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How will they say goodbye to Dubya? |
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Written by Al Hollingsworth
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Saturday, 08 November 2008 |
As the countdown begins for the swearing in of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United Sates of America, the mainstream media will continue their assault on the departing George W. Bush. For when it comes to Dubya, it is a case of “no holds barred”, with little or no evidence of balance in the reporting and the opinion pieces.
Let’s face it, he’s an easy target. For example, according to Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, a total of 58 books have been written about George W, forty-seven of them classified as negative. Think Bush and four little letters come to mind - i-r-a-q.
Of the three books on the outgoing President that I have read, I would recommend Kitty Kelley’s The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty. The Bush family didn’t like it but I found it fairly balanced. Certainly informative.
Kelley’s opening chapters introduce us to Ohio railroad executive and steel company head Samuel Bush, Dubya’s great-grandfather. Subsequent pages follow the Bush family dynasty right up to current times. The connecting thread throughout, to no one’s surprise, are politics and the Republican Party.
The Bush saga at first plays out within the back rooms of government, then fast forwards to open involvement in the system, with the election of Prescott Bush to the United States Senate. GWH Bush’s father, Prescott, played a critical role in convincing General Dwight David Eisenhower to seek the presidency of the United Sates. Prescott is also reputed to have had strong ties to Hitler and the Nazis. Another subject for another time.
What is revealing as you read through the more than 1,000 pages (before you groan with boredom, I bought the big print edition) are how connections established in the late 1800s and early 1900s remain in place to this day.
I am no Bush apologist, and were I eligible to vote in the US electoral process, my ballot would never support a Republican run for office. I also freely admit to have taken my turn in dissing Bush’s eight years in Washington both privately and publicly. But let’s be reasonable - George W. Bush is not all bad. And any thinking person must certainly take issue with those who demonize the 43rd US President, portraying him as practically in the same league as Hitler or even the anti-christ.
Without a doubt, I believe that Bush was ill-advised to invade Iraq. It was simply wrong and has already cost tens of thousands of lives. He and Dick Cheney will have to live with that until they depart this world.
That being said, and on balance, there has not been a single act of terrorism on US soil since President Bush, after a rather shaky start, stepped up following 9/11 and introduced tough homeland security measures.
No, his mistake was taking the fight abroad. Not only did this decision cost lives, it has played a big part in the crippling of the economy.
Reading about the Bush family helped to erase a lot of the negative opinion I had of the clan. Quite frankly, Dubya comes off as a rather likeable “good ol’ boy”, someone I might even like to spend some time with. Hey, he owned a big league baseball team, so he can’t be all bad! Yes, he sowed a lot of wild oats in his early years but, he found two things that set him on the straight and narrow; Laura and Jesus Christ, and in that order.
Bush met a strong willed Laura Welch, the sole surviving heir to the Welch Grape company in 1975. Two years later they married - Jesus came a bit later. Give thanks to the mighty Laura and the Almighty, for I shudder to think what the world would have been like under the guidance of the younger George W. Bush.
So how will history judge the eight years George W. Bush spent in the White House? Today’s wholesale media attacks may not in the end reflect the final judgments of scholars and historians, as they examine and analyze the roughly 2,920 days he spent in guiding the Super Power called the United States of America. It will be a fascinating study and someday, an even more fascinating read.
(Al Hollingsworth is a retired journalist and broadcaster)
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