A KIND WORD FOR BUSH

Posted at 8:42 a.m. ET

Bush Derangement Syndrome has not been cured.  Sadly, the vaccine, rumored to be in the testing stage, was not ready in time to benefit the president while he's still in office.  The usual carriers are still out there, spreading the disease, even making it worse as they await the coming of the New Age of Obama.

But some rational voices are being heard.  For the second time in two days, talk-show host Mike Scully alerts us to some very good stuff.  Nile Gardiner, a British conservative in the Thatcher tradition, has written a fine piece in London's Telegraph pointing out some of the positive things about the Bush presidency:

On much of the world stage, President Bush has been widely reviled as one of the worst U.S. leaders of modern times, and it is hard to think of an American president who has received a worse press since Richard Nixon...

...Some of the criticism of Bush's foreign policy is fair.

But...

Much of the condemnation of his policies though is driven by a venomous hatred of Bush's personality and leadership style, rather than an objective assessment of his achievements. Ten or twenty years from now, historians will view Bush's actions on the world stage in a more favourable light. America's 43rd president did after all directly liberate more people (over 60 million) from tyranny than any leader since Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It's time someone said that, and said it well.

Widely seen as his biggest foreign policy error, the decision to invade Iraq could ultimately prove to have been a masterstroke. Today the world is witnessing the birth of the first truly democratic state in the Middle East outside of Israel...

...The success of the surge in Iraq will go down in history as a turning point in the war against al-Qaeda. The stunning defeat of the insurgency was a major blow both militarily and psychologically for the terror network. The West's most feared enemy suffered thousands of losses in Iraq, including many of their most senior commanders, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Qaswarah. It was the most successful counter-insurgency operation anywhere in the world since the British victory in Malaya in 1960.

This man may need personal protection after this article.

The broader war against Islamist terrorism has also been a success. There has not been a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11...

But, of course, this argument only appeals to those who value human life, which leaves out the left-wing fringe.

Significantly, there have been no successful terrorist attacks in Europe since the July 2005 London bombings, in large part due to the cooperation between U.S., British and other Western intelligence agencies. American intelligence has proved vital in helping prevent an array of planned terror attacks in the UK, a striking demonstration of the value to Britain of its close ties to Washington.

It's good to see a British writer acknowledging that.

Tony Blair may well have been labeled Bush's "poodle" over his support for the war in Iraq, but his partnership with George W. Bush marked the high point of the Anglo-American alliance since the heady days of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Hooray again.  Those were indeed heady days, and they contributed mightily to the fall of the Soviet Union, for which the left will never forgive Reagan and Thatcher.

The decision by Bush, with Blair's support, to sweep the Taliban out of Afghanistan was a brilliant move, one that not all U.S. presidents would have taken. A weaker leader would have gone to the United Nations Security Council and sought a negotiated settlement with Kabul.

Does the name Kerry come to mind?  Obama?  We hope not.

If superpowers do not demonstrate an ability and a willingness to wield power (as Britain did on numerous occasions at the height of the Empire) their hegemony will be increasingly challenged. President Bush exercised U.S. military power to stunning effect in both Iraq and Afghanistan, an important reminder that America was still a force to be reckoned with after the 1990s humiliation of Somalia and the half-hearted missile strikes against Bin Laden in Sudan. In an age of growing threats and challenges, the projection of hard power matters, and America's next president would be wise to take heed.

Good thoughts.  Please send to Barack Obama, the White House, Washington, and mark "hold for arrival."

January 2, 2009.