Liberalguy

Worst President Ever? By Monica Crowley (bio)

While hosting “The Laura Ingraham Show” and my own radio show over the past few days, I have listed a few of President Bush’s jawdropping achievements. Because of popular demand, I list them again here. We have been beaten over the head by the liberal mainstream press and the lefties in government that President Bush is “the worst president, maybe ever.” For years, we’ve heard that he’s an imbecile, a moron, ineffective, an incompetent boob who has ravaged the Constitution. And yet, how is it that this complete idiot can continue to rack up victory after victory, both over America’s enemies and his opponents here at home? Just in the past week, President Bush secured funding for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of his presidency (actually June 2009. You’re welcome, Senator Obama.) He got that funding without preconditions attached and without a deadline for troop withdrawal. You’ll recall that the Democrats’ campaign platform in 2006 (and over the past two years) had been pulling funding for Iraq, setting limits on the president’s ability to act, and effecting a timeline for withdrawal. They didn’t get any of those things. Also last week, President Bush got Congressional approval of his reform of FISA, which allows the program to wiretap terrorist suspects calling into the United States to proceed unabated. It also granted immunity to the telecom companies that were participating in this program TO PROTECT OUR LIVES. The Democrats had opposed the program since the New York Times splashed this state secret all over the front page. Last week, the President won the warrantless wiretapping approval and the telecom immunity. So let’s recap: The president gets Iraq war funding and no withdrawal deadline, beating the Democrats. He gets the wiretap program and the telecom immunity, beating the Democrats. He’s winning in Iraq, beating both the Democrats AND al-Qaeda (a two-fer!). He’s changing Afghanistan, another two-fer. He got two waves of tax cuts through, beating the Democrats. And he’s prevented another terrorist attack on American soil since September 11, 2001. He hasn’t been perfect: he’s failed on illegal immigration and energy independence, and now we’re in crises on both scores, and federal spending has been wild. But show me a perfect president, and I’ll show you a perfect person. They don’t exist. On balance, he’s got a pretty stunning record. Moron? Idiot? Boob? Incompetent? Looks pretty successful to me. And clever: nobody has parlayed that Reaganesque “cowboy simpleton” routine better than Bush. Like Reagan, Bush has accomplished some staggering things, while everyone was writing him off and no one was looking.