George W. Bush’s credibility has more holes it than one of Dick Cheney’s hunting partners. In 2009, following eight years of misrule, the axis-of incompetence finally vacated the White House; the world breathed a sigh of relief. Today, the Bush administration’s reputation may be worth less than a share of Enron’s stock selling on E-bay, but there are still some apologists who insist that the decisions Bush made in office will be vindicated by posterity. However, Bush vs. History makes a virtually irrefutable case showing why George W. Bush is destined to join the ranks of James Buchanan, Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover, Andrew Johnson, and Warren Harding in the cellar of presidential ignominy. To date, Bush has managed to escape the legal and moral reckoning for his lawless and criminally negligent tenure. However, the verdict of history is one thing Bush will not be able to evade. Bush vs. History pieces together essays, op-ed style articles, book and film reviews, and political humor organized around a central theme: showing how and why Bush failed the test of presidential leadership. Themes explored include: Bush and the Art of Leadership, Bush and Language, Bush’s Faith-Based Foreign Policy, Bush Economics, Bush and the Art of War, Bush and Torture, and Why the Right is Wrong for America. In 2000, James Baker III, Bush family consigliore, and one of the finest sophists in our nation’s history, led an effort that eventually convinced the conservative majority on the U.S Supreme Court to effectively overturn the will of the electorate. Baker’s rhetorical skills were so beguiling that he probably could have used them to sell one-way tickets aboard a Russian submarine. However, it is now abundantly clear that those who engineered Bush’s victory in the infamous Bush vs. Gore decision helped steer this country towards disaster. Today, it is doubtful that even James Baker could salvage Bush’s reputation. Bush vs. Gore was a watershed in American history. For everyone who was outraged by Bush vs. Gore, Bush vs. History delivers what the aforementioned case failed to do; a measure of poetic justice.

1. The Case Against the Axis of Incompetence

2. In 2000, George W. Bush become president after prevailing in a disputed
election. Bush had received fewer votes than his opponent nationally, but on
election night he was ahead in the crucial state of Florida (where the decisive
slate of Electoral College votes lay). A mandatory recounted was undertaken
the following day. Once again, Bush prevailed, but his margin had shrunk
considerably. Thousands of machine unreadable ballots were not included in
the final tally. Other irregularities, such as improper purging of voter rolls, cast
a cloud on the validity of Bush’s margin of “victory.”

3. Gore sued to force further recounts in democratic-leaning counties. Bush and
his allies insisted that Gore’s move was an effort to steal the election. The
failure of Gore to push for a state-wide recount was a strategic, legal, and
moral blunder. In all probability, a majority of Florida’s voters had attempted
to cast their ballots for Gore, but an accumulation of systemic problems,
irregularities, and sheer luck had tipped the balance in Bush’s favor. 9 out of
10 voting experts agreed that a statewide manual recount was the most
accurate way to ascertain the will of the electorate. However, the Bush
campaign had little to gain and potentially a lot to lose if the recount efforts
proceeded.

4. The Bush campaign made every effort to delay, discredit, and derail the
recount effort. Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court intervened to put
an end to the recount. Voting along partisan lines, the Court agreed with Ted
Olson’s argument that Bush could suffer irreparable harm if the recount
proceeded because tabulating votes in different counties according to
different standards violated the Equal Protection Clause. In fact, at this point
the “irreparable harm” Bush supposedly would suffer was hypothetical and
political not legal. As Justice Stevens later noted, the Supreme Court really
had no firm legal basis for hearing Bush’s case.

5. The reasoning the majority used in deciding Bush vs. Gore was ad hoc at
best . In his elegant dissent, Justice Stevens wrote:
“Time will one day heal the wound . . . inflicted by today's decision. One
thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete
certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the
identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge
as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."

6. Former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, who sided with the
Majority in Bush v. Gore, has since acknowledged misgivings about the
Supreme Court’s involvement in the 2000 election:
Maybe the court should have said, 'We're not going to take it, goodbye.'"
"Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a
decision," she continued. "It turned out the election authorities in Florida
hadn't done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the
Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day."

7. The 2000 election was a fiasco. From a legal and moral standpoint, the
wrong man was sworn in. However, if George W. Bush had governed
effectively, then questions about his legitimacy might have subsided. As it
happened, Bush’s tenure is widely regarded by as a catastrophe. His
disastrous decision to invade and occupy Iraq, his unsteady performance
following Hurricane, and the financial crisis that unfolded during Bush’s final
months in office are just a few of the monumental blemishes on Bush’s
record. Today, and for the foreseeable future, Bush is so reviled even within
his own party that he is not welcome at the Republican Convention.

8. Bush is a shrewd politician and a surprisingly keen student of history. Bush is
a great admirer of the legendary Texas governor, Sam Houston. Houston was
vilified in his day, but the decisions and judgments he made have been
vindicated by posterity. In all likelihood, Bush earnestly believes that his
reputation improve with time. As I’ll explain, Bush’s hope for vindication is
almost certainly in vain.

9. Bush’s decision to invade and Occupy Iraq was one of the most
consequential foreign policy debacles in American history. The Bush
administration hoped that removing the dictator Saddam Hussein could help
usher in a wave of Democratic transformation that would sweep the Middle
East. Instead, more than a decade later Iraq has become a failed state ruled
by a sectarian authoritarian, Nouri al-Maliki, who has shown greater loyalty to
Tehran than Washington. As Iraq disintegrates, the entire region is being
consumed by ethnic conflict, proxy wars, and Islamic militias. In short, Iraq,
Syria, and other neighboring states are splintering. In the process, vast
regions are becoming lawless territories and spawning grounds for terrorists.
All the efforts America made in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming to naught.

10. Rudyard Kipling once observed that great powers should avoid becoming
entangled in tribal affairs. The historian Arnold Toynbee made a
complimentary observation when he noted that imperial powers that try to
transform far off regions rarely succeed. In contrast, Toynbee argued that
great powers succeed when they transform themselves from within.
Following, 9/11, the United States needed to transform its energy habits. For
example, high petroleum prices and America’s dependence on Middle
Eastern oil helped prop up authoritarian regimes allied with the United States.
This kind of arrangement help feed resentment of America.

11. A Manhattan Project aimed at harnessing solar and alternative fuels of the
future would have been a far better investment than the trillions of dollars
America wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan (Not to mention, the precious life and
limb of America’s service men and women, who were squandered in the futile
efforts to transform the Middle East). We cannot be sure that Al Gore would
have taken this approach, but he clearly recognized the folly of the Iraq War
and the insanity of borrowing money from China so we could afford tax cuts
for the wealthy and a major war to control Iraq’s oil fields at the same time.

12. As the historian Will Durant noted, “ a great civilization is not conquered from
without until it has destroyed itself from within. In 2008, when Bush left office
the country was facing a financial freefall. It had squandered trillions in Iraq
while failing to address global warming or the need to develop the alternative
fuels of the future. As the reality of global warming increasingly becomes
undeniable, the reputation of the administration of George W. Bush will sink
further and deeper. As Gore rightly noted about the Bush Administration, “Ye
shall know them by their fruits.” The 2000 election was indeed a bitter pill to
swallow.

13. For a deeper (and humorous) look at why the Bush Administration will be
judged a failure check out my book “Bush vs. History.”
Available on Kindle at Amazon