But it’s something. Bush the first took a lot of heat because critics said he left the war against Iraq unfinished. He said at the time that invading and occupying Iraq would be a bad idea. History has obviously vindicated his decision.
Bush’s agreement to a tax increase was also the right move even though it was unpopular with his base. We saw the alternative under Reagan and Bush Jr - a deficit explosion caused by increased government spending combined with tax cuts.
And while Gorbachev deserves the main credit for ending the Cold War, Bush deserves his share of credit for steering the United States peacefully through a major shift in world affairs.
Bush’s reputation is based on his managing to avoid some very bad possibilities. Avoiding crises is one of the most important things a President can do but it’s one of the least appreciated. To put it in current terms, probably the greatest thing Obama has accomplished was that we didn’t have a major depression in 2009.
But obviously that depends on what it becomes. If it’s essentially the same program 30 years from now, will it still be considered a great accomplishment, or equivalent to past expansions of health care like SCHIP?
Good point about avoiding problems. Just finished a book about Truman and Eisenhower by William Miller. In it he argued that one of Ike’s biggest accomplishments was not using the bomb despite wide spread pressure to do so. That was the genisis of his warning about the military industrial complex.
GWB = Obama?
Both two term presidents. Both suffered major defeats in their last midterm. Both have low approval ratings late in their presidency. Both end their terms with turmoil overseas.
All we need is one more parallel to replace the civil rights one. Hmmmmmm… Both led reform for Medicare recipients? Both plagued by concerns about immigration? Both ran huge budget deficits? Both supported domestic intelligence gathering on US citizens?
I’d say the lack of thousands of dead American troops thrown away is a rather massive difference. Plus health care, dead OBL, economic growth, lowered unemployment, etc.
Can’t really disagree with any of that. But there are other ways to fail. A lost war against ISIS, terror attacks at home, a new recession, and more executive agencies making headlines due to stupidity or corruption would sink him a little bit further.
Interestingly, among whites Reagan got 56% of the vote, and Romney got 59% of the vote; Obama, like Carter, was down in the 30s. Romney, like Reagan, lost among blacks – by a pathetic 6% to 93% instead of a slightly-less-pathetic 14% to 82%, but I’d have a hard time arguing that Reagan’s charisma made the difference on that one.
Bush wishes his legacy was going to be that good. His reputation will never rise to the level of average. History will place Bush alongside Buchanan and Hoover.
Reagan’s party also lost control of the Senate in his last midterm, despite being much more popular than Obama at this point in his Presidency, and extensively campaigning for the candidates of his party, unlike Obama.
Makes pretty good case for the original argument being specious when it’s so closely comparable to a Bush-Obama argument. Comparing those two is a different thread
Remember the SD slogan? “It’s taking longer than we thought.”
That applies to you. Any member of the SD should know that the president has very little to do with the economy. If you’re a Keynesian, the Federal Reserve gets the credit for avoiding a depression.
Truman had the Marshall Plan, Obama the ACA. Both, as one vice president would say, were big fucking deals.
Truman integrated the military, Obama embraced, albeit a bit tardy, gay rights.
Truman realized that he had a political opposition and wasn’t afraid to hold their feet to the fire. Obama still has this vision of himself as the leader of post-partisan America.
Truman wasn’t afraid to say what he was for. Obama is still unable to articulate how the ACA benefits society, nor does anyone have a clue what he stands for right now.
Obama’s job is a thousand times more difficult than Truman’s. HST only had to worry about the USSR, China, and Korea. Obama’s world has nebulous bogeymen everywhere and a Congress dominated by sociopaths. The press in Truman’s day had a lot more integrity than today, internet glurge and Fox News were still 50 years away.
So I see some similarity but even more difference.
No. On civil rights, Truman was willing to be persuaded to buck a big chunk of his base for progressive and “righteous” reasons. And on health care, he swung big (public hospitals) and failed.
Obama is a “community organizer” who takes the term “democrat” literally. He reached for a tiny, conservative health care reform and “got it.”
True, I suppose Obama could end up getting credit for something he had little to do with. The US’s primary role in that peace treaty was to up aid to both sides as an incentive. Clinton actually did far more to broker deals between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Sadat was the driving force. All it’s ever taken to get peace in the Middle East is for Arab leaders to want it.
But I was probably too harsh on Carter. The US was needed to mediate because there were no official relations between Israel and Egypt. I just think that Sadat and Begin were the ones that made it happen and that if it had been Ford or Reagan the deal still would have gotten done.
That was certainly a major event. But the primary credit for it belongs to Anwar Sadat for making a 180 degree turn in Egypt’s foreign policy. Once there was a Middle Eastern country that wanted to reach a peace agreement with Israel, writing the actual treaty was relatively easy.
Comparing those two is a different thread