Saturday, January 17, 2009

Bush's legacy

So how do I explain Bush's 8-year term? Courage. There are other words to define it, but I believe he has done his best to make the hardest decisions. I do believe that every U.S. President always has something big that they have swept under the rug. It's looking like Bush will give the economy mess to Obama. But what Bush tried to fix was the growing of anti-US groups in the Middle East wanting to kill us and our dream. 9/11/2001 will definitely define his presidency. He showed how to reorganize the FBI and our military, and that he restored faith in the country and its government. Like his father's presidency, foreign policy defined it mostly.

But what about Osama Bin Laden and the Iraq war? I really can't comment about the whole Bin Laden thing, since I'm not in the military nor am I someone who works for the government. I have heard that he's hiding in a cave, with no electriciy.....I do, on the other hand, supported what we did in Iraq back in '03. There is a part of me that believes Saddam Hussein played a role in 9/11. And let's face it: Saddam had been on our enemies list for a long time, and even Clinton wanted him removed. What Saddam did to his own people was even a disgrace, even though there are worse dictators than him (Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong Il). The whole 'weapons thing' is still in question as this is cited as the main reason we went to Iraq. I prefer to look at it this way: Back in the mid-to-late 90s, UN weapons inspectors were beginning to not be allowed in certain parts of Iraq. This went on until Saddam was toppled. These are just a few reasons why I think Bush did the right thing. But will his dream of a democratized country that he built come true? We'll know in 15 years.

I will say that Hurricane Katrina did drive a nail in his coffin. Some believed it was a test to the President: care about what's going on in Iraq or my own country? I'm actually still torn on the whole Katrina issue. The government can't always be there at the right place, right time. This moment made us (or, at least me) believe that too many people rely on the government for help. I do believe that people should have made their own decisions when it came to taking care of themselves to safety. If I lived in a city by the Gulf of Mexico, and that I knew the city was below ground, and if I knew a hurricane was coming, I would definitely flee. In other words, I think the Bush administration took more than a beating during the aftermath of Katrina.

And then, the economy. It should not be blamed solely by Bush, or his administration. Several things have led to this crisis, and this would go back to 1971, when Nixon took our dollar off the gold standard. I think that many people became very financially irresponsible this decade. But also, however, I do think Bush's guys should have kept a close eye on the Wall Street greed. We all hate criminals.

So will history be kind to Bush? We shall see. One of my all-time favorite presidents, Harry Truman, was not the most popular upon leaving his term. Today, most of his decisions were granted the most challenging as they have worked out for the best.

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