Now that Bush is fading off into the sunset, his few remaining supporters and some conservatives that want to whitewash the Bush years by saying “history will judge” are putting on their final full-court press that Bush=Truman.
Of course, it may be a comforting notion, despite being rejected by your contemporaries, that history will judge you more kindly. But the analogy strains to the breaking point.
Where is Bush’s Marshall Plan? Does wasting aid in Afghanistan only to see it crumble again count?
Sure Korea is divided to this day and the Korean War definitely didn’t go as well as planned, but I have a feeling that Baghdad and Iraq will be very different in 50 years compared with Seoul and South Korea today. I doubt that in 50 years Americans could safely and freely travel to Baghdad in 2059.
The Truman Doctrine was in place for 40 years. The Bush Doctrine won’t even be in place for the next administration because it was such a disaster in Iraq (I agree with Charlie Gibson that it means preemptive war…even though there is some confusion on this point, and some claim that the Bush Doctrine means not letting a country harbor terrorist and overthrowing them, but this isn’t necessarily a new idea, just a new situation for instigating regime change, which isn’t Bush-specific).
And if the PATRIOT Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security count as key accomplishments, not even history can save you.
sneaky
lol, did you make that picture? That is pretty funny. If it’s yours you should upload a big picture of it.
I think Americans may be able to walk the streets of Baghdad in 50 years…maybe even sooner. But if that is the case, although Bush deserves some credit for the surge, Obama and future presidents will likely deserve most of the credit.
And positive rep from the surge will be more than balanced out by 1) starting an unnecessary war. 2) Failing to competently plan or execute the reconstruction of Iraq.
Do you think the DHS is an inherently bad idea? Or maybe one that could have worked if the Bush administration could have competently managed the creation of the new agency?
I made it quickly this morning. I’ll make a better version (all caps, to match TRUMAN, etc).
Ya, I think DHS is a bad idea. It’s subsumed lots of large, bureaucratic organizations, reshuffled some things, and made things even more bureaucratic. I’m sure no one missed INS, but I don’t think USCIS is much better. Combining customs enforcement with immigration makes sense, but not if you don’t improve the individual components. And don’t even get me started about TSA. What a joke. Time to let the libertarian beast within me rage…why not let the feds set minimum standards and have airport/airline consortioms provide staff themselves and develop their own operating procedures? I think they have a pretty strong interest to do a good job, between their reputations for safety and protecting their billions of dollars in jets.
o shit, customs is separate from immigration (within USCIS). USCIS is US Citizenship and Immigrations Services (and it is different the INS how…?) US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (commonly known as ICE) are the badasses with the drug-sniffing beagles at airports and deport people.
I don’t know how I could make such a mistake! It’s all so clear at DHS! In case some clarification or a good laugh is needed…refer to the org chart
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/photos/orgchart-web.png
for even more laughs about the TSA, see this article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic. The Things He Carried.
Wow. Alrighty then. Basically people are afraid to speak up because they are afraid of being sued for something like harassment or whatever. I couldn’t tell a fake boarding pass from a real one while using the restroom. As a general rule i like to minimize my time there.
What was it before INS (immigration and naturalization services?) in the Justice Department? And Customs was formerly part of the Treasury?
I’ll check that on wikipedia….
What! No Larry Craig urges?!!
From that WSJ article…”And [Bush] transformed NATO from a defensive alliance into an expeditionary alliance that is now leading the fight in Afghanistan.”
Uhhh..didn’t Clinton start that in Kosovo?
“Mr. Bush increased defense spending by nearly 73%…”
And that’s a good thing? Does that include the cost of Iraq and Afganistan?