Lyssa BeyerMuch like watching “The Hills” or indie music, bashing our dear President George W. Bush has become an “in” activity in recent years. Every night, we get news reports on how poorly things are going in Iraq or how the economy is spiraling downward, the responsibility of which falls to the desk of our 43rd president. Be it on the TV or in bathroom stalls in Hibbard, a person can hardly escape the vast anti-Bush sentiment that has taken root in our nation.
Enough with all the negativity, people. We get it, Bush has made a lot of ill-advised – OK, “soul-crushingly idiotic” might be a more appropriate descriptor – decisions in his nearly eight years in office. But it’s really getting old now. Can’t we find something nice to say about Bush? Being the optimist I am, I know I can. Why, I can think of a solid four things he’s done that I could argue are good, or at least not detrimental. If we can focus on the positive things Bush has given us, maybe we won’t feel so awful about electing him not once but twice, you silly bunch of sods you.
African relief policy
As comedians of the ’90s would always say, black people love Bill Clinton. The same holds true for Bush – unfortunately for him, the blacks who love him don’t live in America. Bush’s visit in February to several African nations was to help bring attention to the President’s emergency plan for AIDS relief, probably the most agreeable policy decision he’s made in his time in office. Met by adoring crowds, he touted his having asked for a doubling of the U.S. commitment on AIDS relief in Africa to $30 billion over the next five years.
Sure, he hasn’t done anything to address the bloody ethnic conflicts ravaging the continent, but that’s glass-half-empty talk. We should be happy he didn’t get involved as he did with the Middle East, he probably would have screwed it up pretty bad just as he did in Iraq and Afghanistan. If he would try to get involved in Kenya or Zimbabwe, those countries would probably sink into the ocean or something awful like that.
He got people back into politics
Remember how low the voter turnout was before he became president? Presidential elections would struggle to break the 50 percent turnout mark while midterm contests were teetering on the edge of 35 percent. After Bush takes office and starts messing things up, turnout gets a nice boost to 55.3 percent in 2004 and 43.6 percent in 2006, which was the highest percentage for a midterm election since 46.6 percent in 1970. Bush also got more young people to pay attention to politics again, although not to the point where they’d actually go out and vote more than before. We’ll certainly talk about what a Nazi Bush is amongst our friends, though.
Bush’s terribleness has made us realize who we vote for does matter, although it’s a tad depressing this is how we had to learn. Next time some young guy with minimal experience comes around asking us to trust him without actually having a plan for change, we’ll know better (The proceeding sentence was paid for by the Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign).
Contributions to the arts
Bush hasn’t personally added anything to our culture, although I’m sure he’s got some great finger paintings he’d like to share. I’m talking about all of the music, movies and stand up routines Bush’s presidency has inspired. He’s given us movies such as “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Team America: World Police” as well as the classic TV show “That’s My Bush!” Artists such as Bright Eyes, Nine Inch Nails and Incubus, the most famous Faith No More cover band in the world, have given us songs and whole albums dedicated to complaining about our president. And do you think Will Ferrell would have been as famous as he’s become if it weren’t for his stellar Bush impression?
Yeah, voting for Al Gore instead of Bush back in 2000 probably would have been better for the country, but do you think Gore would have had the time to film “An Inconvenient Truth” had he been president? Being president is an everyday job, or every day up until your six-week vacation down on your ranch in Texas, so we would have missed out on that.
Re-establishing fear of America
Throughout his presidency, Bill Clinton said he was hoping to build a “bridge to the 21st Century.” I like to think after Clinton built that bridge, Bush quickly fortified it with landmines. By blindly attacking Iraq with the support of virtually no other country in the world, Bush showed the world that the United States can still throw down, whether it’s warranted or not. Countries are going to keep better tabs on each other from now on. As we showed with Iraq, we are capable of striking nations who have nothing to do with attacks against us. If Albanian terrorists blow up a building on U.S. soil, Romania best better watch its step.
Is fear really the best emotion we should be instilling in members of the global community? Probably not, but it’s better than being a doormat as we were when Jimmy Carter was president. Though he terribly botched his attempts at strong arming relations with other countries, Bush’s actions had at least some merit in the realist school of political thought. Though, a lot of people don’t pertain to that line of thinking, so I don’t know how great of an accomplishment that really is.
His remorse
In one last semi-legitimate effort in his defense, I truly believe Bush regrets a lot of what he’s done. His tears at memorial services for fallen soldiers seem genuine and I think he is burdened with all the deaths the Iraq War has caused.
He is a person who was just in over his head with the presidency and all the events that happened during it – he’s not an evil man, just an incompetent one. Yes, we can mock him, as his ability to run a country is laughable, but calling him “evil” shows a lack of understanding of the pressures of the presidency. He isn’t totally to blame for his failures; after all, we’re the ones who voted for him.
Langton is a senior print journalism major and editorial editor of The Spectator. “What a Scoop!” appears every Thursday.
