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George Walker Bush: Our Best President Ever? |
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I think we are all familiar with the dry erase board that hangs in virtually every warehouse across the country. The board reads something like: This Warehouse Has Been Injury-Free for __ Days. Each morning, provided there was no injury the day before, the floor manager changes that space before Days from 0 to 1, or 50 to 51, or if things run smoothly, 550 to 551. Unfortunately, injuries are inevitable, so one day the manager has to erase his ascertained number, and start back at 0 the next. Now I have to somehow tie this in with George Bush and the rest of this piece before you get bored and stop reading, but take my word here.
When George Walker Bush took control of the free-world in January 2001, things were good. Aside from the undersized military and the non-existent national security system left behind by the preceding administration, the Clinton to Bush segue began with low unemployment, a relatively balanced budget, and strong markets. If Bush could just maintain all that was healthy, improve on education and social security, and buy a few more tanks, job well-done. Unfortunately, as some of you may or may not know, sometimes even the best laid plans go awry.
Despite what Alan Jackson may have you believe, the world didn’t stop turning on September 11, 2001, but it did call for some desperate measures. Even if Bush played every card to perfection for the next four (or eight) years, there was absolutely no possible way he would be capable of bringing the United States to that same stable and vigorous status in such a short period of time. Rebounding from the attacks would be a long, drawn-out process. After all, we just lost 3,000 innocent civilians, our two most important financial structures (with number three appearing as a miniscule footnote), a thriving overall market, and that balanced budget.
But the country rallied around the President, and every citizen foresaw harsh and hard-hitting years ahead, maybe even decades. In any case, the worst was finally over, and we could only look in one direction. But let me jump ahead for a moment; Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf. It destroyed a major city and vital port, had negative repercussions on other major cities, including Houston, and it took several hundred more innocent civilians.
In an attempt to drag this out no further, let us clearly state the undisputed facts. Bush was dealing with the worst attack on American soil in the United State’s history and the worst national disaster in the United States’ history. In addition, he was faced with a popular and necessary war (Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Taliban), and an unpopular and perhaps unnecessary war (Iraq). He had no control over the two former events, and of course he pulled the trigger on the latter two.
In any event, by virtue of the 9/11 attacks and their severity, the Dow Jones Industrial averages were uncontrollably sent below 7,300, and the attack killed every other major American market. Unemployment skyrocketed and the steadiness of the average American life, for the first time I can remember, became a huge question mark. For any Bush Administration naysayer, what could you have possibly asked for at this point?
First and foremost, Bush had the responsibility to make sure that absolutely no terrorist attacks would ever again happen on American soil. I’m not going to get overly dramatic and suggest we all went to bed on September 11, 2001 thinking our lives were in imminent danger, but we all held Bush responsible for making sure the terrorist threat was eliminated.
Essentially, we handed Bush that warehouse injury board, but this time it had tremendous implications. The board read: The United States Has Been Terrorist Attack Free for __ Days. However, once that number went above 0 after 9/11, it could never return to 0. Otherwise, we could write off his duty to protect the country as a major failure. Second, he needed to take measures to make sure the economy stabilized. If he could make progress in these two areas, you’d have to commend his work in White House. After all, he didn’t ask for or control any of these events, he just had to deal with them. We didn’t expect a great result, at least not right away; we just wanted stability and improvement. So I have to ask, how did he do?
If the hindsight numbers are any indication, he could easily go down as the greatest president in American history.
The problem with Bush is that he didn’t rally this country with the requisite slow and steady progress. He went ahead and made everything much better, and he did it in a hurry. It was really remarkable. In May 2007, the Bush Administration had brought unemployment to the point that it was toeing that line we call an all-time low. The Dow Jones just broke its own all-time-high closing last week, and the NASDAQ and S&P have flirted with their own respective records in recent months. The point is that the economy and employment are thriving. Taxes are down, earnings are up, and a myriad of those behind 9/11 are chained up as if real-life participants in the Allegory of the Cave by that Greek guy. And Saddam Hussein’s spine is in more pieces than Janis Joplin’s heart. I’d say not bad.
