- Cover of W. (Widescreen)
If you are old enough to remember the beginning of the George W. Bush (also known as Bush II) presidency, you might remember that he just barely won the initial race against Al Gore. How our world would look now if that particular coin flip had gone differently, we may never be able to imagine. But the fact is, old Dubya accomplished a lot of things in his presidency that have drawn a lot of heat (and a lot of embarrassment) to the American people. When your leader nearly calls the British queen 200 years old in front of everyone, it does not say great things about your political or educational systems.
During Bush’s first few months in office, he was something of a non entity. He spent several months at his ranch, taking a vacation that some would argue he did not deserve in the first place. Shouldn’t a person do a lot of work, before they reward themselves with a vacation? But of course, after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Bush beat the drums of war, and our revenge (which is showing no signs of slowly down 9 years later) began in force. Whether Bush performed a noble and necessary action, or simply took our national credibility to the poker tables and lost most of it, will be debated in scholarly circles until the end of time. But he certainly did create a lot of gold star Army mothers.
From the very beginning, the two fronted war that has expanded throughout Iraq and Afghanistan seemed like a massive use of American resources. Aside from simply making our entire country seem like a child flailing angrily at unseen enemies in the shadows, many young lives have been lost to this war. And the fact that the American people are paying billions of dollars to do so is yet another sad legacy of Bush.
