Damage Bush Has Done

The Bush Administration has done grave damage to the United States and its reputation during its eight years in office.  During the past eight years, the United States has:

• Entered a preemptive war in Iraq, entering the war with incompetents in the Department of Defense (and other Departments) who sent the country to war without fully planning for the war or its aftermath.  I recommend reading Fiasco for an in-depth look at what went wrong.
• Engaged in torturing people it has captured.  This is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and a violation of human decency.  To justify this, the administration had its lawyers write memos, creatively bending American and international law to suit the “needs” of the government.  (Eugene Robinson wrote about this today in an op-ed in the Washington Post.)
• Squandered the goodwill that the world felt toward America after the 9/11 attacks and damaged, perhaps irreparably, our relationships with traditional allies during the buildup to the Iraq war.
• Fought a justified war in Afghanistan but then did not allocate sufficient troops or materiel there because of the misadventure in Iraq.

Those are just a few of the foreign policy problems the Bush Administration is leaving as his legacy.  Domestically, he’s been just about as bad.

• Gasoline prices were an average of $1.46 a gallon when Bush took office in January 2001 (they are much higher in some areas, such as California).  On July 28, gasoline prices were an average of $3.90 a gallon, down from a high of $4.05 a gallon on July 14.  (See here for more information.)
• Housing prices are in free fall.  There were a record number of foreclosures in May — 1 in 483 households received foreclosure notices.  This is due to many reasons: lax lending practices, people buying too much house and getting over their heads; one thing is sure: Bush Administration regulators did not do their jobs.  The housing bubble should have been pricked two years ago.
• That leads us to the financial crisis.  Bear Stearns was on the verge of failure until the Fed propped it up and brokered a sale.  IndyMac Bank has failed and the FDIC has stepped in.  There probably are more bank failures coming.  Regulators didn’t do a good job — Wall Street got drunk (as Bush said in remarks that he asked to not be on camera).  Regulators — the Bush Administration — were the bartenders (Thanks to the Republic of T for the bartender quip).
• Bush has run up huge federal deficits, turning a surplus when he took office into huge debt.  He passed tax cuts and then started a war without raising taxes again.  This, along with low interest rates, has served to produce a weak dollar, which is making everything else (like oil) more expensive.
• All of the above, including rising food prices, is driving us into a recession, if we’re not already there.  Some parts of the country already are in recession.  People are feeling real pain right now.  Bush’s Economic Stimulus Package hasn’t done much good.  I know I saved mine.  Others saved theirs, or used it to pay off bills.  People are not going out to buy televisions and game consoles.
• Signing statements that eviscerate the intent of laws, and increase of presidential power (As they say, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  And Bush has been grabbing more and more power), stonewalling investigators; there are abuses domestically as well, like the illegal wiretapping and then the telecom immunity bill.  The Justice Department broke the law in its hiring practices, hiring people because of political considerations.  The entire administration has had a culture of corruption. 

Again, just a small sample of domestic ills.  It’s no wonder that Bush’s approval ratings have been stuck in the 20s for months.  (Congress’s ratings aren’t far behind.)  There has been so much damage done, one can scarcely catalog it all.  I know I’ve barely scratched the surface.  The next president will have his work cut out for him to repair even some of Bush’s damage.