As I’ve said numerous times before, voters aren’t stupid. They know who piloted our economic collapse last year and it’s going to be extremely hard for Republicans to convince them otherwise.

Still, it is kind of telling that Republicans blame Obama more for the economy than Bush, even though it’s by a very small 6 point margin. I mean, come on folks…we’re 10 months in and you REALLY believe that Obama is the reason why we’re still only treading water?

Also note how the number of Republicans is skewing the total to be 7 points more than what Independents think. Because that number is really what you should be looking at since they’ll determine whether or not Republicans make serious gains in 2010. And since the economy is bound to be the #1 issue at that time, this doesn’t bode well for the GOP.

Still, I predict that if the economy doesn’t get better by this time next year Obama and Bush will be even. At least among Indies. Because at that point it’ll be about 20 months in and, fair or not, Obama will own it.

But what do you think? When will Obama own the economy in swing voters’ minds?

“Sometimes you have to make the tough decisions. If you think this has to be done, you have my blessing. But someday you guys are going to need to tell me how we ended up with a system like this. I know this is not the time to test them and put them through failure, but we’re not doing something right if we’re stuck with these miserable choices.”
- George W. Bush on September 16, 2008

That’s from an upcoming 19,000 word piece in The New Yorker entitled, “A Reporter at Large — Eight Days: The battle to save the American financial system piece.” It will be a must read for anybody interested in seeing how things went so horrible, terribly wrong, but as the Bush quote hints at…deregulation is why we were stuck with miserable choices.

If this raises your conservative/libertarian hackles, well, tough. It’s time to accept the fact that markets are not self regulating and never can be due to the very nature of capitalism itself.

Why do I bring this up? Well, this fall Obama is set to propose much tougher regulations on banking and the marketplace. So I want everybody to remember why we find ourselves in the economic situation we’re in and why we need to never let it happen again.

Until then…

Our first head of the Department of Homeland Security has written a tell all and it’s more of the same we’ve heard from insiders about the former administration. They politicized nearly everything and made the wrong decision and nearly every turn.

From US News:

Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored;

Never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings? The director of the government agency that was created in the aftermath of 9/11?

WTF??????????

So yes, that’s a bombshell, but the one in the title seems to be even more craven…

and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

Yes, 3 years after the worst terrorist attack in our country’s history, Bush and company were scaring people into voting for him. I think that tells you all you need to know about the guy and his crew.

My question…we finally going to get some mea culpas from the right or will Tom Ridge simply be smeared like Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke and Scott McClellan?

I’m not holding my breath.

A couple of days ago, I read a piece in Politico about the Republican’s strategy in 2010. Long story short, it’s all about blaming Obama for the current deficits.

In fact, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas actually said this (I’m presuming with a straight face) …

“This was not an inherited situation. This was a matter entirely of this administration’s and this Democratic leadership’s making,” Cornyn said. “In large part, I believe, 2010 will be a referendum on their performance.”

Hmmm, that’s odd…

Because I seem to remember somebody inheriting a budget surplus in 2000. And had he kept the budget balanced, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the we would be running surpluses of $800B from 2009 through 2012.

The New York Times does the math on how the numbers shake out, and they don’t bode well for Republicans…or Democrats…

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. It’s a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists’ assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

But let’s get back to the initial point…the GOP’s 2010 strategy. Republicans must have a plan to reduce the deficit, right?

Well…

Judd Gregg recently held up a chart on the Senate floor showing that Mr. Obama would increase the deficit — but failed to mention that much of the increase stemmed from extending Bush policies. In fact, unlike Mr. Obama, Republicans favor extending all the Bush tax cuts, which will send the deficit higher.

Republican leaders in the House, meanwhile, announced a plan last week to cut spending by $75 billion a year. But they made specific suggestions adding up to meager $5 billion. The remaining $70 billion was left vague. “The G.O.P. is not serious about cutting down spending,” the conservative Cato Institute concluded.

I will say, though, that the GOP is right politically. The deficit will become a huge issue in the coming years. But unless they’re willing to bite the bullet and roll back Bush’s prescription drug plan and his tax cuts, they’re more than 5 times as guilty as Obama is when it comes to driving up the deficit.

