What the left doesn’t want to remember…

A Brief History of Bush’s Time

By Randall Hoven at The American Thinker

The current narrative of the Bush Presidency is that it is a failure (believed by 107 of 109 historians surveyed) and that George W. Bush is the worst President in history (believed by 61% of those surveyed historians). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “The president already has the mark of the American people — he’s the worst president we ever had.”

That’s one narrative. I have another.

Despite being handed one of the worst situations in history from President Clinton, and being fought tooth and nail by his opponents in government and the media, literally from the day of his election, President George W. Bush persevered to restore prosperity at home and to make the US and the world more free and secure.

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It’s Time to Pardon the Border Guards

from ARRA News Service

Eagle Forum: The end of President Bush’s final term is quickly approaching. Less than two months remain until he hands over the White House keys to Barack Obama, but we cannot let him leave office without resolving one very important issue: he must commute the prison sentences of convicted U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean!

Not only do we now know that the agents did not get a fair trial and that the prosecution’s case was based on the word and testimony of an illegal drug smuggler, but the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld their mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentences for “discharging a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence.” This law, Section 924(c) of the U.S. Code, has always been interpreted to apply to criminals, not law enforcement officers engaged in their official duties. Every U.S. citizen has the right to self defense, especially those serving in harm’s way.

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Bush says he was not ready for war upon taking office

Greatest regret was faulty intel on Saddam’s weapons
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press

In a surprisingly candid admission, President George W. Bush said that when he was elected to the White House he was not prepared to wage war and that one of his biggest regrets as president was the inaccurate intelligence upon which he based his decision to attack Iraq.

During an interview airing Monday night on ABC’s World News, Bush also expressed regret about the global economic crisis and said Barack Obama’s election was a repudiation of his policies and the Republican Party.

He also expressed remorse that the global financial crisis has cost jobs and harmed retirement accounts and said he’ll back more government intervention if needed to ease the recession.

“I’m sorry it’s happening, of course,” Bush said. “Obviously I don’t like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s. On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system. I mean, we’re in. And if we need to be in more, we will.”

The U.S. economy fell into a recession in December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research reported on Monday. Many economists believe the current downturn will last until the middle of 2009 and will be the most severe slump since the 1981-82 recession.

On the war in Iraq, Bush said the biggest regret of his presidency was the “intelligence failure” regarding the extent of the Saddam Hussein threat to the United States. With the support of Congress, Bush ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 — a decision largely justified on grounds — later proved false — that Saddam was building weapons of mass destruction.

Asked if he would have ordered the U.S.-led invasion if intelligence reports had accurately indicated that Saddam did not have the weapons, Bush replied: “You know, that’s an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can’t do. It’s hard for me to speculate.”

During a discussion about what Americans should know about what it is like to be president, Bush was asked what he was most unprepared for going into the office.

“I think I was unprepared for war,” he said. “In other words, I didn’t campaign and say, ‘Please vote for me, I’ll be able to handle an attack.’ In other words, I didn’t anticipate war. Presidents — one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen.”

On the presidential election, Bush called Barack Obama’s victory a “repudiation of Republicans.”

“I’m sure some people voted for Barack Obama because of me,” said Bush, who leaves office with low approval ratings. “I think most people voted for Barack Obama because they decided they wanted him to be in their living room for the next four years explaining policy. In other words, they made a conscious choice to put him in as president.”

As he leaves office, Bush said he felt responsible for the economic downturn because it’s occurring on his watch, but he added: “I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so” before he became president.

He said he would like to see “instant liquidity” in the markets given the extent of the financial rescue plan, yet he understands that fear has paralyzed the markets.

“It is hard for the average citizen to understand how frozen the system became and how over-leveraged the system became,” Bush said. “And so what we’re watching is the de-leveraging of our financial markets, which is obviously affecting the growth of the economy.”

Last week, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve pledged $800 billion to break through blockades on credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and other borrowing. The latest moves raised U.S. commitments to contain the financial crisis to nearly $7 trillion — though no one thinks the government will actually spend that much.

The figures include loans that are expected to be repaid, loan authorities to back mortgages, purchases of stock in banks, guarantees to support loans among banks and pledges backing other transactions.

“This economy will recover,” Bush said in the interview conducted last Wednesday at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat. “And when it recovers, many of the assets backed by the government now will be redeemed, and we will — could conceivably — make money off of some of the holdings.”

Later in the interview, he said: “I can’t guarantee that we’ll get all our money back, but it’s conceivable we could.”