Tuesday, December 23, 2008

AEI Scholar: ‘Bush’s Legacy May End Up Better Than You Think’ from Think Progress

As the New York Times reported recently, as early as 2006, Bush and his top advisers "dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn."

In the last line of Gillespie's piece, he writes, "And one last fact: Our homeland has not suffered another terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. That, too, is part of the real Bush record." Matt Yglesias takes issue with Gillespie's comment:

This is like saying that except for the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover had a good economic record. … Nine or so months later by far the largest terrorist attack on American soil was perpetrated. That's a fantastically enormous failing. If you only look at Bush's final seven years, you'll see that he was as good as every other president at preventing terrorist attacks. And if you include his entire presidency, you'll see that he was by far the worst.

Despite Hassett and Gillespie's revisionist efforts, Americans may unfortunately find that Bush's legacy is even worse than they think.

rest at http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/23/bush-legacy-aei/

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