This is Mike Fritz and David Murdock from ANP.

Senator Lindsey Graham was a passionate critic of the Bush Justice attorneys during this past summer’s Armed Services Committee hearings on interrogation.

Lately, however, Graham seems to have had second thoughts on the matter. At a recent Judiciary subcommittee hearing investigating the torture memos, Graham mounted a feisty defense of Jay Bybee, John Yoo and the lawyers who provided legal cover for detainee abuse.

This performance sent producer Mike Fritz back to the ANP archives to confirm that this was indeed the same Lindsey Graham we remembered from the summer, and sure enough, it was. As this video reveals, same guy – different message.

Click to view the whole story at Huffington Post.

So, Dick Cheney has been going around telling everyone that President Obama is making us less safe by daring to change some of the Bush era national security policies. But Jack Goldsmith at The New Republic says Cheney’s criticisms don’t hold up. Obama has actually changed very little outside rhetoric and packaging.

Goldsmith details eleven policy areas and explains how Obama has maintained or deviated from the Bush positions. The article is well worth the read and paints Obama as exceedingly cautious about changing the ways the Bush administration was handling the war and terrorism during the final years of the Bush presidency. Obama may be speaking more softly but he’s still carrying a big stick.

A surprising reversal and one I obviously disagree with. This also seriously undermines Obama’s message of transparency and openness…at least in the eyes of Dems.

From Wash Post:

President Obama has decided to oppose the release of several dozen photos depicting abuse of detainees held in U.S. military custody abroad, reversing his previous position on the grounds that the pictures could inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S. troops.

In a brief statement to reporters before flying to Arizona for a speech late this afternoon, Obama said he believes “that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

He also suggested that the publication could lead “a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse.”

Is it just me or does this reasoning make no sense?

Because having these photos be undefined means people fill in the blanks with even more horrific stuff than what’s possibly contained in them. And that means al Qaeda can say whatever they want about them to their recruits and we’re powerless to stop them. And that’s what puts Americans in greater danger.

Also, the idea that this would have a chilling effect on future investigations? How exactly? Actually, by making these public it would put a chilling effect on the behavior, not the investigations.

The only thing I can think of is he’s finally seen the photos and some of them contain pictures of CIA personnel he promised to protect. So if these pictures get out, he’d be obligated to prosecute them the way the other personnel were or face a massive backlash by the military brass and the American public.

Still, I’m confused by this move and I’m sure many other Americans are too. So the administration owes us more explanation…and soon.

We all knew this had to happen sooner or later, and it looks like the White House wants to put this issue to bed once and for all.

From Wash Post:

Government officials familiar with the CIA’s early interrogations say the most powerful evidence of apparent excesses is contained in the “top secret” May 7, 2004, inspector general report, based on more than 100 interviews, a review of the videotapes and 38,000 pages of documents.

The full report remains closely held, although White House officials have told political allies that they intend to declassify it for public release when the debate quiets over last month’s release of the Justice Department’s interrogation memos…

Although some useful information was produced, the report concluded that “it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks,” according to the Justice Department’s declassified summary of it.

And let’s note the date when this was finished: May 7, 2004.

That means that Bush and company had a report in their hands that was THE most extensive look at their torture program and they completely ignored it.

Why?

Because admitting it at that time would have meant certain defeat for Bush in the 2004 election. And admitting it after the election would have completely discredited the administration.

So then, to all of you who continue to think that the Bush continued to sanction the torture techniques because it made this country safer, please, wake up already.

Sure, Bush & Company knew how to win, but look at the costs to the GOP as a whole. That’s why I seriously question if the following is really a smart strategy.

From Politico:

Republicans looking to recover from Bush-era defeats are turning to an unlikely source for advice: top aides to former President George W. Bush.

Former White House press secretary Dana Perino, former Bush counselor Ed Gillespie and former White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto are among those set to provide words of wisdom to House Republican press secretaries at their annual workshop this Friday.

