Yeah, yeah, he promised his would be a kinder, less partisan, non-judgemental Presidency. But for Pete’s sake, if they’re lying about you, your policies, your results and your accomplishments on a daily basis, shouldn’t you say … something? For the sake of the rest of us, if not your own?

Personally, I believe that trait alone emboldened his critics to lose their minds with constant rage and no good came of it. None.

The fact that Eric Holder holds Jimmy Carter in high esteem has to be worrisome for not only the United States but for freedom loving people in other countries with a fragile democracy. We have the problem of Hugo Chavez and expanding his empire in Latin America. He seems to be following the historical growth of communism from its inception in Russia and how they formed and linked with cells in other european countries with the goal of a Communist Europe. The rise of Hugo Chavez is a failing in the Bush legacy. He and his State Department focused so much on the middle east that they almost totally neglected latin america (other than wanting to give amnesty to illegals) except to immediately recognize, along with El Salvador, the new president of Venezuela in the 48 hour coup of April 2002. Financing the defeat of the right in El Salvador is revenge for Chavez. Barak Obama is willing to sit down with him as Chavez who said he is willing as an equal to sit with Obama and believes he will be a friend.

ILC, if President Bush called on Americans to make sacrifices for the war on terror, I never heard it. You could be right. It might have gone over my head, if he did, it certainly wasn´t clear to me as the clips of old newsreels of FDR´s speeches at the start of WWII.

2nd – Formalization of a Torture regime. Its likely, more stories of innocents being tortured will come out and will be baaad.

To have “more”, don’t you have to have, at least one, to start with?

His recird is such that it will take time to sort things out in order to fairly judge him and his administration.

#20: VtK: I have to refer you to a couple of things John Derbyshire has mentioned in the past:

1. The Chinese are wrestling with some big problems of their own and may decline to loan us money (so we’ll have to inflate the currency).

2. China will take Taiwan. We will protest. The Chinese will reply “We are willing to lose two or three cities over this. How many are you willing to lose?”

Under Jimmy Carter, Angola and Nicaragua fell to the Soviets, and we damn near lost El Salvador, too. With China financing the Dear One’s economic “stimulus,” the US will be powerless to intervene should China move on Taiwan. Pakistan is also in a very precarious state, and Mexico is on the verge of civil war.

The Dear One would be out of his depth managing even one of those crises. Imagine if he hits the trifecta.

And Bush paid a great deal of attention to the US. He kept us safe, disillusioned the world of the view that America is a weak “paper tiger”, he brought us very quickly out of the dot.com recession, staved off a second recession after 9/11, gave everyone who pays taxes tax relief, twice, instigated 52 consecutive months of job and economic growth, made it possible for more minorities to own their own businesses than ever before, protected innocent life, ended unconstitutional discrimination against religious organizations, improved school accountability and performance, launched the biggest, fastest, most effective rescue effort in history, made the air, water and earth cleaner while reducing onerous regulation, increased (despite the complaints of my fellow conservatives) border security for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower, seated two of the finest, most responsible Justices to ever sit on the supreme court, not to mention a great many lower courts, and tried numerous times to end the Democrat policies that caused the financial mess we are now in.

Not only does George W Bush leave office with a strong record, it will be increasingly recognized the longer Obama holds office.

Thanks, W. When you weren’t busy with Iraq, would it have been too much to ask that you paid at least a LITTLE attention to the United States?

W…’s a strange man — erratic, yet seems to have some sort of core; incredibly speech-challenged but clearly not an idiot (to those who are somewhat objective); tone-deaf to public opinion, that being both good and bad; defiant to terrorists, yet willing to serve Congressional Democrats in an unprincipled spirit of bonhommie. His inability to communicate has and will always damage his legacy

Well put.

Instead of telling people to resume living their nomal lives, as much as we could under the circumstances, he should have asked people to join in on this war on terror and make some sacrifices.

When did Bush NOT do that? I remember him doing it repeatedly. Led by Democrats and other leftists, the people simply chose to ignore it.

I’ll concede partial truth to your point, as follows: Bush should have asked the Congress for budget cuts and fiscal discipline after 9-11. That would have strengthened our nation financially (then and today). Oops. Also, Alan Greenspan decided to start creating masses of new money to try to re-inflate the stock market bubble (and instead inflating a real estate bubble). Bush said: Yeah, sure, why not? Drat him for that.

Bush’s biggest failure has been that he never clearly defined himself, allowing both his enemies and friends to weaken his ability to make his own case. I found myself often wanting to like him, but I’ve always found it difficult to like those for whom I’ve little respect. Some will say that I’m over-thinking it and that standard expectations of politics and philosophy don’t apply to an essentially simple man, but who does that indict?

It is indeed a moment of pride for our nation which once allowed the enslavement — and later sanctioned the discrimination — of individuals of African heritage.

That would be the democrats and yankees.

How little he praises himself? Please. It was the swan song of an arrogant narcissist. Like this line:

The act of an arrogant narcissist is to poke Chris Wallace’s knee and circle the wagons around Sandy Burgler.

It’s a damn shame, eh Erik, that we won’t forget the attacks on our country.

Flaws he has many, but arrogant narcissist he is not. Indeed, that term might be better used to describe his predecessor —- and quite possibly his successor.

Interesting how Bush critics use terms to describe the outgoing president that might better describe the politicians with whom they have become enamored.