President Bush's Legacy: One of Our Greatest Presidents

As I recently predicted, in few months, with the benefit of hindsight, historians will look back on the Bush presidency as an unalloyed success and consider President Bush to be one of our greatest presidents. Although the White House has sent around its own talking points highlighting the President's accomplishments, I don't think they go far enough. So I have put together my own list of talking points, which should convince anyone why George W. Bush belongs on Mount Rushmore, along with Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and the other guy.

After Hurricane Katrina President Bush kept our cities safe.

In the three years and a half years since Hurricane Katrina not a single American city has been destroyed or partially destroyed. There are more than 10,000 cities in the United States and because of George Bush every single one of them, except for New Orleans, is still largely intact. Of course, no one could have predicted Hurricane Katrina, and if President Clinton had not left us so woefully unprepared, New Orleans would probably be in a lot better shape than it is now. But since Katrina, there have been numerous hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards, fires and earthquakes and none of them has gotten out of hand and wiped out an entire city because of the disaster preparedness policies President Bush put in place. For national security reasons we may not know until records are declassified how many other potential disasters, like epidemics or nuclear power plant meltdowns or alien invasions, were averted because of the work that government agencies did behind the scenes. Unfortunately, Presidents don't usually get credit for all the disasters that don't happen. But I think we should congratulate the President for doing a heckuva job on keeping America safe in the years since Katrina.

After the October 2008 stock market correction there have been no Great Depressions.

Although the excesses of the Clinton administration's failed economic policies finally caught up with us in October 2008, in the seven years before this economic downturn the economy was doing really well. Not every President can boast of seven years of prosperity. What's more, even since October there have been no Great Depressions, which means President Bush has given us eight completely depressionless years. Although some credit Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's swift and bold moves after the market tanked for staving off a depression, I think most economists will come to agree that it was Bush's 2001 tax cuts that really kept the economy afloat. Bush's prescient tax cuts lifted up the economy to such a level that any economic downfall just brought us back to where we were before instead plunging us into depression. Meanwhile, because of easy credit during the Bush years, more people had the opportunity to buy the homes of their dreams and live in them for a few years before they had to give them back. If Obama's economic policies do plunge us into a Great Depression, Americans will look back on the relative economic prosperity of the Bush years wistfully and have only themselves to blame.

After Iraq and Afghanistan took a turn for the worse, President Bush kept us from losing any wars.

Although some presidents can claim that they did not lose a war during their administrations, not many presidents can claim that they did not lose two wars. President Bush is leaving office with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still going strong and not lost. In 2007 Iraq almost broke out into civil war because we did not have enough troops in there. Another President might have decided that the War in Iraq was lost and pulled American troops out of there. Not President Bush. By instituting the surge he prevented Iraq from breaking out into civil war and scoring a loss for the U.S. for the first time in our history. What is even more remarkable was that he was able to stave off defeat in Iraq and at the same time keep just enough troops in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from completely retaking the entire country. Quibblers might say that he didn't actually win either conflict outright or that Afghanistan would be in better shape if we had kept more troops there and not invaded Iraq or offer all sorts of other coulda shoulda woulda arguments but the fact is that we didn't lose any wars and Bush deserves credit for that.

After the District Attorney firing scandal, the outing of Valerie Plame and other scandals, President Bush restored integrity to government.

