What to make of Bush?

I have mixed feelings about Bush. He is not the clown or doofus that he sometimes appears to be, and certainly not the fiction his enemies picture him as. He is, however, a seriously flawed individual, but then, so was Churchill. The millionaire son of a millionaire's son, a dry drunk, probably a drug user, certainly a shirker in his first war. Except for the millionaire part, hardly unheard of in his generation. Yet he pulled himself together and up from the depths with the help of a good woman and the direct intervention of his Lord Jesus Christ. Or so he firmly believes and I am not the man to deny it. For him this gives his life meaning and dignity no matter what.

He is not stupid by any means – but he is intellectually incurious and detached, sometimes to a puzzling, even frightening, degree. Yet the faith and fundamental goodness is real. It simply stops at the edge of the world he knows and probes no further. I meet and get to like at least a dozen students every year who share these traits.

His instincts on the illegal immigration problem are fundamentally correct, I believe, from a moral, political, and practical viewpoint, though perhaps not from a strict interpretation of Legalism. On this one issue, when compared to the short sighted and parochial proposals of some of his fellow Republicans, which sometimes stop just this side of race baiting (and sometimes don't stop), seem positively statesmanlike.

One thing his opponents should always keep in mind: he was right to invade Afghanistan. It was ruled by a government that clearly aided and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11. The efforts of those opposed to that war, to insist that there was no sure connection, to call for diplomatic moves in the face of a clear act of war, and worst of all, to portray the Taliban as all but invincible in their mountains, did nothing but make Bush's achievement loom larger, to take on the aura of preternatural wisdom and character that it should not have had. The Left, and the pacifists, and the others should never forget this. Their opposition to what even the Pope saw as a ‘Just War' was a major factor in his growing popularity among Americans matched by a growing contempt to those calling for peace and negotiations on all fronts. If Bush had stopped after Afghanistan, we would be dealing with a different presidency and, I honestly believe, a different America.

But, of course, he didn't stop there. We didn't stop there. There is something else that his opponents never learned and his erstwhile supporters and collaborators are busy forgetting. When he went into Iraq he had the American people behind him and, until in an act of pride both pardonable and understandable boasted that the Mission was accomplished, he and the neocons were right. The destruction of the Baath regime was a miracle of speed and skill. The first great Iraqi vote was simple: we will not fight and die for this regime. The Iraqi army walked away. And our troops were cheered and greeted with flowers. For a brief while it looked as if once again Bush was right, the naysayers wrong.

But, of course, it did not remain that way. Now the war's dwindling supporters are reduced to blaming it on Bush and his White House, or on Rumsfield, or Rice, or someone else. The execution of the war was all wrong. Or most maddingly of all, snarling that no one could have done any better, Iraq was simply too big a problem in the first place, so don't blame us for its failure. Which, if you didn't notice, concedes the whole argument to those who opposed the war in the first place.

I am not an historian of the modern world and even in my own field I can make foolish mistakes. Yet I have read a lot of history of every sort from the time I learned to read until now. I have even written my own small contributions to the stream of western historical thought. I am certain of this: the Bush administration is going to go down in history as one of the worst in American history.

So what do we do now?