On the defining issue of our time, how will history view President Bush?

Over the last year or so we’ve been treated to stories from the MSM about “historians” who suggest that President Bush will be remembered as one of the “worst” in history, if not the worst. While his domestic policies aren’t making anyone happy these days (and in fact, he will leave office next week with an approval rating in the low 30s), when it comes to foreign policy, specifically the global war on terror – the defining issue of our time – it is the one issue where more often than not, he got it right.

For example, when many on the left – including PEBO, and even some in his own party, wanted him to abandon Iraq, he held strong to the belief that we could win there and set in place a semi-democratic nation in the Middle East that would be a much-needed strong ally of the US. He came on board with the idea of the surge in late 2006 and as a result, guess what? The goal is being realized. Historian Andrew Roberts nails that point home here in a piece that will surely have heads exploding amongst the Bush-hating far left. There’s no starry-eyed hero worship there. Just the straight skinny.

This isn’t the first time Roberts has written a piece suggesting history will prove Bush right on the global war on terror. Here’s another he wrote last summer.

Can you imagine the hate mail this guy gets?

Memeorandum has more links, including some to the left’s reaction to interviews Cheney has done in the last week or so talking about Iraq and other issues related to the last 8 years of the Bush admin.

Great White Rat says:

January 15, 2009 at 10:44 pm

What he got wrong:

– Not enough vetos. He needed to slap down the spendthrifts in his own party during the first term, and never did. This set the stage for losing Congress two years ago.

– Illegal immigration. We’ve been over this before here.

– A maddening inability to capitalize on his successes. He should have been shouting about the post-surge progress in Iraq on a daily basis – instead, Obama is positioned to take the credit for a strategy he opposes to this day. During the recovery from the recession he inherited, he should have been pointing out the progress often.

– Too conciliatory to people who hated his guts. Teddy Kennedy, for example.

What he got right:

– The Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito will be a lasting legacy, and all for the good.

– Standing firm on taxes. It would have been better if the cuts had been made permanent, but cutting them is what fueled the recovery.

– Restoring a sense of honor, class, and decency to the Oval Office. When he arrived, the White House could have been confused with a frat house. Not now.

– The War on Terror. Here, he has been steadfast, even as many in his own party went wobbly. No amount of leftist historical revisionism can erase the fact that the USA has not been attacked here since 9/11, despite the best efforts of the islamofascists. His strong leadership in this area has given us the very real possibility of a democratic ally in Iraq for years to come. And to me, this overshadows all the negatives, as this is the president’s most important task.

I didn’t agree with you all the time, but on the whole, well done, Mr. President. History will be much kinder to you than you think.

omapian says:

January 16, 2009 at 10:54 am

Imagine it is 5 AM on September 11, 2001. Nineteen foreign nationals are preparing to board commercial airlines which they are prepared to hijack and crash into building causing death and destruction. If FBI & CIA agents had asked the Supreme Court for warrants to arrest the terrorists, the Court would rule they had insufficient probable cause. If the agents arrested the terrorists without a warrant, the ACLU would demand their immediate release in time to catch the planes for which they had legally purchased tickets. The US Supreme Court would agree.
Fortunately the Constitution is not a suicide pact. The President, NOT the Court, is charged with providing for the common defense. The President had a choice of arresting killers after the fact, or confronting them before the acted. President Bush decided to provide the greatest protection for American Citizens. He may have been more popular if he just asked the UN to condemn repeated acts of terror and simply send crime scene units to sort through the rubble.
The President decided upon acting in the desert and gave the fanatics a choice to either target American civilians at their residents, and workplaces or drive our military from their holy lands. For eight years, terrorists have assembled and acted in the deserts on foreign soil and not in our back yard.

forest hunter says:

January 17, 2009 at 3:17 pm

GWR: