Jonathan Gurwitz today does his best to try an prop up the George W. Bush “legacy” and gives us two, yes TWO, credible examples of positive things that Bush achieved during his eight years in office.
PEPFAR: Tthe President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, is the largest commitment by any nation to fight a single disease in history. Begun by Bush in 2003, it represents a five-year, $15 billion commitment to stop the global spread of AIDS, especially in 15 focus countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
The Naivasha Agreement: Bush's personal commitment to negotiate a peace agreement that helped bring an end to the second Sudanese civil war, one of the bloodiest conflicts of modern history that caused the deaths of as many as 2 million civilians over two decades.Two positive achievements in eight years. To that I suppose I could respond with the old adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day. But then I would surely be accused of being “afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome” and thus “simply incapable of acknowledging that a president who (I) believed was so God-awful wrong could possibly do anything right.”
But I never wished ill for President Bush. It is true that I am a partisan Democrat and that I did not vote for him. But I am also a Texan and I had the distinct privilege of getting to interview the man on half a dozen occasions when he was governor. For the last couple of interviews he even remembered my name. I thought that was pretty neat! So while I did not support him politically, I certainly did not want to see him end up as the most despised president of last century.
As governor, Bush had done an adequate job and had run his administration in a mostly bi-partisan nature under the tutelage of Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock. But when he went to D.C., he did not take Bob Bullock with him. He took Karl Rove. And that is where Bush’s downfall ultimately began.
More on that in a bit.
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