To put this in perspective, the Dow Jones has a potential to DOUBLE during Bush’s stint in office (7,300 to 13,500 in 5 years). No one today is unemployed unless they want to be. And that terrorist board we handed Bush on September 11th reads something like this today: The United States Has Been Terrorist Attack Free for 2084 Days. In case you misread, that was 2084 Days. Factor in the weekly threats abroad from the known and unknown terrorist networks, and those frequent terrorist plots that the CIA is able to uncoil at about step one or step two, seen on CNN every few months, I’d say not bad. And you are upset at this man because gas is $3.50 a gallon and the CIA might just listen to one of your phone conversations?
As to the law abiding citizens reading this article, what are you so concerned about? You are worried that CIA Agent Jones may have a terrorist attack lead, and then accidentally find out about the conversation you had with your Uncle Leo, about whether your Easter dinner would serve steak tartar or fried calamari as the appetizer? Go home. Nobody cares, unless you’re hiding something.
There is no question that we are much better off today than we were 6 years ago. Factor in 9/11 and Katrina, and the progress is unprecedented. Now, I’m not going to put Walker Bush in the same sentence as Reagan or FDR (from now on), but he has done one hell of a job. Will you perhaps cite Bush’s 38% approval rating to dismember all that was stated above? Remember that Harry Truman’s approval rating lingered around 20% during his presidency, namely because he faced one of the biggest American decisions since the Emancipation Proclamation. However, nobody today places Truman outside the realm of first-rate presidents. And history will show that approval ratings mean very little in retrospect, and only the years to come, after Bush retires to his ranch in Texas, can paint the entire picture of his performance as our leader. As of now, that picture is looking somewhere between good and great, like it or not. When you go to sleep tonight, confident 2084 will turn to 2085 in the morning, just smile knowingly.
Since my own dry erase board can’t be in two places at once, I’d like to take this opportunity to notify my mother: I Haven’t Had the Pleasure of Steak Tartar at My Easter Dinner in 9279 Days.
-Roger Beverage
Roger Beverage is a third year law student at Chicago’s John Marshall.
Bush will be praised by the history books as someone who wasn’t afraid to go against the current, someone who had a vision and followed that vision whether or not it made him popular. People at least must respect that much.
Honestly though I’ll give you that one. He really doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
Well thought out article. The ultimate determinant of a successful presidency has always been the economy (Clinton?), and by all accounts, Bush has been tremendously successful there. As Josh states above, Bush doesn’t care what anyone thinks, nor does he have the polish (I would call it elitist streak) of a Clinton or a Gore, which is what turns people off. He does stay true to his convictions, however, which right or wrong, I believe are with the best of intentions.
I have a few things to say.
It seems to me that economic data can be manipulated in various ways by politicians. The economy is exceedingly complicated - it’s easy to take a few numbers in isolation and “prove” that such-and-such politician is a brilliant economic mastermind. People can always find numbers (job creation, unemployment, inflation) to make a president look good. And people can always find other numbers (the gap between rich and poor, real wages, the behavior of the real estate market) to demonstrate that he has failed. I take it all with a grain of salt, and here you provide no links or other references to support your assertions. Give me a more closely supported argument and then I’ll give your economic argument more credence.
Stepping back for a moment, it seems to me that the US economy is much weaker than it appears at first glance. The dollar is weak against other countries’ currencies. Our government owes trillions of dollars to other governments whose faith in our ability to repay may one day run out. Our nation’s schoolchildren lag behind the children of other nations in terms of their competence in math and science. The numbers of American children who live in poverty are shocking. Meanwhile, the behavior of many large American corporations - fixing CEO pay at exorbitant levels and moving jobs overseas - seems to be further weakening America and our economy. Finally, our refusal to move away from fossil fuels as an energy source has already begun to take a toll on our economy.
In the face of major challenges to our economy, Bush’s policies have largely represented a continuation of absurd Reagonomics that at one point even Bush Sr. decried as ridiculous. “A rising tide lifts all yachts” is the ultimate expression of Bush’s economic mentality. His military spending is driving us into the ground, much as Reagan’s sent the deficit through the roof. Furthermore, Bush’s education policies have been sharply criticized by education professionals and by most American schoolteachers that I have had the opportunity to speak with personally. A broken education system weakens America and our economy even further.
