The Decency of George W Bush

Michael Gerson - The Decency of George W. Bush - washingtonpost.com

I know of nothing that Bush has done to warrant the hatred that has been heaped upon him from the left, the right, and the MSM. One would hope that a president can have some individual control over a decision to have oral sex with an intern in the oval office. It seems less understandable how one would control all the intelligence of the whole world on WMDs turning out to be wrong and the plans and results for initial action in Iraq turned out to be ineffective. Every leader has suffered because those relied upon to do their job failed to do so. Having never led, Obama awaits the learning of this most basic lesson of leadership.

Certainly a left that cares little as to the cost of gaining power is to be expected to react with glee at any situation that can be turned against a Republican. At one time, parts of the MSM would have had the honor to show some sort of even handedness in order to maintain some semblance of being "unbiased", but a major event of the last 8 years is that the days of the MSM having any connection with the truth are likely gone forever.

The right is a little harder to understand, but I believe that when the going got tough (as it inevitably does when one is doing something real), the right wing decided "we would rather have Reagan". The realization that the loonies of the right could in their own way be every bit as looney as those on the left was one of my "major life lessons" of the last 8 years. Unsurprisingly, neither Reagan or his ghost returned, and now we have Obama. May the right wing be ever happy, the "lesson" is being taught!

Here are a couple good quotes from here, it is all worth reading. I find that I am ever the iconoclast--the more Bush is reviled, the greater my respect for him. My highlight below is perhaps one of the finest testaments to his deep Christian faith. My guess is that "deeper decency" is something we will see very little of the next four years.

For years, critics of the Iraq war asked the mocking question: "What
would victory look like?" If progress continues, it might look
something like what we've seen.


But that humanity is precisely what I will remember. I have seen
President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more
generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the
weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends. Again and
again, I have seen the natural tug of his pride swiftly overcome by a
deeper decency -- a decency that is privately engaging and publicly
consequential.

Before the Group of Eight summit in 2005, the White House
senior staff overwhelmingly opposed a new initiative to fight malaria
in Africa for reasons of cost and ideology -- a measure designed to
save hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly of children under 5. In the
crucial policy meeting, one person supported it: the president of the
United States, shutting off debate with a moral certitude that others
have criticized. I saw how this moral framework led him to an immediate
identification with the dying African child, the Chinese dissident, the
Sudanese former slave, the Burmese women's advocate. It is one reason I
will never be cynical about government -- or about President Bush.
For some, this image of Bush is so detached from their own
conception that it must be rejected. That is, perhaps, understandable.
But it means little to me. Because I have seen the decency of George W.
Bush.