A Look at Bush’s Legacy

(Babble On Column for  The Sunstar Davao, Friday, January 23, 2009)

People will remember this week as a historical one. This week, a black man, President Barack Obama, became President of the United States.

However, I will remember this week, not so much for Obama’s ascendancy, but for George W. Bush’s descent into infamy, and his long painful ride into the sunset.

So for now, let’s forget about Obama for a minute, and look at George W. Bush.

Former President George W. Bush (and I am sure many will rejoice at being able to call him FORMER president), started out his term in the White House riddled with controversy.

He won a bitterly contested election that required hordes of lawyers from both the Democrat and Republican parties to argue endlessly over the legalities of counting chads.

Winning this election, and coming to power in such a manner, was already a foretelling of the future. In the same way that Bush came into office, hounded by controversy and ridicule, he leaves in basically the same way.

What happened in his two terms as President is a sad tale at how high, and how low, a President and his country can go.

From becoming a leader of a powerful nation with the backing of the civilized world, ready to face the challenges of terrorism after 9-11, the United States and Bush became a financially weakened state, with little to no international support or credibility. The United States became a hollow shell of what it once was, and what it could have been.

Unloved, unpopular and leaving a horrible legacy of debt (the U.S. financial crisis), death (the Iraq War) and disaster (Hurricane Katrina) Bush left office with the largest disapproval rating since Nixon resigned.

It is a wonder he wasn’t forced to do the same, considering how many international and domestic laws his secretive administration may have broken. The next few months will be very interesting for the many disclosures that will come out, now that that Obama’s more open administration is in power.

I feel sad about Bush. He is a Christian man, very devout in his faith, and with a strong sense that God had put him in power for a reason – to save the world from terrorism. He failed in that task.

Terrorism is as rampant in the world as it was when 9-11 happened. If only that was the only place where he failed. But he failed his country, and the world, financially as well. The world economic downturn took place during his term.

There are debates as to whether he could have prevented it. Nevertheless, it happened during his watch. And as Truman says, the buck stops here.

Ironically enough, Bush has taken to comparing himself with Harry Truman, a Democrat who was an unpopular president during his time, but was redeemed by history and is now widely considered one of the best Presidents the United States ever had.

But Bush is nowhere near being a Truman. Specifically because Truman never blatantly violated human rights, which is something Bush’s administration did with impunity, and is clearly his worst legacy.

This legacy of torture is embodied in Guantanamo Bay. A place where Bush made torture and violation of human rights an everyday practice. This is patently against international law.

But he did it anyway, using loose legal reasoning by a young legal scholar named John Yoo, as his basis for torture, among others.

Whether or not Bush will suffer the consequences for his actions and decisions remains to be seen. But he will forever have to face the shame of being a failure as President. And that is a punishment which will follow him the rest of his life, and in the history of the world.

In any event, Bush is gone. Obama is here. And the world may be all the better for it.