GOP House Conference Communications Director Matt Lloyd said Perino, Gillespie and Fratto represented “the gold standard for Republican communications professionals” and were obvious choices to advise the party’s messengers.

What this points to is the GOP will once again be launching a Contract With America style war of words with the Dems, where they’ll be slavishly on-message day in and day out. The only problem…no new ideas to back up their criticisms. At least not yet.

More as it develops.

Personally, I just don’t care at this point. People will think what they want. It was dumb when the left did it to Bush and it’s just as dumb now.

From David Horowitze agrees:

Conservatives, please. Let’s not duplicate the manias of the Left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the anti-Christ, although a disturbing number of people on the Right are convinced he is.

I have recently received commentaries that claim that “Obama’s speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history” and “never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people” and “Obama is a narcissist,” which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.

This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists – and that a recent American president was a world-class exponent of the imperial me. So what? Political egos are one of the reasons the Founders put checks and balances on executive power. As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that? And once, the same recent president set a pretty a high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama’s speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louie Farrakhan, Fidel Castro vein. They are in fact eloquently and cleverly centrist and sober.

Tip to Republicans…one of the dirty little secrets that nobody wants to admit is that Bush got re-elected because he was so despised by the left that Rove was able to turn that into a plus and marginalize the opposition. Brilliant campaigning, no doubt, and think of what the Obama machine can do with the same type of venom from the right.

I’m just saying…

The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush’s key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Obama still asserts the military’s authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president’s own wartime power as Bush had argued.

This appears to be an attempt by the new administration to rid our nation of some of the gray areas the Bush administration created in the years after September 11th. While many of Bush’s supporters thought the threat of terrorism necessitated the president having the power to operate outside of congressional authority and international laws of war, many felt Bush was overreaching and creating powers that could be too easily abused. In a conflict which could continue for generations, our nation needs to operate under policies more exact than “because the president says so.”

Today, Obama took an important step in reconfiguring how we pursue the war on terror. While the move doesn’t change current realities such as specific incarcerations, the effect of the change is to remove some of the executive branch’s power. For those of us who never felt uncomfortable with the level of presidential power Bush wielded, this is a welcome change.

Obama’s basic argument: You do realize that Bush started all of this, right?

So, was Bush a socialist?

Also, does anybody think that Democrats don’t believe in capitalism?

As was the case with many things the Bush administration touched, the federal budget was gamed in such a way to make the deficit problems look smaller than they actually were. But now Obama and his team are set to change that.

Only problem? The deficit is going to get a lot bigger.

How much?

Try $2.7 trillion.

From NY Times:

WASHINGTON — For his first annual budget next week, President Obama has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller. The price of more honest bookkeeping: A budget that is $2.7 trillion deeper in the red over the next decade than it would otherwise appear, according to administration officials.

The new accounting involves spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and the cost of disaster responses.

But the biggest adjustment will deal with revenues from the alternative minimum tax, a parallel tax system enacted in 1969 to prevent the wealthy from using tax shelters to avoid paying any income tax.

No doubt there will be an initial backlash, but I’m hoping that folks will appreciate the increased transparency and realize once and for all how devastating the deception out of the Bush administration really was.

Here’s more…

Mr. Obama’s banishment of the gimmicks, which have been widely criticized, is in keeping with his promise to run a more transparent government.

Fiscal sleight of hand has long been a staple of federal budgets, giving rise to phrases like “rosy scenario” and “magic asterisks.”

The $2.7 trillion in additional deficit spending, Mr. Orszag said, is “a huge amount of money that would just be kind of a magic asterisk in previous budgets.”

“The president prefers to tell the truth,” he said, “rather than make the numbers look better by pretending.”

I think we just saw Orszag call Bush a liar.

Well deserved. Especially since Obama has to dig us out of an additional $2.7 trillion hole that wasn’t accounted for.

Not this one.

While I will be the first to admit that I have not been a ‘fan’ of former-President Bush #43 (more: here, here & here), I am not going to use this piece as a means of criticism. Well, not all of it anyway… Rather, in a somewhat odd turn of events, I simply want to thank Mr. Bush.