With all that said, I don’t even accept your criteria for judging presidents in the first place. A President SWEARS to uphold the Constitution - I feel that Bush has undermined it. A President is supposed to be a strong and effective Commander-in-Chief - Bush has been a military failure whose “strategies” have been loudly criticized by many competent military officers and by much of the general public, and whose consequences are visible daily as we continue to waste American lives and dollars in Iraq with no discernible progress. And above all, the President is meant to be an effective and benevolent Chief Executive - implying that the President should govern in the interest of all Americans. Yet Bush more than any other president except perhaps Reagan has used the Presidency to push a divisive and alienating ideology, increasing tension, bitterness, and hatred in our nation. By the criteria listed in the Constitution itself, and by the moral criteria that I believe in, President Bush has been a failure.
As for keeping us safe, I’m not so sure. Did Bush handle September 11th well? I do not believe so - using 9/11 as a pretext for launching our attack against Iraq was completely inappropriate. Did Bush handle the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina well? Ask the people of New Orleans and see what they tell you. I for one feel less safe now than I did when Clinton was President. And we have yet to feel all of the effects of Bush’s actions, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 9/11 attacks and much of the Islamic terrorism we see today are the end products of currents set in motion by events beginning in 1979, namely the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution. We have not yet seen the full extent of the damage Bush has done - to put it bluntly, we have not yet seen the killers that many young children in Iraq and Afghanistan may well grow up to be because of Bush’s wars.
Finally, looking back over American history, it seems sad to me that you have picked out Bush as an example of a great president, and especially on the basis of such narrow criteria. Jefferson and Madison were GENIUSES. FDR was a LEADER. Washington and Lincoln were HEROES. Claim Lincoln if you want a Republican.
Great article. Well written well researched.
W will go down as one of the greatest and this article mentions many of the reasons. We could be hit by Al’Quida tomorrow, but there has been more deaths in school killings since 9/11, and we have George Walker Bush to thank for that.
Unemployment, taxes, we are all better off, not many of us realize it.
Thanks Rick–Thanks GHWB
On a separate note, I do not ascribe the success or failure of a presidency to one man. Bush is the tip of the iceberg: he is supported, funded, advised, and coached by hundreds of people. Do all of his decisions originate in his own mind or from his supposedly profound capacity to judge difficult situations correctly? I prefer to view him as the representative of a clique, one whose ranks have included the Bush family’s CEO buddies like Ken Lay (and Dick Cheney, for that matter), and Project for a New American Century folk who were planning the Iraq War before September 11th even happened. Anyone who thinks Bush is “governing” this country without massive amounts of help, or spoon-feeding as I would prefer to say, has been suckered by one too many photos of a cowboy in a flight suit.
Hey Ish,
Read the news paper, watch CNN, or go back to first grade history. If you don’t believe these numbers, get a clue. They are all accurate and readily abailable for those who are literate.
I would say that America would have a much different feeling towards Bush if there was no war in Iraq. I don’t personally agree with Bush’s economic policy, and I think Ish brings up good points, but there are many in this country who do agree, and more importantly, Bush did nothing new in this respect. He is following the neo-con protocol: less taxes, less regulation, etc…
Same thing goes for many more of his policies. His response to Katrina was not good, but lets face it, it wasn’t groundbreakingly horrible. His policies for education and immigration again are not groundbreaking either.
But Bush made a collosal error, and that was Iraq. This is where Bush truly broke new ground, and truly was a leader, however misguided. Never, ever, in all of American history, has the Executive branch misled the American people about a war. America has prided itself on only fighting the “good fight,” being moral crusaders. Even Vietnam was not a lie, only a vast miscalculation. Iraq was surely miscalculated as well, but more importantly it was founded on a fiction. If you would like to debate Bush’s legacy, you must admit some facts. Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaeda and posed no direct threat to American security. We vastly misunderstood Iraq’s political and social climate. We had no credible plan for winning the peace. Iraq is now in a civil war. Even Republican Presidential candidates admit this much (though they prefer to go with the “surge” to make things right again).
