DAVIS: Farewell to Bush, the president and the man

By Lanny Davis | Monday, January 12, 2009

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OPINION/ANALYSIS:

I have strong disagreements with Mr. Bush on policies and politics; but I have respect and affection for him as a person, going back to our years as friends at Yale College in the 1960s.

My policy differences with Mr. Bush as president are major.

I thought his tax cuts favored the wealthy and were ill-advised. They helped convert a trillion-dollar surplus left behind by Iraq war and this past fall´s economic meltdown.

I strongly disagreed with his decision to go into Iraq pre-emptively. And I still think, despite progress and some signs of stability and democracy in Iraq for which he deserves credit, that the war was not worth the lives lost or the hundreds of billions spent, with little sign that it had any effect on the war against terror and seems to have had a greater effect of empowering Iran in the region.

I was disappointed by Mr. Bush's apparent indifference to the dangers of global warming and to those in his administration who seemed to care more about ideology and the economic interests of the Republican Party than science and facts.

I worried that, in the name of waging war on terror, Mr. Bush had allowed his America´s reputation around the world as a nation of laws and constitutional principles.

But I also think it is unfair not to give Mr. Bush the benefit of the doubt that he did these things sincerely, believing they were legal under the circumstances and helped protect America from another terrorist attack. And I believe, to be fair, he deserves some credit that no such attack has occurred since Sept. 11, 2001.

And to give credit where credit is due, Mr. Bush also at times exhibited what President John F. Kennedy defined as political courage - the willingness to stand on principle against the base of your own party. He did so on such issues as comprehensive immigration reform, providing more than 40 million seniors with Medicare-covered prescription-drug benefits, and "No Child Left Behind."

Regarding the latter, despite all the valid criticism that it was too driven by teaching-for-testing and a lack of adequate funding, it should be remembered that the liberal icon and hero White House in the early days of his administration to co-sponsor this legislation and still supports this program, because it did produce dramatic improvements in public school performance and accountability in certain respects, particularly among inner-city minorities and poor children.

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