George W. Bush could be the
most controversial, polarizing
president ever to occupy the
Oval Office, an assessment that is
shared in the Bucks Social
Sciences Department.
The most recent Gallup poll
placed the president’s approval
rating at an all-time low of 27
percent. He shares this honor
with only two other presidents:
Richard Nixon and Harry S.
Truman.
During his presidency,
America has launched invasions
into Afghanistan and Iraq resulting
in a multi-trillion-dollar debt,
a crumbling economy and
extreme partisanship by both
sides. With only four months left
in his term of office, and the
main focus on who his successor
will be, the question now
becomes: What will be the lasting
impact of the Bush presidency?
The Bush administration’s foreign
policy and handling of terrorism
has been a main focus, if
not the focus, of the public during
the past two terms. The war
in Iraq has since been defined as
part of the “Bush doctrine,”
which reserves the right to start
a war if it is in the national interest.
The current difficulties facing
U.S. forces in Iraq stem from how
the war was initially implemented.
Tom Mazurek, a Bucks history
professor, said that until Iraq,
all U.S. military actions in the
past three decades have followed
the “Powell doctrine.” This strategy,
created by Colin Powell in
the 1980s in response to the handling
of the Vietnam War, specified
for a clearly defined war
strategy and exit plan.
The cost of the war has forced
the U.S. to borrow money from
other countries. So far, the war
has cost the United States $1.3
trillion.
But not all of Bush’s policies
regarding terrorism have been
unsuccessful.
Since Sept.11, the U.S. has not
suffered another terrorist attack
on its soil, which some attribute
to the creation of the Department
of Homeland Security.
Relations with other countries
have been strained over the last
eight years. After the Sept. 11
attacks in New York,
Washington and Pennsylvania,
there was an outpouring of grief
and sympathy from countries
around the world. One of these
countries was Iran, which publicly
mourned the 9/11 attacks,
according to Bucks Professor Mitch Bunkin.
In addition, Iran and Syria
offered to sit down with the Bush
administration and talk about
any issues that the U.S. had concerns
with. The Bush administration
declined.
In recent weeks, the economy
has taken the war’s place as the
dominant focus of media and
public attention. Congress
passed a $700-billion bailout of
Wall Street in response to the collapse
of holding companies
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
insurance company AIG and
financial firm Lehman Brothers.
These were in turn the result of
the recent housing boom, where
people would take out sub-prime
mortgages on houses that they
couldn’t afford.
Unable to make the payments,
the banks would foreclose and
take the house while the loans
couldn’t be collected. This
caused these companies to lose
billions of dollars.
These collapses triggered the
largest, single day point drop in
the New York Stock Exchange,
exceeding the Crash of 1929,
which was a contributing factor
to the Great Depression.
The argument could be made
that Bush could have done more
to prevent the economic decline
throughout his administration.
Being a conservative, Bush follows
the tradition of small government,
with little government
regulation of business.
However, the blame for the faltering
economy cannot be completely
put on Bush. “You can’t
pin the economy on one person,”
Bunkin said.
Albert Rieger Jr., economics
professor, said that up until
recently, the economy had been
growing stronger. He said that
our economy has had recessions
before, the most recent around
2001.
The argument can be made
that during seven years of the
Bush administration, the gross
national product
(GNP) and
unemployment
indexes were
very positive.
The point can
also be made
that the economic
decline
didn’t occur
until 2006,
when the
Democrats took
control of both
houses of the
Congress.
Before that,
the inflation
and stock
indexes were on
the positive side.
The Bush years have seen some
of the most intense partisanship
in recent memory.
However, Bush has not always
been such a divisive politician.
“He was voted for as a moderate.
Instead, he became rigidly
conservative,
even more so
than his
father. There
was no willingness
to
work with
moderates and
Democrats,”
said Tony
Wolf, professor
of sociology.
This partisanship
is seen
in some of the
appointments
that he has
made, most
notably to the
Supreme Court.
Some of the responsibility for
Bush’s more aggressive and partisan
approach belongs to Vice
President Dick Cheney.
Bunkin said that Cheney
pushed Bush to be tougher, and
to go for his goals regardless of
the partisan differences, where
Wolf described him as being surrounded
by rigid ideologues that
helped shape his policies very
conservatively.
“It’s going to take a while to
recover from what’s happened in
the last eight years,” said Martin
Sutton, social and behavioral science
professor. “There’s no easy
solution for anyone.”
However, this negative view of
Bush may not last as the years
and decades go on.
“Never judge a sitting president.
You should judge them
later after the effects become
apparent,” said Dirk Dunlap, history
professor.
Contemporary judgments can
be unreliable due to the emotional
nature of whoever is giving
the assessment. As time passes,
the opinions of a president can
change.