Believe it or not, I voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. Way back then (which seems like an eternity ago), Yours Truly was not the pajama-clad-politico that he is now. He wasn’t any kind of politico. In the fall of that year, I was a fresh-out-of-college-graduate who was simply concerned with clearing the hops and barley from my brain. I had recently acquired a reasonabe entry-level job, and my collective knowledge of politics could be summed up in Saturday Night Live sketches. Sad, I know. But that is why I voted for Bush: I thought that Al Gore was boring and obsessed with ‘lock boxes’ and that George W. Bush was a more ‘down-to-earth’ guy. Someone with whom I would like to have a beer, as it were.

Read the rest of this post >>

Although I agreed with the diagnosis, I could not concur with the treatment. The toxic side effects of Single Party Rule presented a greater risk than the potential benefit of curing the Bush/Cheney unitary executive disease. In particular, the prospect of the new President inheriting the expanded Bush/Cheney presidential power while his party held even larger majorities than enjoyed by George W Bush and the Republicans was particularly frightening. Those fears were confirmed last week, when Obama steamrolled a very bad stimulus bill over a neutered Republican party, handing future generations more debt and putting the economic future of the country at risk.

That said, I expected to enjoy a couple of civil liberty consolation prizes with the Obama victory. First and foremost, balance would be maintained in judicial appointments and on the Supreme Court, and second – Obama would indeed roll back some of the worst offenses of the Bush administration. While I still have high hopes for the first consolation prize, early indications are not promising for the second. Not promising at all.

I know it has only been a month, but Obama works fast. It is not too early to checkpoint how President Obama is progressing on “undoing the damage” of the Bush/Cheney Imperial Presidency. The most egregious offenses of the Bush/Cheney administration fall under the umbrella of expanding executive branch power at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches, with a commensurate erosion of constitutional protections. There are some positives. The executive order to close Guantanamo in a year or so is great news. The executive order on torture sounded great, as long as you ignore the loopholes. But on balance – So far… all is not so good.

The Obama administration supports Bush era invocation of state secrecy to protect rendition and torture.

The Obama administration supports Bush era state secrecy claims to deny torture victims their day in court.

The Obama administration supports Bush era state secrecy claims to protect executive orders for illegal wiretapping and domestic surveillance.

Out of fairness, I should point out that this last should not be a surprise. It is completely consistent with the July, 2008 version of Barack Obama who voted against the rule of law and in support of immunity for the Telecom companies that cooperated with illegal government wiretap requests. OTOH it is a complete flip-flop from the January 2008 version of Barack Obama who promised to support a filibuster to prevent granting immunity to Telecom companies.

The Obama administration opposes torture, but not all the time.

The Obama administration continues Bush era faith based initiatives undermining the principle of Separation of Church and State.

White House Political Office, Politicizing the White House Counsel, Executive Privilege – The more things change…

Other early items where the Obama administration appears to moving closer to the style and substance of the previous administration include: Obama continues the much reviled White House Political Office – former home of Karl Rove; Obama appointed a political hack to the office of the White House Counsel, further opening the administration to comparisons with the Bush/Rove White House and charges of politicizing the office; – and – as long as we are on the topic of Karl Rove; The Obama administration will apparently not challenge the constitutionally questionable Bush administration claims of “executive privilege” shielding Karl Rove from testimony before the legislature in the matter of U.S. Attorney General firings

There are more than a few liberals who have not hesitated to to call BS, most notably Glen Greenwald, as he takes to task those whose loyalty is not to principle but to a personality:

Greenwald’s analysis is instructive. It explains why so many on the left greet Obama’s support and active defense of the Bush/Cheney model of the unitary executive with a yawn. It is not the principle of checks, balances and constitutional protections that inform their view of the world. For some on the left, it is about blind loyalty to a leader and a party. From their perspective, the Bush/Cheney model of executive power is not a problem if Obama is in the White House. Apparently, with the ring of power in Barack Obama’s benevolent hands, the Bush/Cheney executive power will only be used for good. So – just put your trust in Barack – not in the rule of law – not in the Constitution – but in the man. These Obama supporters resemble nothing so much as the right-wing apologists for Bush administration excesses.