After a few overzealous Justice Department officials trying to restore balance to our justice system, which had been tainted by the partisanship of the Clinton years, went a little overboard in trying to clean house, President Bush immediately took action and patiently convinced those who were responsible to resign eventually. Since that time no district attorneys have been fired for political reasons. In 2003 when CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity was compromised, President Bush vowed to get to the bottom of it and eventually Scooter Libby was prosecuted and threatened with jail time until President Bush mercifully decided he had suffered enough and commuted his sentence. Everyone else who was involved was either persuaded to resign or given a very severe talking to. Because of President Bush's bold stand against compromising the identities of members of our intelligence community, for the last five years not a single undercover CIA agent has been outted. There were a number of other scandals, too numerous to mention here, that President Bush took strong and immediate measures to clean up, such as the level of care veterans were receiving at Walter Reed Hospital. As soon as President Bush found out about it, he fixed it and now veterans receive better care there than they have in years. But perhaps President Bush's most remarkable achievement when it comes to restoring honor and dignity to his office is something he didn't do. Many Americans were understandably disillusioned with government after President Clinton violated the sacred trust that had existed for more than 200 years between presidents and their interns. But in the entire eight years President Bush has been in office he did not have sex with a single intern that we know about, which is an extraordinary accomplishment considering how young and pretty and undoubtedly tempting some of those interns are. It is a testament to President Bush's discipline and character that he did not succumb to temptation and history will certainly remember him for that.

After divisive elections President Bush united our country.

When President Bush took office we were a nation starkly divided between blue states and red states, Vice President Al Gore's attempt to steal the election had left many Democrats bitter and unable to get over it and Washington was a city riven by the political partisanship fostered by Clinton's divisive leadership. But by the end of Bush's first year in office this country was united as it never had been before and the President had a 90% approval rating. Although Democrats continued to try to divide this country and exploit every issue for partisan gain, President Bush continued to rise above the fray and worked with Democrats like Sen. Ted Kennedy to pass No Child Left Behind and probably some other bills, too, though I can't think of any off the top of my head. He encouraged Democrats to join him in fighting terrorism although some continued to resist and preferred instead to coddle the terrorists. And yet President Bush was able to persuade the American people to elect him to office again over an elitist, French, latte-swilling, wind-surfing, traitorous, terrorist coddling, Iraq War-losing, Genghis Khan-mispronouncing, lesbian-outting, gay marriage-loving, Anti-American liberal. And when Democrats took over both houses of Congress in 2006, he even won them over to his side with his gentle powers of persuasion. In the end Democrats didn't have the heart to really oppose Bush on anything significant at all, going along with him on such issues as whether to end the war in Iraq and whether to allow the NSA to wiretap our phones. It was hard, apparently, for the Democratic leadership to resist President Bush's charms. And so Obama will take office with the country a lot less divided than it was when Bush came in and divisions between red and blue states much less stark than they once were. President Bush promised that he would be a uniter instead of a divider and if you look at the polls, which show Americans more united than they have been in many years, it is clear that President Bush kept his promise.

After Abu Ghraib, President Bush reaffirmed America's adherence to the Geneva Conventions and against torture.

After Abu Ghraib, some America haters used the photographs that soldiers stupidly took of harsh interrogations of prisoners as evidence in their propaganda that the Bush Administration did not care about upholding the Geneva Conventions. But President Bush took decisive action to prosecute the bad apples, mostly soldiers and low-level commanders, who were solely responsible for what went on there to show the world that we take the Geneva Conventions very seriously even though it is just a treaty and not technically binding especially when we are trying to fight an enemy that does not follow its rules. In the wake of 9/11 some presidents might have been tempted to ignore the Geneva Conventions completely and do whatever was necessary to protect us, but President Bush knew that we couldn't totally abandon all of our ideals in the War on Terror and so he followed the Geneva Conventions to the letter, applying its rules to every soldier who was not an enemy combatant outside the treaty's jurisdiction. And he strongly reaffirmed this nation's stance against torture, preferring instead to waterboard suspected terrorists instead of torturing them, and sending particularly difficult cases to countries where they unfortunately don't have our strong ideals. And even at Guantanamo, which technically is outside the jurisdiction of our laws, President Bush made sure that every prisoner was given due process even if it is understandably taking a while to decide what process they are due. During his entire term of office President Bush never wavered once in maintaining publicly that America does not torture. In fact, I think President Bush may have said, "We do not torture" more than any President in American history.

After 9/11 President Bush kept America safe from terrorist attacks on American soil.

