Column: Bush not an error

By: Greg Sainer/Columnist

Posted: 11/18/08

I would like to begin today by giving my congratulations to President-elect Barack Hussein Obama. This has been said many times, but it is still worth repeating: His election as the first African-American president is a huge achievement, and shows how far our country has come since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln. With that said, I would like to discuss the man Obama is succeeding: President George W. Bush.

There has probably been no president more ridiculed and mocked in his presidency by liberals and satirists alike than President Bush, other than perhaps Herbert Hoover or Richard Nixon. But the scorn hurled against those men pale in comparison to the length of the hostility Bush has had to face in his eight years as president and I would like to refute the claim that the inauguration of Obama will be the "end of an error."

First, despite the worries President Bush caused over personal freedoms with the enactment of the Patriot Act and other policies in the wake of 9/11, there has not been a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil since. According to the Heritage Foundation, nineteen terrorist attacks have been prevented since President Bush began redirecting resources and priorities in counter-terrorism operations and efforts. Some of these attacks include several separate attempts to bomb major buildings or institutions such as the Sears Tower and the New York Stock Exchange, along with the famous prevention of the Liquid Explosives Plot of Aug.2006 that would have exploded up to 10 airliners over major cities.

Secondly, even though the economy is in a bind right now, for a time the stock market saw its highest index levels ever under President Bush's economic policies. While job growth has been somewhat stagnant, and the federal deficit has regrettably risen, Bush's tax cuts for income and capital gains appear to have brought forth more investment that has helped raise the stock market to its new levels, which have only been brought down by the recent housing and credit crises.

Thirdly, President Bush's decision to go into Iraq has ended up being the right thing to do. A not very widely publicized story from this past July on msnbc.com reported that a secret mission had flown the last of Saddam Hussein's remaining "yellowcake" uranium out of Iraq and into the hands of the U.S. This version of uranium is able to be used for nuclear enrichment and therefore creating the possibility of building nuclear weapons, which is one reason why we invaded Iraq in the first place. This finding, along with the establishment of a democratic government and the near elimination of insurgency attacks more than prove that we have won the war in Iraq. As a result, President Bush's insistence that we invade Iraq was the right decision.

Although President Bush may not have been the most well-liked man to be president of the United States, his actions and efforts prove that his presidency was anything but an error.

Greg Sainer is a freshman chemistry major. He can be reached at 581-7942 or at DENopinions@gmail.com.