No articles, no starter opinion, just asking your thoughts....

What, in your opinion, will be Bush's legacy?

Will history books 50 years hence be kinder, in hindsight, or will he continue to be vilified as one of the most controversial Presidents in history? Will the Iraq War define him, or is there a larger context of the times and the so-called "neocon" movement that casts an unfair light?

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"Oh, bother", said Pooh, as he chambered another round...

To be perfectly honest...the Iraq War will be his legacy. The events leading up to it, the duration, the after-effects, the change in the world as a result, will all go down to his shoulders and his successors. This War will define not only his presidency, but will be the legacy of Today's America.

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War in Iraq and record debt. I suspect the second will be as big as the first since it will take generations to pay it off. Also, the slow peeling away fo american rights and liberties - not sure how much that will be acknowledged. We now accept as a given that the federal govt has the right to spy on us without a warrant, to imprison us without habeus corpus - so many things we objected to in the soviet union we now do.

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Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

It will be the Iraq war. Whether that will be a positive, or a negative legacy won't be known for many years to come.

It will be the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.

This is a bit old, but its very realistic

World Politics Review | Elements of the Bush Doctrine Will Outlive the Bush Presidency

10,000s of neocon officials occupy the pentagon and state dept. They have been there for decades, and will be there after an Obama administration. I fear that Obama will be like Bush and veil his geopolitical endeavors in pithy speech about freedom and democracy a la Bush. It almost makes one prefer McCain's hawkishness if only because talk of "100 years" is more realistic than Obama's promise to leave no permanent military presence save a contingent to protect our sizable embassy and conduct counter-terrorism operations within Iraq.

Consider this: why do liberals accuse deception at Iraq but not Afghanistan? Where are the demands for withdrawal from Afghanistan? Both operations are drawn from the same playbook, both were sold in the post 9/11 climate.

Both are strategic footholds, powerful ones. Here is what they achieve geopolitically: mideast energy regime is held in balance. Russia and China are cornered into their respective spheres. The Pakistanis are pressured into fighting home-grown terrorists. India will be further weaned from Russian influence as she finds herself preferring the US scheme of things.

American deaths in Iraq will fluctuate as tactics succeed and fail. McCain speaks to tactics whenever he says casualties, but with "100 year presence" it is all strategy. He opposed Rumsfeld experiment with a streamlined army during OIF's invasion, and so was delighted at the surge, and moreso when casualties reduced subsequently (as if the facts on the grounds in summer 2007 were analogous to those during the invasion). That is his chief pitch for victory in Iraq: people disappointed with Bush's conduct of the war will find McCain to be a wiser military mind, and indeed he may be. In reality, Bush merely deferred to his advisors, and McCain would do the same 99% of the time, as will Obama (maybe ~98% of the time).

Foreign policy-wise, the choice between McCain and Obama is thus one between a soldier who will lobby the American public to preemptively confront geopolitical threats per the Bush Doctrine, and a civilian who will be overwhelmed by embedded neocon interests, compelled to sell the US's foreign policy moves as something other than what they are for political survival, like Bush has.

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Take the road less travelled -

I say my mother's dead, but I don't care about it
I say my father's dead, but I don't care about it
It happens anyway
It happens anyway
On the edge of Burma
We're on the edge of Burma

Our history books will paint him in a brighter light. At lease the books our public schools use. They have a habit of painting any of America's problems in a brighter light.

That's not true, Buchanan is seen as a poor president for how he dealt with Young in Utah and the South leaving the union in current history books, or at least my highschool's book (Granted, Bush is not as bad as Buchanan). He probably won't be seen in good light, although I doubt they will try to show him as a bad guy. He'll be like Polk in the future, there but forgotten.

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I went to a few different schools and they were nicer about the events than actuality. Sugar coating would be a good word. In one of my college reports I included changes that occur in a major public school publisher.

I guess what I am really saying is that it will depend on the history book that you look at.

True. Maybe I just read more in school than I remembered. I like American Civil War History so I may have read different books than my classmates. History is in the eye of the beholder sometimes, which sucks sometimes.

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Non concupisces domum proximi tui; nec desiderabis uxorem eius, non servum, non ancillam, non bowem, non asinum, nec omnia quae illius sunt.

History is written by the victor - I suspect Bush will compare unfavorable to Hoover and Harding. I don't think any president quite managed the combination of stupidity, cupidity and cronyism that Bush used to drive the country over the cliff. So\mehow I suspect the folks who have to clean up the mess will not regard him highly.

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Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies