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Originally Posted by Archaea
Bush was a terrible president Tex, from a conservative's point of view. I believe it is arguable who was worse, Carter or Bush, and I come down on Carter, but people certainly can reasonably disagree on that one. Bush along with Taft and some of the early 20th century presidents were terrible Republicans, excepting TR of course.
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"Terrible" is a bit strong. Cueing off the Barnes article, Bush made several conservative achievements, including the rejection of Kyoto, the removal of institutional barriers to fighting terrorism, and his emphasis on promoting democracy abroad. I also don't think it's possible to have gotten two better conservative picks than Roberts and Alito.
That said, Bush ended up being far more like his father than we all recognized. He comes from that "country club" Republican establishment, rather than being a movement conservative. Barnes lists NCLB and the prescription drug program expansion among his accomplishments, both of which are not my favorites. I also hated his "abandoning capitalism to save it" approach to the recent financial crisis.
I've said this before: I think Bush will be catalogued as a very average president. I think he will get lots of credit in the end for keeping the country safe, an assessment that will be tempered by how Iraq eventually turns out.
To the fair minded observer, he hasn't been a terrible president, certainly not with the likes of Jimmy Carter. The suggestion is truly ridiculous.