Question of the Week
On the last evening of the George W. Bush administration, I’d like to end on a positive note, and invite my readers to opine on the very best thing that President Bush did while in office.
It would be too easy to list failures. Indeed, the Internet is teeming with lists of what the Bush administration did wrong. But in eight years, he must have done at least one thing right. It hardly seems possible that every decision was the diametrical opposite of what he should have done. Surely, even the harshest critic of President Bush can, on the final evening of his presidency, muster up a single word of praise.
Note that I am not looking for sarcasm. I am not looking for you to damn him with faint praise. I am not looking for you to say how his failures made it possible for something better or created an environment where something was possible. This should be a genuine compliment. (Though you can preface it with a broad condemnation if that will help the medicine go down.)
What is the best thing that George W. Bush did as president?
And if I can think of anything, I may even join the conversation.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Okay, here goes.
I admire that he always did what he thought was right, regardless of what his critics said. That’s the mark of a true leader.
True, I wasn’t always happy to see him do these things. And we might have been in better shape if he had been more interested in things like talking with experts and reading intelligence reports before doing what he thought was right, instead of just relying on the whole gut instinct thing.
But in the end, George W. Bush kept his own counsel, and was able to get the things done that he wanted to get done, right or wrong. I wonder if Obama will be as decisive, or if he will end up compromising us firmly into the status quo.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
As I understand it, the Bush/Cheney administration beefed up a more Cabinet-worthy Department of Homeland Security, which (if nothing else) created some jobs that are unlikely to be phased out, even in this economy.
So that’s something.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:35 am
I hear he did a lot of work to ease the impact of AIDS in Africa, and he got Libya to stop being a terrorist nation. The surge worked. He signed a random small law that stops double taxation against awards of attorneys fees, but somehow I don’t think that interests most of the country. None of this excuses the damage he’s done, but history needs to be objective, right?
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act
April 28th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
I’m going to revise my answer: Sarbanes-Oxley is the best and most important thing Bush did as President….
April 28th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
I mean not veto-ing and allowing it to pass and signing it that is… :)