President Bush’s undoing (as far as the “liberals” are concerned) was 9/11 and our subsequent involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Before that, as I recall, he was just “another president”. Would he have been a “great” president without 9/11? We will never know.
But is he a “great” president because of 9/11 and subsequent events?
I don’t know that either. Other than our Founding Fathers and Lincoln, I have etymological problems (or, as they’re called these days – issues) calling any president “great”.
But what I often ask myself is: “What would any other White House occupant have done differently?” And my answer has always been – nothing.
I can’t imagine any other president taking a completely different approach to the situation as it presented itself and developed. Somewhere along the way, this hypothetical president would have had to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s like the “Palestinian issue”. Doesn’t matter who our past presidents were or who the future president is going to be; he will inexorably be forced to deal with Palestine and Israel.
When I bring this matter up with acquaintances and ask them what they might suggest a president should have done in the face of 9/11, I generally get blank looks.
I don’t particularly admire the man George Bush except insofar as he dealt with an impossible situation in an admirable way. But I have no major “issues” with him either.
At the same time, I think Obama will become our next president hands down. All the signs point to such an eventuality.
More importantly, I don’t think it matters any longer who is president or which party is in power.
Global issues are now so large, difficult to categorize and impossible to control, especially in the field of foreign affairs, even a president is unable to have other than a symbolic leadership role to play. Events will follow their own logic and be settled not in Washington or Peking or Moscow but by subsequent events and forces that cannot be easily perceived nor predicted.
Whoever our next president is, I pity him.