Surely, President Bush's greatest accomplishment, and the one achievement he will most be remembered for in history, was that he kept America safe from terrorist attacks after 9/11. Seven years without a single terrorist attack on American soil is certainly a remarkable accomplishment. The fact that the Clinton Administration's foreign policy blunders left America vulnerable to the worst terrorist act in our nation's history will always be a black mark against President Clinton in the history books, while President Bush's quick and decisive action to correct those mistakes after 9/11 is what he will always be remembered for. And we will probably not know for many years until records are declassified how many shoe bombers and wannabe jihadists were stopped in their tracks. Unfortunately, seven years was just not enough time to capture those responsible for the attacks, but he certainly has Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda on the run. I'm sure Obama will try to take credit if he does capture Bin Laden, but no one can take away from President Bush the credit he is due for keeping America completely safe from terrorist attacks for seven years, eight if you don't count 9/11, which wasn't really his fault. Based on that accomplishment alone, can anyone doubt that George W. Bush was one of our greatest presidents?

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Let's Show Ahmadinejad What America Stands For

The visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York has stirred up a lot of controversy and emotions. It has forced Americans answer some hard questions about what kind of country we are and what message we want to send to the rest of the world.

Ahmadinejad's plans to visit Ground Zero and lay a wreath there evoked outrage from many. "Assisting Ahmadinejad in touring Ground Zero -- hallowed ground for all Americans -- is outrageous," said former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. If anyone should know how sacred Ground Zero is to Americans, it would be Giuliani, who was there just as much as, if not more than, the rescue workers were, taking such dignitaries and celebrities as Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, Donald Rumsfeld and many others on guided tours of this consecrated burial ground. Of course, it is unconscionable for a politician to use Ground Zero for a photo op or to try to score political points on the tragedy of September 11 and I am glad the New York Police Department listened to Giuliani and denied Ahmadinejad permission to go there. What kind of a message would it send the world if we let someone like that use Ground Zero for a publicity stunt? Even though most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and Iran has not been conclusively linked to the 9/11 attacks, I am sure that there are people working on making a connection and one will be revealed before we declare war on Iran.

Then Columbia University sparked new outrage by inviting Ahmadinejad to speak there, defying President Bush's stated policy of not having any dialogue at all with our enemies. Although Columbia President Lee Bollinger said that he would "introduce the event with a series of sharp challenges" about Ahmadinejad's views on the Holocaust, Israel and terrorism, many people believe that a university, which is full of impressionable young minds, is not the place for this sort of discussion. Michelle Malkin pointed out the hypocrisy of Bollinger's refusal to punish students who stopped a member of the Minutemen from speaking by rushing the stage and allowing Ahmadinejad to speak. How could the university let one group stop someone from speaking and not let another group stop someone from speaking? That kind of double standard makes a mockery of the First Amendment.

In what might be the most rapid fulfillment of Godwin's Law on record, some compared Ahmadinejad to Hitler. "Why are they inviting the Persian Hitler to Columbia?" said Columbia alumnus and conservative writer David Horowitz. "Would Columbia have invited Hitler to speak?" asked others.

Although I believe this was probably intended as a rhetorical question, Columbia Dean John Coatsworth decided that he would try to tamp down some of the heightened emotion surrounding this debate by going ahead and answering the question on Fox News: "If Hitler were in the United States and he wanted a platform from which to speak he would have plenty of platforms to speak from in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."

But Coatsworth's attempt to inject some thought and rationality into the debate over whether Columbia should let Hitler speak (for the second time--well, almost) just raised more important questions: If you were a doctor and Hitler had a life threatening illness, would you treat him? If Hitler knocked at your door and he was bleeding and he said he had been in an automobile accident, would you invite him in to use your telephone? If you were a Catholic priest and Hitler told you in confession that he had killed six million people, would you keep your vow of silence or report him to the authorities? And finally, a question that I think would stump a lot of conservatives, if Hitler's mother wanted to abort him, would you drive her to a Planned Parenthood clinic or counsel her to keep the baby?

