Arnold Kling writes about the George Bush presidency. He's not a fan of Bush.
I have never felt comfortable with George Bush. I voted for Al Gore--although I never felt comfortable with him, either. I felt even less comfortable with John Kerry, so that I voted for Bush in 2004.
Neoconservatism is not my ideology. As I pointed out four years ago, the economic ideology of neoconservatism is willing to accept a large and ever-growing government, whereas I am not. Neoconservatives are comfortable turning religious values into hot-button political causes, while I prefer to keep my conservative moral values in the background. Finally, neoconservatives are somewhat more grandiose and moralistic than I am on foreign policy.
Nevertheless, Bush has one point in his favor.
I think that President Bush has got one thing very much right, which is that Arab-Islamic terrorism is a symptom that something is rotten in the Middle East. If anything, his failures in Iraq and Palestine are due to underestimating the degree of rot. For all the allegations of his lack of intellect, George Bush is a brainiac compared to people who want to see terrorism as a symptom of something rotten in the United States or Israel.
He then addresses five points he considers "myths" about the Bush presidency:
- Myth 1: Bush lost in 2000
- Myth 2: Bush economic policies were disastrous
- Myth 3: Bush was too right-wing
- Myth 4: Bush was too partisan
- Myth 5: Iraq reflects Bush's personality
Read the whole thing.
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