Farewell, Mr. President

Bush did what he thought was right—and on the biggest issues, what was right.

A National Review Online Symposium
Tuesday, January 20, 2009

As George W. Bush prepares to leaves the White House after eight misunderestimated years, National Review Online asked a group of experts in policy and politics to assess his presidency.


JAY NORDLINGER
I appreciate President Bush for many things. He took great care with the issue of stem-cell research. He was steadfast on “life issues” in general. He withdrew the U.S. from the ABM Treaty, allowing for greater progress on missile defense (vitally important).

He chose Dick Cheney as his running mate, and he became vice president. He made some staffing mistakes, Bush did, but he also named some excellent people who were thought to be “untouchable,” because of their “hard-line” stances. I think particularly of Elliott Abrams, Otto Reich, and John Bolton. Two of those men required Senate confirmation. They didn’t get it, blocked by Democrats. Bush gave them recess appointments.

He defeated two men who would have been lamentable in the Oval Office: Al Gore and John Kerry.

In 2000, he grabbed “the third rail of American politics,” running on Social Security reform. He did so again four years later. He tried for this reform, but the country was not ready. It will be someday, when it has no choice. Bush tried to solve another big, stubborn issue: immigration. I was on the other side from him (i.e., I was anti-amnesty), but I admired his willingness to tackle the problem, rather than have it shoved under the rug for another chunk of years.

He nominated excellent judges, including his two on the Supreme Court. He was widely derided for his nomination of Harriet Miers (later withdrawn). He still insists she would have been an excellent justice. Who knows?

He looked the central evil of our time, Islamofascism, in the eye—and did not flinch. He knew we had to go beyond law enforcement and intelligence gathering: that we had to pursue what amounted to another cold war (which, as with the first, would of course include some hot ones). He removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, effacing two of the worst dictatorships known to man.

And he did what was necessary in the area of “homeland security,” as it came to be called.

He was a friend of Israel, a nation that is virtually friendless, and that deserves friends. He realized that Arafat was a liar and a terrorist—and Arafat had been the most frequent foreign visitor to the White House during the previous eight years. He thought enough of Arabs and Muslims to think that even they deserved freedom and justice, instead of tyranny.

He was a friend to Cubans, who are often friendless—Cubans and Cuban Americans have called him “the first Cuban president”—and he did not forget Chinese political prisoners, even as he dealt with Beijing, as all presidents do.

He showed immense personal charm, ease, and sympathy. When talking to a New Orleanian who had fled to Utah after Hurricane Katrina, he said, “Were you the only black man in Salt Lake City?” When a citizen flipped him the middle finger, he turned to the man sitting next to him and said, “Not a fan.”

He took a tremendous amount of abuse, particularly from elite opinion, and did not buckle. Neither did he lash out. He showed tremendous personal grace, as during the recent shoe-throwing incident in Iraq. He could be a real cool cat, this president. He has his faults, as everyone knows: They have been well gone over. But what has not been well gone over is that he is kind, decent, honest, principled, devout—and full of love.

I’m very glad he was president.

— Jay Nordlinger is a senior editor of National Review and the author of Here, There & Everywhere.



ANDREW BREITBART
The demonization of President George W. Bush was a fait accompli before he was even inaugurated. The rage and hatred against Bush developed before his election and before his political enemies got to know him. The Democratic party facing the 2000 election was not just determined to get Democrats elected. It was also determined to rehabilitate the newly impeached Bill Clinton and to help create Hillary Clinton’s future. Part of the mandate was to send the message to Republicans that the Democrats could do to “their guy” what the Republicans had done to theirs—but on a much larger scale, with the majority of the media in tow. Given the circumstances of 9/11, one would think Americans would pull together in these trying times. But each election cycle the Democrats kept doubling down on the hate, and in 2006 they finally got their wish. They were now in power again. Still, their demand to pull out of Iraq was a weak cry. Because they know we won. Because they know Bush was right on the big issue of our time.

I felt Chris Matthews–like tingles throughout my body at every White House Correspondents’ Dinner as I witnessed Bush at the podium. I was always proud to have him as my president. And I believe honest historians will help redeem his artificially tainted image.

— Andrew Breitbart is the founder of Big Hollywood and Breitbart.com.


PETE HOEKSTRA
On September 11, 2001, just eight months into George W. Bush’s presidency, the United States of America witnessed the deadliest attack on its soil it had ever experienced from a foreign aggressor—in this case, radical jihadists. In the days and weeks following, Americans awoke every day to open their newspapers and turn on their televisions believing another attack was imminent. The policies of President Bush, however, prevented such an attack from occurring throughout his remaining time as commander-in-chief.

He helped to make America and the world better by advancing the cause of liberty and human rights. America liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban, removed a murderous dictator in Iraq, severely weakened terrorist organizations, and convinced a once very dangerous enemy in Libya to dismantle its nuclear-weapons program.

President Bush demonstrated the character and patriotism that define a true American leader despite unrelenting partisan criticism over his decisions.

I offer sincere thanks to the president for his ability to protect America as it faced and continues to face one of the gravest threats in history. A grateful nation wishes him well in his retirement and future endeavors.

— Pete Hoekstra is a Republican congressman from Michigan.


