Open Left

MAN, was he a bad president!

Compared to all other presidents, Bush allowed by far the most deaths from terrorism on American soil, or anywhere else for that matter. Incredibly, and despite this fact, his ability to keep us safe from terrorism is seen as perhaps his one strength, even by people who long ago stopped seeing him as a good president in other respects.

I think this perspective can only make sense, if it can at all, if you adopt the Bush administrations oft-stated canard that "9/11 changed everything." It always drove me nuts when they would say that. For anyone paying any sort of attention, Al Qaeda was a huge threat going back to the early 90s, and the attacks on Spetember 11th, though shocking, really weren't all that surprising. (I mean, they had already attacked the World Trade Center 8 years earlier!) The reckless shift from total ignorance of that threat to absurd over-reaction is the best illustration there is of the callowness not just of the Bush administration but of the conservative movement in general.

By the way, the fact that he came to be so thoroughly rejected by the American people, even as they gave him a pass on his greatest failure, is a real testament to just what a remarkably bad president he was.

---

by: Chachy @ Tue Apr 21, 2009 at 11:58:10 AM CDT