Bush's record is largely void of accomplishments. He did a pretty good job keeping the country secure, although he handled it about as poorly as possible, and the American public hates him for it. He pretty much tarred and feathered America's good name across the world as well. At least Obama might undo some or all of that damage.
But other than that he has done very little good for America unless you are in the top tax brackets. His education reforms have been a joke, ask anyone who works in education. He rolled back a lot of the advances in environmental reform. He did little or nothing to fix the Social Security and healthcare problems. He turned the Supreme Court further right (which is a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it). He handled Katrina very poorly, (but at least handled the most recent hurricane adequately well).
But the worst thing he did was how he tried to usurp so many powers of the other branches of government. Such levels of "cronyism" in his appointments to judicial positions and his abuse of power over the U.S. Attorney's office has been unprecedented. Bush tried to circumvent the Constitution at every step of the way. He turned the federal government into his own political plaything.
Bush is a perfect example of what not to do as a President unless you want the American people to hate you. He went from record approval ratings to record approval ratings (highest approval to lowest approval). I am not sure if he has bottomed out to Nixon's nadir yet, but he is within 1-2% points if he hasn't already.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
