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Thursday, January 8, 2009 12:00 AM

W. and the damage done

President Bush inherited a peaceful, prosperous America. As he exits, Salon consults experts in seven fields to try to assess the devastation.

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  • Thursday, January 8, 2009 06:40 AM

    Tell the truth

    1) Bush inherited a recession. After the election, he tried to warn the country of an impending economic turndown. That was poo-pooed. It did not come for months, but the dot-com bubble popped. 2) Bush inherited a feckless mid-east policy. You may remember the "Cole." But then you seem to have forgotten 9/11.

    As a matter of fact, you seem to have forgotten the Iranian hostage crisis and Carter's weak response, which began all this, that along with Carter's growing hostility to Israel, the strong horse in the region, for its unwillingness to accept Carter's pacifist platitudes. His secretary of state is still out there, trying to revise history.

    But back to 1). Everyone seems to have forgot that from 2001-2003 the Democrats controlled the Senate, and that afterwards they with the aid of "moderate" Republicans were able to checkmate many of Bush's iniatives. His efforts, however, mild, to reign in Fran and Fred, were fought strongly by Chris and Barney, and a herd of lobbyists. Bush made many mistakes, especially in his attachment to a weak dollar and probably his bailout measures , but nothing is gained for the future by lying about the complicity of the Democrats in the present mess. A myth is being created about Bush as one was created about Hoover, which serves the Democrats and gives them cover for all sorts of things. Which is a danger, because it makes possible, Smoot-Hawley-type measures which, we now know, was the worst thing that could have been done.

    So scape-goating is an exercise in rhetoric. I down save us from anything. Buchanan did not start the Civil War: Lincoln did. Hoover did not start the Depression; he just couldn't stop it, in part because he did the wrong stuff. I submit that Obama not stands in a position

    that Hoover did in the spring of 1930 when his basic instincts and public pressure was telling him to "act, act, act." So he did and only made things worse by acting. You critics of Bush

    say that he only made things worse by acting as he did in the Middle East. If You believe what you said, then you ill be pushing Obama to be cautious. Things are not always as they seem.

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