Greenwald says it best:

Under the current incarnation of One Party Rule, the Republicans are impotent in the face of Obama and his large Democratic majority. The only hope for any moderation of the power of this presidency, must come from principled Democratic legislators in Congress (Feingold, Feinstein, and Leahy are stepping up). The only hope for economic sanity, must come from Democratic fiscal conservatives like the few Democratic representatives in the House of Representatives that voted against stimulus porker.

It’s only been a month.

Obama still has plenty of time to correct course.

That is my (faint) Hopeâ„¢.

^{Excerpted from “Divided We Stand United We Fall“}

Just when I didn’t think I could be shocked by the previous administration’s decisions…

From Wash Post:

President Obama’s plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials — barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees — discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is “scattered throughout the executive branch,” a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.

Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration’s focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.

Yes, I continue to be awed by the hubris displayed by Bush and company. Because the idea that we would detainee people indefinitely without legal counsel and never even worry about building a comprehensive case against them is INSANE.

I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY??? How did they think they could possibly justify this behavior?

As hilzoy puts it…

It takes, well, a special kind of administration to detain people for years on end without bothering to assemble case files on them. I’m just glad they’re finally gone.

If Guantanamo takes a lot longer to close than previously thought, THIS is the reason, not because it’s complicated to figure out that people we capture (or kidnap) have to be prosecuted and either sent to prison or let go.

More as it develops…

Also, the words “we don’t torture” will finally be true.

From NY Times:

The orders, which are the first steps in undoing detention policies of former President George W. Bush, rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted.

And the orders bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years, a practice that has brought fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists. They will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects, government officials said.

There are still a lot of legal questions to be answered, but I can’t help but think that they’re not as complicated as many would have us believe. The only reason there’s any complications in the first place is we had a “kidnap first, ask questions later” policy. And that ultimately resulted in hundreds of folks being held for years without access to legal counsel and then released with a pat on the back and an “Our bad!” by the government.

No, the only potentially tough question is “Where do the real criminals go?” Murtha has already said he’d take them so let’s give them to him. It’s not like these folks are radioactive and we characterize them like as such at our own peril because we elevate their status and legend. They’re just people who may or may not have committed a crime and they should be treated as such.

But seriously, most of them aren’t necessary and some of them are just plain odd.

For instance, the White House didn’t want search engines crawling pages about Bush’s dog Barney?

Disallow: /barney/barney/text
Disallow: /barney/barneycam/text
Disallow: /barney/newmedia/text
Disallow: /barney/photoessay/beazley/text
Disallow: /barney/photoessay/text
Disallow: /barney/photoessay2/text
Disallow: /barney/text
Disallow: /barneycam/text

Or how about the pages about Easter?

Disallow: /easter/2002/eggsbystate/text
Disallow: /easter/2002/text
Disallow: /easter/2003/eggsbystate/text
Disallow: /easter/2003/text
Disallow: /easter/2004/eggsbystate/text
Disallow: /easter/2004/media/text
Disallow: /easter/2004/text
Disallow: /easter/2005/eggsbystate/text
Disallow: /easter/2005/photoessay/text
Disallow: /easter/2005/text
Disallow: /easter/2005/video/text
Disallow: /easter/2006/eggsbystate/text
Disallow: /easter/2006/photoessay/text
Disallow: /easter/2006/text
Disallow: /easter/2006/video/text
Disallow: /easter/2007/eggsbystate/text
Disallow: /easter/2007/photoessay/easter-2007/text
Disallow: /easter/2007/photoessay/photoessays/text
Disallow: /easter/2007/photoessay/text
Disallow: /easter/2007/text
Disallow: /easter/2007/video/text
Disallow: /easter/2008/eastervideo/text
Disallow: /easter/2008/eggsbystate/text
Disallow: /easter/2008/photoessay/preparing/text
Disallow: /easter/2008/photoessay/text
Disallow: /easter/2008/text
Disallow: /easter/2008/video/text
Disallow: /easter/states/text
Disallow: /easter/text

On the other hand, Obama’s new site has one rule for search engines…

Disallow: /includes/

Perhaps this will change, but it’s an encouraging sign nonetheless.

