I've been pretty critical of President Bush of late, so here's a more positive assessment of his performance:
"The war began on my watch," Bush told the class of 2006, "but it's going to end on your watch." Truman might have made the same point, accurately as it turned out, to the class of 1952. We're lucky we had then, and have now, a president who takes bold action and braves vitriolic criticism to defend our civilization against those who would destroy it.
As many mistakes as Bush has made, and as politically clueless as he sometimes seems to be, I think a fair assessment would acknowledge that he has a clearer idea of the dangers we face than most of his critics do.
Comments
Based on what evidence would you suggest that George Bush has a "clearer idea of the dangers we face?"
Iraq and 9/11 would seem to be the two big indicators of how clear (or not) Bush was on the dangers we faced. It would seem that he underestimated the threat prior to 9/11 to one degree or another. But worse than that, he wildly overestimated how afraid he should have been of Saddam Hussein.
So lets list the items that show he had a clear idea of the dangers faced going into Iraq
1)Because there weren't enough troops on the ground we couldn't stop the looting including a gigantic arms cache
2)He disbanded the Iraqi military w/o disarmament
3)Had no plan for reconstruction/occupation
4)Refused to admit there was an insurgency for months missing a critical opportunity to adjust our strategy - called them "dead-enders"
5)Said that oil revenues would pay for the war and it would only cost us around $1 Billion
6)Has allowed billions of dollars to be wasted by contractors with no real oversight and little/no improvement in services because there were no accounting standards in place - bags of cash were literally being handed out
7)Supported (or ignored) increasing bouts of torture and mishandling of detainees. Signed an anti-torture congression bill w/ a signing statement signalling he still thinks he can order torture.
He had absolutely zero understanding of what the dangers were in Iraq. Just because you know that there are people who want to kill Americans doesn't mean you have an effective policy...