Americans go shopping, which they did - a little too much. Personal debt exploded while real incomes remained flat. Unemployment is increasing at an alarming rate.

George W. Bush may be a Republican, but he is no conservative. He'll forgive those who even dropped the "socialist" tag on him as his administration began bailing out troubled banks and other businesses. But in fact the overspending and red ink it produced were staggering even before we entered the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The nation's debt has nearly doubled since 2001. That doesn't include most of this year's deficit, which is projected at $1.2 trillion, almost triple the previous high. The prescription drug benefit under Medicare that Bush championed has been called the greatest expansion in America's welfare state in four decades, yet he vetoed the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) because it represented a step toward socialized medicine ...

http://www.pjstar.com/opinions/x1881638821/Our-View-George-W-Bushs-legacy-for-better-and-mostly-worse