“I can summarise Bush’s legacy in two words: Barack Obama.”
- James Lindsay, a politics professor at Texas university in a Financial Times article.

Here’s more…

Observers have traced much of Mr Bush’s alleged incompetence to his dislike of what he calls “process decisions” – conclusions reached through the normal Washington inter-agency process. Following his father’s defeat by Bill Clinton in 1992, the future president was quoted as having dismissed George Bush senior’s tendency to synthesise widely sought advice. In contrast, the younger Bush saw himself as “The Decider” – someone who acted on principle and never lost sleep over the consequences.

Many admired his gut instincts. But as his presidency wore on, they dwindled in number. Some suspected, often correctly, that Mr Bush’s impulses were supplied by Dick Cheney, his vice-president, whose skill at circumventing the usual channels of decision-making was second to none. “I lost count of the number of times that we learnt of decisions that had already been taken – we were never invited to the meetings,” says Mr Armitage. “Then we would get back on the gerbil wheel [the normal calendar of meetings] even though we often didn’t know about decisions that had already been taken.”

Naturally, Mr Bush’s most secretive decisions were not subjected to expert scrutiny. Sometimes, such as when the Iraqi army was disbanded shortly after the US invasion, the president was unaware of decisions carried out in his name. Particularly since Katrina, his style of decision-making grew into his chief badge of notoriety. For months after 9/11, Mr Bush enjoyed the highest ratings of any president in American history. He leaves office with the lowest. “That takes some doing,” says James Lindsay, a politics professor at Texas university.

It’s obviously way too soon to tell if President Obama will be the kind of pragmatic leader he’s promised to be, but if he delivers on that goal then I will look back fondly on Bush’s 8 years. Because there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that President Obama wouldn’t have been possible if not for The Decider.

As we move within 24 hours of inaugurating a new president, most of America’s attention is focused on the future, with a great many Americans hopeful about Barack Obama and his coming presidency. But what about the guy packing up the White House? Does he deserve more than a passing goodbye after eight years?

Bush is leaving office with record low approval ratings. And, realistically, for a president who has mismanaged two wars, incompetently handled the response to Hurricane Katrina and, finally, presided over the largest economic disaster since the Great Depression, it’s surprising as many as 22% of Americans consider his presidency a good one.

What is most fascinating (and disappointing) about Bush is not the trouble he caused so much as his inability to react competently to the trouble caused by others. He had little opportunity to prevent 9/11. He doesn’t control where hurricanes land. And he didn’t sell any subprime mortgages. The triumvirate of crises faced by Bush could and probably would have happened under a President Gore or a President Kerry (or a President McCain, for that matter). And those men may have failed in their own ways. But no president gets to take a pass because the challenges they faced were exceptional or because others may have been equally inept.

Bush leaves office as a perceived failure because he was an average man in an era when we needed a great man. Too often he chose partisanship and cronyism over leadership and experience. Too often he substituted platitudes for solutions. And, most disastrously, he proved too susceptible to the siren songs of ideology, trusting in intractable advisors who thought they knew better than anyone else, the evidence be damned.

The one great positive that can be said of the Bush presidency is that we suffered no attacks on American soil after 9/11. This is no small thing and no coincidence. The problem is, did we overreach in our quest for security? Bush showed, time and again, a predilection towards authoritarianism when dealing with potential threats. That’s not to say he was authoritarian, but that’s the direction he reached, expanding executive powers to new levels while stripping away checks and balances. He may have prevented further attacks, but did the cost to our freedom have to be so great? That is a question for historians, I believe. But from the vantage point of the present, I am disturbed by the new governmental powers implemented under Bush’s watch.

Given the circumstances faced in the last eight years, I believe many a man or woman would have failed as our president. But Bush’s failures are not merely a matter of circumstance. They are a result of his own personal deficiencies and his inability to lead all of us (rather than only some of us) during difficult times. I do not know how history will remember him. But I think it’s appropriate he leaves office with such a low approval rating.