ROGER KIMBALL
When the United States was attacked by al-Qaeda on 9/11, every expert in Alpha Centauri solemnly announced that it was only a matter of time—and not much time, either—before the United States was attacked again. Well, here we are some seven and a half years later and, guess what, it hasn’t happened. I know people—you see what low company I keep—who will tell you with a straight face that President Bush had nothing to do with this run of good luck. “Post hoc,” they sniff, “doesn’t necessarily mean propter hoc, and if America has thus far escaped another terrorist attack, there is no reason to think that W had anything to do with it.” No sane person, I submit, really believes that. Deep down, we all know that the reason the United States has not suffered another terrorist attack is the policies formulated by the president in the aftermath of 9/11. Protecting the country from external enemies is the number-one priority of the commander-in-chief. It is for his tireless pursuit of that task that I am eternally grateful to George W. Bush. Thank you.

— Roger Kimball is editor of The New Criterion.

YUVAL LEVIN
At a meeting in May of 2005, President Bush, almost in passing, said to the assembled White House staffers that when historians look back at this period in our history, the two challenges that will stand out are the defense of America in the war on terror and the defense of human dignity in the age of biotechnology.

I am very grateful to George W. Bush for grasping these challenges and for acting on them. Awakened to the first by the attacks of September 11, 2001, he acted to keep America safe and weaken fundamentalist Muslim extremism—preventing further terrorist attacks at home, and replacing two state sponsors of terrorism with emerging if surely still struggling democracies. Awakened to the second by the controversy over embryonic-stem-cell research, he acted to demonstrate that science and ethics are not mutually exclusive, but could be championed together in a way that demonstrated our commitment to the value of every human life.

In both cases, his accomplishments could easily be reversed by his successor. But in both cases, President Bush offered an example of determined leadership in defense of American ideals—an example that we can only hope future presidents may follow.

— Yuval Levin is the Hertog fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and senior editor of The New Atlantis.


HEATHER MAC DONALD
President Bush ignored the usual diversity mandates and added two stellar jurists to the Supreme Court (only, however, after his preposterous attempt to put Harriet Miers on the bench failed). The Pentagon began a brilliant research project to mine commercial data bases for intelligence on terrorist activity; we can only hope that after the Senate killed the project, its component parts continued simmering on some back burner waiting for a Democratic president to revitalize the research. The National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities added to the nation’s store of beauty and learning, sending American opera singers to serenade military bases and schools, and putting the nation’s historical documents and literary works online. Bowing to the popular will, President Bush began enforcing the immigration laws for the first time in decades, thus providing indisputable empirical backing for the claim that immigration enforcement works—employers cut back on their use of illegal aliens, and illegal flows into the country dropped. Notwithstanding our current credit crisis, American technological innovation and entrepreneurship thrived during the last decade, aided in part by a saner regulatory and tax environment.

— Heather Mac Donald is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and co-author of The Immigration Solution.


WILLIAM MCGURN
As President Bush flies home to Texas today on an aircraft that will no longer carry the designation Air Force One, the commentaries and epitaphs and thumbsuckers will dwell on the low approval ratings that accompany his exit. At the same time, among those of us who served him, there is a palpable sense of gratitude. And there is a connection between the two.

Whatever his faults or his policy failures in other areas, George W. Bush promised in the wake of September 11, 2001, that he would do everything in his power to protect the American people from another attack. That he did, against all odds and all expectations. I went to Washington in 2005 never having served in government, and only because our nation was at war. My view was then and is now: If we fail in Iraq, nothing else will matter.

The president did not fail in Iraq. We are safer for it, and we are stronger for the fight ahead.

So on this bittersweet day, I give thanks for the president’s courage. I am forever indebted to him for the way he always made my wife and children feel special. Most of all, and this may be something that only the Irish can appreciate, I am grateful for having had the chance to be at his side when things were at their absolute worst—because it allowed me to see up close the rarest of political leaders: a man who chose what he believed right no matter how hard or what the cost to his approval ratings.

— William McGurn, formerly the chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, is an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal.


DAVID B. RIVKIN JR.
George W. Bush’s greatest accomplishment is his recognition that the U.S. was at war with a ruthless and unlawful foe—al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups—and his resolute prosecution of this war. These are remarkable accomplishments, coming at a time when virtually all of our traditional allies have ceased to treat war as a legitimate tool of statecraft, with a distinctive legal architecture, and have evidenced a particular disinclination to respond vigorously to unlawful forms of combat by non-state entities.

Bush properly treated the 9/11 attacks as an enemy salvo in a legally cognizable armed conflict, and not a mere terrorist act, to be handled through law-enforcement techniques. Accordingly, he has deployed the traditional war-grounded legal paradigm in dealing with such issues as the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of captured unlawful enemy combatants, and the gathering of war-related intelligence.

He also grasped that this was a global war, to be waged in many theaters, and not just in Afghanistan. Last, but not least, he should be lauded for his willingness to buck the powerful political and bureaucratic winds and, instead of giving up, to change the strategy in Iraq. These are all the hallmarks of a strong and courageous wartime leader, who put the security of the American people above all else.

— David B. Rivkin Jr. is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm of Baker & Hostetler LLP and is a member of the U.N. Subcommittee on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. He served in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations.


GEORGE WEIGEL
I am of course most grateful to President Bush for his defense of America and for his defense of life, but as others will likely focus on those matters, let me try a different tack.

It probably didn’t help him in one of the weakest aspects of his presidency—namely, the use of the bully pulpit—but I am grateful to President Bush for ignoring the rants and raves of the establishment press (and a few uncomprehending National Review contributors who shall remain nameless), while persistently doing what he had determined was the right thing to do. It is simply pathetic to watch E. J. Dionne and other victims of Bush Derangement Syndrome miss this part of the man’s character to the bitter end. After the triangulation of the Clinton years, after 9/11, and in the face of the biotech challenge, America badly needed a president who didn’t govern by focus groups and polls. That so many people resented this says, I fear, more about our political culture than it does about George W. Bush.

— George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.