Although Ahmadinejad's visit has forced us to confront a lot of difficult questions, it has also given us a chance to show the rest of the world what kind of a country we are. If some people in the world have gotten the mistaken impression that America can be pushed around, I think our response to Ahmadinejad's threat to visit Ground Zero shows that we are not as weak as they may think. And though Columbia continues to defy the government by giving Ahmadinejad a forum (we'll see how they feel when they lose federal funding and alumni donations), the protests that will greet him and the number of people who called for Columbia to deny him an opportunity to speak shows that though we value the First Amendment in theory, it is not a suicide pact. Maybe they just let anyone speak at universities in Iran but that's not the American way. In America if our enemies want to spout their propaganda, first they have to get through a phalanx of very loud protesters who will try to shout them down.

People in the Middle East respect strength not weakness. By insulting Ahmadinejad and rebuffing his attempts at dialogue, we gain his respect. If we want to have peace in the Middle East, humiliating their leaders and refusing to talk to them is a good first step.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran, Giuliani, Columbia University, Michelle Malkin, Politics

Conservapedia

For years homeschooled children have had to rely for all of their information on Wikipedia, which is full of dangerous ideas that homeschooling was supposed to prevent from seeping into the home. Now, finally, there is an alternative, which doesn't have any controversial ideas at all: Conservapedia. Conservapedia is based on good Christian values, unlike Wikipedia, which I gather from the name, is based on Wiccan. In Wikipedia, according to the founders of Conservapedia, "Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance." But Conservapedia gives Christianity its due for being so supportive of the work of Galileo and Copernicus.

"The administrators who monitor and control the content on Wikipedia do not represent the views of the majority of Americans." reads Conservapedia's entry on Wikipedia (helpfully redirected from Wackypedia in case you mistype). "For example, only 10% of Americans accept evolution as it is taught in public school, yet virtually 100% of Wikipedia administrators accept it and will quickly censor factual material contrary to evolution." The biases in Wikipedia that Conservapedia corrects are all outlined in an article called "Examples of Bias in Wickipedia."

"Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia is Christian-friendly and exposes the CE deception" is the Number 1 Example of Wikipedia bias. Example 5 points out "Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English speaking users are American." On Conservapedia less acceptable English spellings of English words are banned in favor of proper American spellings. "Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia," reads Example 8. "Many entries read like the National Enquirer. For example, Wikipedia's entry on Nina Totenberg states, 'She married H. David Reines, a trauma physician, in 2000. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming.' That sounds just like the National Enquirer, and reflects a bias towards gossip. Conservapedia avoids gossip and vulgarity, just as a true encyclopedia does." In fact, one of the reasons I stopped reading the National Enquirer is because I was tired of all the stories about Nina Totenberg's affairs and her latest stints in rehab. Conservapedia doesn't even have an entry on Nina Totenberg, much to my relief.

Another example of Wikipedia bias that Conservapedia cites is its unfair attack on the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which must be particularly upsetting to Conservapedia's founder. Started in November 2006 "as the class project for a World History class of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students meeting in New Jersey" Conservapedia was founded by its most prolific writer Andrew Schlafly, the non-gay son of Phyllis Schlafly, who just happens to be the legal counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Schlafly is an outspoken critic of vaccines (which as someone who hates needles I fully support), has warned that abortion causes breast cancer, filed briefs on behalf of Terry Schiavo and revealed that junk science claiming a link between asbestos and cancer is what led to the World Trade Center's collapse.

I am astonished by all of the things I have learned already from Conservapedia. For example, I was unaware of something called the Law of Mass Conversation: "Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form." Now that I think about it, I have observed that often when you're in a conversation with a large group of people you sometimes think you have let a matter drop, but you end up rehashing the same topic over again in a different form. This happens a lot on the Internet, too. But I had no idea someone had written a law about it.