Iraq has stained America’s legacy and Bush’s legacy. For whatever else he did right or wrong, this was Bush’s blunder, and one he will take the blame for in the history books. If America had never invaded Iraq, I would guess Bush would have gone down as a mediocre President, loved by his party and well thought of by others (much like H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton). However, because of Iraq, and because of the problems Iraq will cause us in the future, Bush’s presidency will be judged harshly. Mark my words: 9/11 was caused, however tenuously, by Russia and America’s meddling in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The next major terrorist attack on American soil will be able to be traced back to the situation in Iraq, and American troops staying in Iraq won’t really stop that.
If Bush really wanted to keep that whiteboard number climbing upward, he would have realized that terrorism is a political problem with a political solution. Instead, we went to war. And the rest, they say, is history.
J, I gotta disagree with you. There’s a lot of evidence suggesting that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - which greatly increased our commitment in Vietnam - came about because of lies and deliberate misinformation by Johnson against Congress and the American people.
For those who say, “check the numbers,” please explain to me why the dollar is weak and what it means that our government owes trillions to other governments.
That was undoubtedly one of the most ignorant readings fo history I have ever seen. And you’re a law student? You must be an affirmative action student…maybe your law school is providing affirmative action seats for dopes. Like 9/11 was the cause of the markets and employment tanking even though that started BEFORE 9/11 (I don’t see how you get A preceded B, therefore B caused A, but you’ve invented a remarkable new fallacy). And you manage to ignore the fact that every light was blinking red before the attacks and the intel community was warning Bush and Rice about impending terror attacks and they ignored the warnings. Something like 43 countries warned us of the impending attacks and they ignored the warnings.
Christ on a cracker, you really are stupid. I got an email about posting at this site and linking it, so I decided to check it out. This is the first I’ve seen of it. I won’t be linking it, posting to it, or paying it any attention at all in the future. The quality of its contributors is too low.
All I can say is wow… WOW. There are a number of reasons that one could claim the George W. is the best president ever but for the love of god almighty, please do a better job of presenting it. He’s lead our country through a horrible and traumatic time. (Check) He’s brought our economy back around (Check–although debatable). To some that’s all that matters… for others, like me, social programming matters… healthcare matters… and education matters… (No Child Left Behind may be the exception–see these statistics http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/importance/edlite-index.html - or not - http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=13538). Regardless, views like yours help make this society great, debate is important, but please back up what your saying (you know you wouldnt get away with that at law school, much less on the LSAT). I’d like to see more from you Roger!
Don t forget that Bush is moving us right toward fascism,which is great,if that s what you re into…and a police state where we get our conversations spied on!!!cool!!!I,myself agree with a certain fellow named Benjamin Franklin,dunno if you ve heard of him..”those who would give up Essiantial Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Something we try to cultivate at this site is open-mindedness, DBK. If we only put on articles that we agree with, what really gets accomplished? We all tell each other how smart we are, how stupid everyone else is, and partisan politics becomes more entrenched.
Instead, we sometimes post articles we disagree with, we post articles we think are flawed, but we do it for a reason; we want to spark a respectful, intellectual debate. So, if you want to make a comment about the article, make an intelligent argument, not a reversion to name calling. Obviously that goes for Sylvester Montgomery too.
If that, however, is all you got, and you’re the type who acquaints his / herself with only one bit of the whole, washing your hands of the entire matter if that piece doesn’t please you, then your traffic won’t be missed.
I’m sorry about your views, too, DBK - I find them more objectionable by far than the original article. I understand that in the “digital age” we all only have thirty seconds of time for each blog, but that’s why complexity of thought gets ignored. If you would have made it to any other article on this site your assumptions would have been challenged.
We take risks where others don’t - and remember that, cause this isn’t the last time you’ll hear our name.
We’re not a Democratic cheerleader blog and we’re not afraid to get our hands dirty by listening to other viewpoints.
Thank you for that!
He should be given a helmet and spend the rest of his life riding around in a short yellow bus.
George W.Bush has done more to turn the United States into a third world banana republic.
