The eight years of the Bush Administration are over. Polls indicate that more than half of the US is celebrating the end of a Presidential term characterized by September 11^th, the War on Terror, Iraq, Afghanistan, and an economy that teeters on the edge of collapse. And as Bush left office, with an approval rating flat-lined in the 20s, a question looms: What will be the legacy left by the 43^rd President?

While some people assert that Bush was “the worst President in History”, others claim that only time will tell if the former Texas Governor was more deserving of praise than criticism. The far Left will contend that absolutely nothing positive came from the last eight years, which any moderate would know is completely absurd. The Right argues that Bush did what was necessary to move the country through a very dynamic series of unforeseen challenges.

In November of 2000, when the Bush/Gore Presidential election became a long extended Florida recount, the Left was already screaming that Bush had “stolen” the election. The far left refused to accept the result, even after recounts and re-recounts and even after Al Gore’s concession speech claimed “[the race] has ended, resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy.”

Gore also quoted Stephen Douglas, who lost the election to Lincoln, and said "Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I'm with you, Mr. President, and God bless you."

Unfortunately, many liberals never yielded to the patriotism that Al Gore showed. They still claim that the 2000 election was a sham. This was the beginning of the unfounded far left hatred of George Bush, and he never deserved it.

As Globalization occurs, it is easy to make the case that no President has ever had to juggle as many complex issues like terrorism, education, healthcare, and economic collapse. And although the President did have eight years of Executive Power, none of these problems were caused by George Bush. He was simply the figurehead of a democratic system that, twice, elected him to office.

The fact of the matter is that to run for the office of United States President is to subject oneself to stand, front and center, and face the media, international opinion, enemies, allies, all of History, and, perhaps the most fickle of all critics, the American People.

Frequently referenced is Bush’s low approval rating, but rarely mentioned is that he had the highest approval rating ever recorded by Gallup in the weeks after September 11^th. At one point, the world had gathered around Bush and praised his leadership.

The Constitution says that the President is Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces and the militias (National Guards) of the States. He has the ability to grant reprieves or pardons. He can only make treaties with the consent of the Senate. The President can appoint ambassadors and officers, yet most of those people must be approved by the Senate. He must give a State of the Union “from time to time” and “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”.

Last, he is subject to impeachment for the conviction of crimes, which many liberals called for, though none could cite a single impeachable offense that President Bush committed.

The majority of the criticism of the Bush Administration revolves around Iraq, and the attempts to seize Iraq’s non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction. Intelligence Agencies, including the CIA and MI6, at the time agreed that Iraq did have WMDs.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin stated on September 19, 2002, "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."

The US found no WMDs in Iraq, which were the main reason to go there in the first place. Thousands of American Soldiers have been lost and many, many more Iraqis. American forces ousted Saddam, and in an event that most present day journalists ignore, the Iraqi People held their leader to a trial by jury, found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Not seen since the likes of the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette, a leader was held to account by his people. It was a truly remarkable event and proof to the World that justice was finally coming to Iraq.

Is there anything that could possibly make the War in Iraq have been worthwhile? The administration did say that making Iraq the front lines would keep us safer at home. There’s no real way to argue against that point, seeing as how we haven’t been hit since 9/11. Over 1200 primary and intermediate schools have been built or rehabilitated in Iraq since 2003. A higher percentage of Iraqis voted in the elections than Americans.

Regimes around the world now know that the US is willing to go to war if they are acquiring WMDs. Though Iraq had none, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Kim Jong Il of North Korea undoubtedly pondered the American threat. National security estimates have claimed that Iran postponed their program to produce nuclear weapons. There is reason to believe that economic sanctions on Iran and North Korea were implemented by numerous countries around the world both to prevent them from acquiring WMDs, and to prevent the US from mounting another full-scale invasion.

After the US ousted Saddam, Libya’s leader, Muammar Qadaffi admitted to having WMDs and a nuclear weapons program. He quickly and voluntarily acted to abandon these programs and follow international law.

Critics on the left and in the mainstream media also claim that Bush had a “go it alone strategy”. Senator John Kerry echoed this claim in the 2004 Presidential debates by saying, “[Bush] said, ‘we'll go do this alone’.”

The USA Today reported the countries that sent troops to Iraq were Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Georgia, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia, and Macedonia.

Only someone that pays no attention or deliberately tries to fool people would ever make the asinine claim that Bush “went it alone”.

Barack Obama said during his campaign that he would bring our troops home from Iraq in his first year in office. Yet while still the President-elect, his position seemed to change, literally, the day after he began to receive intelligence reports concerning Iraq. Over eight months into his term, Obama has done nothing differently than Bush did with Iraq, yet has escalated the war in Afghanistan.

After 9/11, Bush passed the USA PATRIOT Act, which stood for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The Act gave the law enforcement agencies of the United States the ability to track phone calls, emails, medical records, and bank account transactions of people suspected of having ties to Terrorism. Even though the Bill passed the Congress with majorities of both Republicans and Democrats, and even though it has helped keep America safe from Terrorism since September of 2001, some of the provisions within the Bill were later struck down by Federal Courts.

John Ashcroft, the former Attorney General, noted shortly after 9/11, “To those who scare peace loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends.”

Some of Bush’s haters have become so delusional that they actually believe that “9/11 was an inside job.” Even when President Clinton came to the defense of Bush saying, “How dare you,” the voices of 9/11 “truthers” were still gaining momentum, as they replaced reason with groundless conspiracy theories.

Most of the criticism of George W Bush came from average citizens who called him names like “war-monger”, “war-criminal”, “terrorist”, and even “Nazi”. Rarely did these people give evidence as to why they were calling him names. They tended to follow the lead of the liberal mainstream media, who assassinated Bush’s character every chance they got.

The biggest reason that public perception of George W Bush is so bad is that the media, as 12 surveys and countless studies have shown, is liberally biased. To any reasonable person, the debate is over. Journalists repeatedly admit that they are more liberal than conservative at a rate of over 3 to 1.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs conducted research and discovered that only two periods in the entire eight years of Bush’s Presidency did the media give favorable coverage- in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and during the early stages of the Iraq War. To compare with 2008, 75% of coverage of Democratic candidates was favorable, while over 60% of Bush’s was unfavorable.

Bush had numerous accomplishments during his time in office:

 

Last, others in the far left assert that the economic collapse was singlehandedly caused by George Bush. It is important to note that it wasn’t until nearly two years after the Democrats took control of the Congress that the economy collapsed. In 2006, unemployment was low. The Dow Jones index was over 12,000. The housing market was fine, and the Banking System had very few issues.

As a whole, President George W Bush saw the US through the darkest years in over half a century. His leadership in the months after 9/11 will forever be discussed about in history books, and every American should be thankful and remember George W Bush for that.  As Karl Rove remarked in 2008, "I'm absolutely positive history will be kind to this president, who made the right decisions in a difficult time for this nation."

Only time will tell.