Bush's troubled tenure ending

Inter Lake editorial

As George W. Bush leaves office next week, there is no doubt that much of the nation is fatigued with his presidency.

Like Harry Truman and Winston Churchill, Bush leaves with low approval ratings and no shortage of critics, but his true legacy will not be written for years. The outcomes in Afghanistan and Iraq will be the ultimate measures of his presidency.

If those countries deteriorate into basketcase states, he will be deemed a failure. But if they evolve into stable, relatively democratic nations, Bush's role in transforming the region will not be forgotten. What has already been forgotten, it seems, is what those countries were like before American intervention. Afghanistan was a breeding ground for international terrorism, a place where Muslim women were wrapped from head to toe and banned from public education. Iraq was led by a homicidal, kleptocratic tyrant who presented a constant threat to neighboring states, and there was the promise that he would be succeeded by his murderous sons.

If Afghanistan and Iraq become stable, steady U.S. allies, Bush's role in those changes will supersede his troubled domestic agenda.

Bush had enormous challenges as president from the very beginning, starting with his narrow and controversial election in 2000. That in itself forged an unrelenting opposition that would hamper his agenda and his standing for the next eight years. At times, the opposition veered into deranged territory - it became almost a running national joke that everything bad that happened was "Bush's fault."

He inherited a recession that was deepened after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, just eight months into his presidency. Bush responded with tax cuts and a series of domestic security initiatives, such as the Patriot Act, that attracted persistent attacks from the left.

But Bush was also maddening to those on the right, who regarded his brand of "compassionate conservatism" as a euphemism for big government. He was the first Republican champion for federalizing education with the No Child Left Behind Act, and he presided over a steady expansion in government spending, not using his veto power to check a pork-addicted Congress through most of his presidency.

Bush went on to pursue unprecedented and expensive initiatives in combating AIDS, malaria and hunger in Africa, and got little recognition for it from progressive human rights advocates.

And finally, the Bush presidency came to a close with the nation gripped by a financial crisis and economic meltdown, leaving his successor with even greater challenges than he faced eight years ago. Bush will bear a share of the blame that will, like Iraq and Afghanistan, be defined in years to come.

What can confidently be written today is that President Bush was never as bad as his critics said, nor as good as his supporters hoped. It is a somewhat unsatisfying legacy, but it may be the best he can hope for.