Bush isn’t the best president ever, and he isn’t the worst either. The problem is that Bush Derangement Syndrome (B.D.S.) is a serious illness that causes otherwise rational people to spew vitriol and irrationally rant and rave about Bush being the most evil and nefarious man ever. Extreme cases lead many to either claim Bush is the anti-Christ or accuse Bush of being the “mastermind” behind 9/11.
I just posted on this not too long ago.
George Bush blew the opportunity to be seen as the best president ever. America was united against a common enemy after the September 11th attacks. The War on Terror began to dispose of the enemy. The Iraq War, however, did not begin under such justifiable circumstances. The Bush administration assured us there were WMDs in Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. And Iraq was not responsible for 9/11, an argument Bush tried to make after his WMD excuse became invalid. The war was about oil, and Bush getting back at Saddam, the man who tried to kill his daddy. But George H.W. Bush, a much better president than his son, knew that there was no exit strategy if he invaded Iraq during Desert Storm. The unsolved topic of exit strategy is killing Americans daily, and taking resources away from the War on Terror. It is sad to see American soldiers giving their lives not for their country’s security, but for oil and President Bush’s personal vendetta. The claims put forth in this article about George Bush keeping us safe and strengthening the economy are trumped by his greatest blunder, the Iraq War.
Who was the worst? Fillmore or something? Polk?
Definitely not Polk, he’s arguably one of the top ten best presidents because he acquired so much territory for the US. Fillmore is pretty forgettable. I’d say Buchanan was the worst because he didn’t take a stance against secession.. he was just watching the country fall apart. If Lincoln, one of best presidents ever, had not followed his act, the US may have collapsed.
Polk was a thief who started a phony war against a peaceful neighbor so he can land grab,Lincoln called him out on that when he was a Congressman from Illinois,just so you know…
Hey,put down the kool-aid,Bush stinks and no amount of spinning will change that fact…thankfully his regime will be over and the next president will have the enormous task of putting our country back on the right course,I can put forth the many reasons why he sucks but unless you ve been hiding under a rock,you already know them
Yeah, this is all true if you also made a deal with the devil
I think this article is superb.
ROGER, i think GW Bush WILL be known as the BEST president ever.I always believed it, and you have now worded it perfectly for me.Thanks man.
Do you have any knowledge of our constitution? Tapping citizens phones is illegal. When the people have to give up our rights for security, we lose both. This is just one of a long list of unconstitutional actions by this president. Do your homework. And not to mention our dollar is at an all time low and the economy is actually getting worse.
Now that the economy is in the sh!tter, does W. still rank so high in your mind?
I found it interesting (maybe appalling is a better word) that you used Hurricane Katrina in your defense of Bush’s Presidency. His incompetence and the incompetence of his underlings in the aftermath of the storm are stark reminders that this man may indeed be the WORST President in history.
BTW, today the big news story is that he wants the CIA to be able to torture prisoners. Check one up for the U.S.A. taking the high road! Oh, wait….
Well, I really wish you could spell “Reagan.” It would increase my faith in No Child Left Behind. But never mind.
I agree, he’s got to be the greatest. I mean, hell, he took the fattest surplus this nation ever had and spent us into absolute poverty. American industry — not to mention the formerly almighty dollar — is the laughingstock of the whole world. His administration has killed more American soldiers since any president since Reagan. New Orleans is still more like Berlin in 1945 than a recovering American city. The air quality is worse; the water is dirtier. I make a lot more than I made eight years ago but inflation has chewed it all up. My house is worth 15% less than it was just a year ago, and there are four foreclosures on the block and the adjacent street.
Greatest president? Either he pays you or you’re simply nuts. The guy has failed utterly, miserably. He’s made us a second-rate economic power and worn out our military. His exit can’t come any too soon.
yea but his git out is gonna be a long and protracted effort.nov. is a long way off..war monger mcaine will look good by then…
Well its one year later and your are looking at a recession under Bushes watch. So much for this argument.
George W Bush wants to eat your children!
