NORTHEAST GEORGIA BLOG

So President Bush makes his final remarks tonight from the White House – sort of a “farewell speech”.  Like him or not it’s been quite an eight years – lots of highs and lows – unfortunately probably more lows.  Let’s take a look:

The Good

On the economic front the administration saw the coming collapse but the Congress refused to act.  History will probably correct this with fact long after he leaves office.  For the past year the mainstream media has been hard at work hammering the economy in order to get democrats elected.  President Bush was right.  Congress was wrong.  In the end people like Barney Frank will get most of the blame for the mess we’re looking at right now.  On a side note those tax cuts helped to give us unprecedented growth and some pretty good boom times.  The GOP Congress squandered away our budget and debt – they get alot of blame.

Iraq. President Bush stuck to his guns.  He took intelligence information from dozens of sources and many nations – all of which were in agreement about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction – and he acted.  Whether or not this pans out for the future remains to be seen but you have to give the President credit for ignoring poll numbers and sticking to what he believed was the right thing to do.

Climate Change. Agree with it or not – under President Bush US air pollution declined by 12%.  That can’t be a bad thing.

Laura – Probably the most elegant and respected First Lady in decades.

The Bad

President Bush inherited some pretty good economic numbers from President Clinton, including a budget surplus.  He didn’t do enough to try and reign in Congress (his own party) from the spending frenzy.

I believe President Bush waited too long to get rid of Donald Rumsfield as Sec of Defense.  Sec Rumsfield really mis-handled the post-invasion and prolonged some misery for our troops over there.

Afghanistan – not enough troops or attention.  The Taliban is still at it.  We should have slaughtered every single breathing one of those animals prior to looking at Iraq.

The Ugly

911. Nuff said on that one.

Katrina. Media induced or not – it was a mess.  Very poor judgement on several fronts.  Elections – GOP getting pounded.  I know – it was their own fault, but the President has some responsibility and blame.  Economic meltdown – the President always gets the credit and he always gets the blame.

All in all President Bush will be held in fairly high esteem when history is written.  The economic mess we’re looking at right now is a direct decendent of democratic policy – that isn’t arguable.  The facts will vindicate President Bush on this front.  Iraq should play out in our favor also, giving us a sound footing in the Middle East for the future.  The fact that President Bush ignored poll numbers and did what he believe was the right thing to do will weigh heavy in his favor with historians – he never made a decision based on what some polling company told him or what the NY Times said.

I like the guy.  I disagree with many things he did.  I agree with many things he did.  After eight years, it’s time for a new face – someone else to complain about.

My rant.

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