But that's just one of the many fascinating, unbiased facts I learned. After spending the day hitting the random search button I felt like a Renaissance man, the good Christian kind. Of course, since anyone can edit the Conservapedia, the entries are constantly changing, so the links go to the last version I saw. Feel free to register and add your own insights, although it would be difficult to improve on some of these entries:

Kangaroo: "Like all modern animals, modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood." (I'm sure skippy will be very interested to learn this.)

Theory of Relativity: "Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."

Gospels: "The greatest writing in the history of the world is the Gospel of John....This single book has done more to shape human thought and behavior than any other work. Our uniquely American First Amendment right of free speech is based on ministers preaching of the 'Word' of God as described in the first few verses of the Gospel of John."

George Washington: "Washington is perhaps the person other than Jesus who declined enormous worldly power, in Washington's case by voluntarily stepping aside as the ruler of a prosperous nation."

Scopes Trial: "Hollywood has little regard for the truth. Its movie version Inherit the Wind changed everyone's name, thereby preventing libel suits, and changed the facts in order to ridicule religious belief. Thanks to Bryan's victory in the Scopes trial, Tennessee voters have been educated without oppressive evolution theory for 75 years. Free from the liberal indoctrination, Tennessee voted against native son Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election - probably the only time a candidate has lost the Presidency due to losing his home state. If Tennessee had a high level of belief in evolution comparable to that of East Germany, then you can bet Gore would have won his state and the Presidency."

The Da Vinci Code: "Dan Brown is responsible for feeding millions of readers a pack of lies cleverly wrapped up as a historically accurate novel."

Holocaust: "The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them."

Communism: "Communists believe that if they share everything, no one will ever have to work."

Most of the articles in Conservapedia are scrupulously sourced. For example, the entry on Isaac Newton -- "Sir Isaac Newton was one of the inventors of calculus and the propsed [sic-whoops!] the theory of gravity (It should be noted that gravity, like evolution, is just a theory and has never been proven to be true). He was a Devout Christian whose discoveries were inspired by God." -- refers you to the Bible Code Digest, which proves that Newton was a devout Christian. Virtually all of the science entries cite books by Dr. Jay L. Wile, the respected author of homeschool textbooks.

Unlike Wikipedia, which is full of too much information that can easily confuse people, most of the entries in Conservapedia are refreshingly brief, giving us just the facts we need to know: "Sufi: Sulfism [sic]; the tradition of Islam containing the beliefs dedicated to Allah." Concise, accurate, to the point. Who said encyclopedic necessarily means "comprehensive," I mean, besides Webster's dictionary, with its well-known liberal bias.

But Conservapedia is not just a dry, factual compendium of articles. In addition to scholarly encyclopedia entries, the Conservapedia contains "Debate Topics" which pose a number of provocative questions: "Crusades... Good or Bad?" "Did Jefferson Copy the Declaration of Independence?" "Is it even possible to install democracy in a Muslim country?" and "Was it wrong for him to allow the attack in order to wake up the American public and motivate Americans to fight and win the war?" which refers to Franklin Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. This last topic has led to quite a debate between some frequent contributors and Andrew Schlafly, who not only believes that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor in advance, buts thinks it was a good thing he let it happen.

Unfortunately, Conservapedia doesn't have an entry yet for Franklin Roosevelt or for other minor Presidents like John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman or Theodore Roosevelt, although it does have very illuminating yet succinct entries for Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and William Henry Harrison. But the encyclopedia is still growing and with your help its 3000 or so articles based on incontrovertible conservative facts will soon approach Wikipedia's 1.5 million entries filled with liberal lies. However, there is one disturbing lack that both encyclopedias share: Neither of them has an entry about this modest blog.

Crossposted at Shakespeare's Sister

Update: Someone has finally corrected one of Conservapedia's most egregious inadequacies and added an entry for this modest blog: "Jon Swift is 'a reasonable conservative who likes to write about politics and culture.' He maintains a modest log on the internet ('weblog,' or 'blog') that is entirely factual, rational, and most importantly, conservative. Jon Swift is not funny and has no monkeys in his family tree." Here is a screenshot (click on it for a closer look):


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