Most Americans are too stupid to understand what the last administration left behind. The want to point fingers, and President Bush is their primary target. The same response I hear from Bush-opposers are the same. “He lied to us about WMD’s in Iraq.” Guess what? No he didn’t. Did GW perform clandestine HUMINT/SIGINT/IMINT ops to come to that conclusion? Negative. The Intelligence Community did. It is the IC’s fault and theirs alone. The President acted on the Intelligence, as any good president would have. What if he hadn’t and Iraq was a threat? Then he would be blamed yet again. In the end, I can’t see the downside of eliminating a dictator who raped and murdered innocent people. But hey, whatever helps you sleep better at night.
Amen, brother! Wait until they get a Borack or a Hillary! These people will blame Bush for B and H! Beware of the Manchurian Candidate!
wow its helplessly moronic people like “Roger” that allow underachieving warmongers like Bush to be elected/re-elected, i know a lot of Americans who are very smart/wise people who are wise enough to form their own opinions, people like Roger who are incapable of doing this are the ones taking spoonfulls from the media and essentially driving us all into the ground.
I cant believe this idiot is in law-school when he obviously has no idea what the constituion is and means.
ISH - You are on point with your comments, good to see that there are smart people to make up for the scrapes from the “bottom of the intellectual barrel”
%u201CHe lied to us about WMD%u2019s in Iraq.%u201D Guess what? No he didn%u2019t. Did GW perform clandestine HUMINT/SIGINT/IMINT ops to come to that conclusion? Negative.”
Ummm, yes he did and yes he did. Wow, are you fucking insane or delusional or something? I always wondered who all these idiots are that support this war criminal and now I know where to find them. W has shamelessly broken int’l law (felonies which are punishable by death, by the way), blatantly lied to the public, ordered forged documents from the IC to support his non-existant case for war, tortured illegally detained and sometimes innocent POWs in an illegal secret prison, made a mockery of the bill of rights and Constitution in general, promoted the hiring of laughably incompetent officials (Gonzalez, Miers, etc), showed extreme incompetence and racism in his response to Katrina, watched by idly as countless scandals embarrassed his administration, ….. I could go on and on but I can’t even believe I’m on a site with people defending a war criminal.
This really is an amazing thread. Looking back on it through the lens of the last 14 months, I wonder if any of these people still think that Bush has done a great job on the economy.
First it was weapons of mass destruction, then to finish off Saddam, then to spread democracy throughout the world with roses at the feet of our troops. Then protect the Telecoms from the law through passing unconstitutional laws, and rewarding the corporations who act as henchmen. You should look up the term fascism in the dictionary. One final point covered some 60 years ago now strengthening the argument that if one doesn’t understand history, they are doomed to repeat it. Sad that people support fascism now and resource grab..this is the closest to a dictatorship than this country has ever been. The quote:
On leading a country to war:
%u201CNaturally the common people don%u2019t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it%u2019s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.%u201D
— Hermann Goering, Hitler%u2019s Reich Marshall, in an interview at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.–
George W. Bush%u2019s sentence-by-sentence speaking skills are deteriorating. Apparently, this may be due to a mental illness called %u201Cpresenile dementia.%u201D Bush may or may not be secretly still drinking heavily. Bush lied, and thousands of people died. Bush suffers from narcissism and megalomania. Moreover, Bush has been arrested three times. Bush was arrested for disorderly conduct. Bush was arrested for stealing. Bush was also arrested for a serious crime%u2014driving under the influence of alcohol. There are reasons to believe that Bush suffers from a learning disability. Bush%u2019s learning disability would explain a lot of things. All in all, Bush is a severely mentally ill individual. Bush is not fit to be the president of the United States.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Bush the dumbest president yet!!!!!!!!!
THANK GOD HE’S GONE FOR GOOD
Borack H. Obama is too Risky like George W. Bush. He has never been tested. He is a good speaker with little or nothing to show me. On the other hand, John McCain has been tested over and over. Bush attacked McCain like he attacked John Kerry and Al Gore because Bush wanted to be president, even with lies. McCain was also tested by Fidel Castro and every evil tug who hates the USA. He is old and in good health. Death does not discriminates. Even New born babies die. They die quicker with Obama as PRESIDENT, and his belief on abortion of babies and killing them. Polin has as much experience if not more than Obama. As for as Bush is Concern, he is history 1/20/09. Let history judge him.