Petraeus as Man of the Year? Think Again.

AMERICAN THINKER'S Christopher Chantrill slaps the forehead and makes the case in Man of the Year: President Bush

To quote, Time editors choose:

the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

The answer is pretty obvious. It is President George W. Bush. He is not just Man of the Year. He is Man of the Decade. Whether it was the contested election of 2000, the response to 9/11, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the "mess in Iraq," and the surge, the guy in the middle was President Bush. Whether it's the success of the 2003 tax cuts, the mess of No Child Left Behind, or the gigantic expansion of Medicare, the go-to guy is President Bush.

That liberals don't like him is obvious. Bush, Chantrill argues, operates "in the world of grown-ups as opposed to the adolescent world of taxpayer-funded liberal sinecures." But Chantrill also scorns the clusters of conservatives that seem to have found the time and leisure to dislike Bush in their lust to disembowel themselves in next year's election:

"Conservatives are disappointed in President Bush. He hasn't advanced our program of reform as far as we would have liked, and we grumble that Ronald Reagan would have done better. We probably underestimate the achievements of Bush and overestimate the legacy of Reagan."

I join with Chantrill in this estimate and have some hope that conservatives are done with their pouting in time to reverse some of the serious losses that their attitude brought them in 2006. It's disconcerting to see them continue to ride off into the sunset in their 1960 Blue Huffmobile with the Goldwater hood ornament.

I find myself in disagreement with Chantrill's assessment of the main threat to the President's legacy:

"Yet all of his achievements and mistakes thus far may count for nothing. This holiday season the ship of state is tossing in a perilous mortgage meltdown. Will President Bush manage to navigate the economy through the narrow channel between the Scylla of credit collapse and the Charybdis of ruinous inflation?"

I don't find myself nearly as concerned about the economic doom scenario attached to the housing implosion. A movement that makes housing more affordable, that attaches some rational measure of perceived value to a major asset does not strike me as a bad thing. I remember the last spate of "ruinous inflation" in the 1980s. I can't see that sort of rise rising up out of cheaper housing, nor can I see mortgage rates moving north of 10%, much less north of 15%. And even if the 1980s inflation were to appear again like some hulking Frankenstein at the wedding feast, it takes years to grow that sort of monster.

To my mind, the nuclear fireball in the middle of the American city that has the heat of the heart of the sun is still the largest threat to "the Bush legacy." And if that happens, your inability to get a jumbo mortgage will be the least of your problems.... and the world's. If that happens, the only damage to the Bush legacy will not be that he did too much, but that he did far, far too little.

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Posted by Vanderleun at December 30, 2007 10:14 PM | TrackBack
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