The Failure of the Bush Presidency

Here is a good op-ed in the NY Times by the right winger Ross Douthat that points up the failings of the Bush presidency. Here's the lead bit:

Last week, the Census Bureau released a statistical report on the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency. The numbers were brutal. On every indicator, Americans lost ground during the Bush era. The median income slumped. The poverty rate increased. The percentage of Americans without health insurance rose.

Adding insult to injury, the umpteenth insider look at Bush administration’s dysfunction was unveiled last week as well, courtesy of an obscure second-term speechwriter named Matt Latimer. (Next up: Bush’s White House chef tells all!) Latimer’s memoir, excerpted in GQ, offers grist for Bush-whackers of both parties. For liberals, there’s Dubya the incurious frat boy, flubbing policy details and cracking wise about Hillary Clinton’s posterior. For conservatives eager to prove that the most unpopular president in 50 years was never really one of them, there’s Bush the crypto-liberal, who dismisses the conservative movement and boasts that he personally “redefined the Republican Party.”

The census report is yet another nail in the coffin of Bush’s reputation; Latimer’s tell-all seems more like a thumbtack. Both are reminders that it’s hard to imagine his presidency being remembered as anything but a failure, by liberals and conservatives alike.

Go read the whole article, it is worth your time.

Douthat ends up giving Bush more credibility than he deserves. Bush was a failure. A spoiled rich kid who wanted to show his pappy that he would outdo him. He did, but in a most incredibly destructive way.