President George W. Bush stated in his last address to the nation that only history will be able to judge his legacy, and that history will believe he made decisions to protect the country. Well, it is important to let the wave of time erode the biases inherent in our own time and evaluate the changes made in the last eight years that have greatly shaped our country. By reviewing the last eight years, it is clear that the legacy of Bush's presidency is a broken party which in turn, led to a broken country. Our country started this new millennium as the only superpower in the world, with a budget surplus and a hope for a bright future. At the end of eight years of Bush, the United States is left with a 7.2 percent unemployment rate, a tarnished foreign reputation, two costly wars and is in a state of horrendous economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression.
Bush's legacy will always be marked by one of the defining moments in our nation's history-the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. His response to this attack was a call for a global war on terror and unilateral action to spread the principles of democracy throughout the world. In the aftermath of the attacks, Bush chose to manage a crisis rather than lead a country. Instead of asking the country to rise to this new challenge of terrorism, our president simply asked us to shop. Instead of showing the foresight and level-headed leadership necessary in our leaders during times of crisis, Bush allowed his White House to be dominated by right-wing ideology. This shift to the far right inevitably led Bush to see the world in an over-simplistic way; he saw the world in black and white, those with us and those against us-good vs. evil. This is the light in which Bush's foreign policy will be judged. An over-simplistic worldview under Bush saw the United States abandon the United Nations, it saw the world reject America's leadership for the first time and it saw American troops bogged down in Iraq.
After his policies are overturned and his wars are over, Bush will be remembered for decades to come through the court system. Bush was able to appoint two justices to the Supreme Court, including a new chief justice. The court he chose is sharply divided on many critical issues and has continually deferred to executive power. The division throughout the court will remain for years to come, with the potential for new members replacing the traditionally left-leaning justices. Perhaps even more important is the legacy of appointing a third of the federal court justices throughout the country. While the Supreme Court's rulings are imbibed as the supreme law of the land, they are only able to hear a small amount of all cases that have the appropriate legal standing. By imprinting his legal legacy upon the federal courts, Bush's impact upon the legal system is still to be felt.
While the policies of the Bush administration can seem superficial to many, the impact upon our nation's economy affects everyone. Bush assumed the office of president with one of the largest budget surpluses in American history; after eight years of failed policies that included tax cuts for the top 1 percent, deregulation of the financial market and increased deficit spending, the next president inherits an economy in crisis. The failed policies of the Bush administration have led to a steady increase in the unemployment rate-2.7 million jobs since 2007-and a lock up in bank lending which led to a substantial increase in the foreclosure rate. The Bush administration's persistent pursuit of total deregulation of the financial market forced the once fiscally conservative Republican Party to support one of the largest government bailouts in American history. After supporting a bailout of the financial market, he then balked at the chance to save America's manufacturing base at the expense of the American worker.
It is true that the legacy of Bush will be written by historians, but most Americans living during his administration will agree that it was a time of division and want. This was a time when the country stepped back from the prosperity of former President Bill Clinton and stepped into the unemployment line, onto the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan and onto their roofs in escape of rising flood waters. This was not a time when the president went untested, but Bush simply failed to properly address the challenges he faced. Perhaps, the greatest legacy of President Barack Obama will be erasing the legacy of President Bush.
Aaron Turner Co-President Miami University College Democrats Turnerav@muohio.edu
