Not the Worst President

Tomorrow at noon, the eight-year reign of President George Walker Bush will come to an end. Many will celebrate Bush's final day as president, and some will look back in reverence in his historic, albeit turbulent, tenure. I have often disagreed with most of the outgoing president's policies. But the elastic thinker is all about fairness and hearing all points of view. And so this special inauguration edition will discuss why President Bush is not the worst president. Here are 5 reasons (yes, I was able to think of five) why I think history will ultimately have a forgiving look back on the 43rd president.

1. Democracy in the Middle East - the war in Iraq was a blunder that I opposed from the outset. But just as seeing American soldiers and Iraqis lose their lives is upsetting, the rise of a fledgling democracy in Iraq is certainly troubling to the autocratic regimes that surround it. Iraq, of course, has its own unique history and ethno-religious divisions that make it more conducive to civil war. But the anarchic unrest of that country could be a looking glass into the future for the other governments in the region that have long suppressed democratic forces. The neocons in the Pentagon were wrong about the war, but may end up with a favorable result down the road.

2. Nuclear cooperation with India - President Bush is the first U.S. leader to seriously engage with the world's largest democracy and formally establish strong economic and security ties with what I see as a key long-term ally in Asia for the United States. Though the U.S.-India nuclear agreement, ratified in 2008, would seem to blaspheme all international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation - it signals the Bush White House's acceptance of India's legitimate use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and its responsible custody of nuclear weapons. This new relationship between India and the U.S. will pay great dividends.

3. The fight for immigration reform - Bush was often the lone member of his party willing to accept sweeping immigration reform that was practical and acklowledged that the U.S. economy cannot function without migrant labor. Other Republicans were too worried about their electoral standing to take a real, hard look at the issue and instead took the hard, anti-immigrant line typical of the far right wing. The immigration reform bill died.

4. Taking on North Korea - this is more a credit specifically to the U.S. State Department envoy Christopher Hill, but the Bush Administration largely succeeded in breaking the impasse with nuclear North Korea. The administration smartly conducted multilateral (six-party) talks at times and bilateral talks at other times. The end result was the first tangible commitment (at least at that time) from North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

5. He united us before dividing us - 9/11/01 galvanized the United States. Bush united the country behind a common purpose. He later squandered the goodwill earned among nations after the attacks, but the positive aspects of Bush's legacy, I believe, will be his response to 9/11. It all went downhill from there, though.

Exit Poll

There's something about crossing the River Thames at sunrise on November 5, 2008.

It is not the view of the east, where an ailing, once-venerable financial district that controlled the world's affairs for two centuries sits, awaiting the storms of the current times to pass.

Or to the west, the seat of Parliament, where MPs and PMs have tried to re-tool a fragile economic and political system, awaiting the emergence of someone on America's shores to take leadership in solving a crisis that was largely America's doing.

But something in the rising sun on the horizon of a country foreign to my own, the morning after an important election, makes me so proud to be from the United States of America.

Senator and President-elect Barack Obama has a lot to do to prove to the United States that his pledges for "hope" and "change" can be followed through with. But his resounding victory is a signal that the great nation of the U.S. has come to its senses.

Sen. Obama's speech, with figures such as Jesse Jackson - who laughed and cried with the great Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy - letting the tears flow, was an inspiring spectacle. It makes me not only speculate, but know, that my 4-year-old niece, and her children, will understand the truly global world that we have come to experience, and will see it possible to run for office and make a change if she is inspired to do so. And it will be so not because she may be a Democrat or Independent or Republican, but because she is American.

Still, there were the panes of bullet-proof glass shielding President Obama in Chicago's Grant Park from the realities he will encounter over the next four, perhaps eight, years. He will face white supremacists, a weakened but nonetheless fierce Republican opposition and a skeptical right-leaning segment of the populace. On Day One in office, January 21, 2009, the Obama dream campaign will necessarily transition to painful reality - when Sen. Obama must address the immediate concerns of two costly wars in western and central Asia and a financial crisis that has already affected the world in ways unprecedented.

The achievements of Obama's opponent, Sen. John McCain, must not go unnoticed. In fact, Sen. Obama's gift of oratory was often matched by that of Sen. McCain -- and it was no more apparent during the campaign than during Sen. McCain's classy, respectful concession speech from the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.

I have a very dear friend in the U.S. Army, who is a centrist Republican and McCain supporter. And for his sake, I do feel some sadness that Sen. McCain, a man whom I also rooted for in 2000, seems to have reached his pinnacle and political destiny, without reaching the office he so deserved -- primarily because he emerged when an even more formidable electoral force emerged in the campaign of Sen. Obama. And Sen. McCain picked a horribly inept running mate.

John McCain was truly a maverick, a voice of reason for a party that had increasingly catered to the whims of a far-right religious coalition and a war-frenetic military-industrial complex that exploited the U.S. Constitution to expand executive and extra-judiciary power under President George W. Bush. Sen. McCain was a true patriot, one of the few public servants who could stand in front of a crowd and provide cold, hard evidence that he is a "maverick" worthy of such a distinction. He braved the cruelty of war for several years, and those of us like myself who complain about cold weather or untimely subway trains can learn a thing or two from a man who suffered in prison camps and came out a strong survivor. John McCain is just as deserving of the presidency as any other public servant, and is as intellectually and politically astute as any politician. He was never given much credit for that, and I think such credit is due.

For that, I can express my hopefulness not only in Sen. Obama's victory, but the fact that a man like Sen. John McCain was finally able to get his due shot at the U.S. presidency. It reflects America's return to common-sense and dignified politics, even if it got nasty toward the end, as it always does. America's best made it to the top, and had a fair chance to win over the American public's imagination. At the age of 72, Sen. McCain likely will never run for president again. But he, like Sen. Obama, will continue to inspire myself and millions of others to fight for what is true and just.

President Obama, let's get to work. There is much to be done, and the whole world, including the great city on The Thames, is watching and waiting.

"Vote for Me" Brought to you by...

Sen. Barack Obama will soon deliver a 30-minute address on television - it's technically an advertisement ($150 million in new campaign money can buy a heck of a lot), but it is clearly Obama's last big campaign push before the election (FINALLY).

Notwithstanding your political views, do you think this is ethical? Should John McCain be given a similar opportunity to provide his own life story and offer his own campaign message, uninterrupted for one half hour?

http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/10/obama-ad-may-ha.html

My pro-1st Amendment stance tells me it should be OK, but at the same time, Obama will likely reach a broad collction of voters/TV viewers with this ad. Should McCain have the same opportunity even though he lacks the cash?

Credit Crunch: The world's new soggy cereal

OK - I have some catching up to do. Like many of my self-initiated assignments, this blog started off with a momentous roar and then retreated with a whimper. Maybe it's that while I try to adjust to a new school and new city, the world is encountering new challenges each day that a word written about it in one minute is outdated the next.

We now know that the financial crisis is cascading to Europe, like a massive fan "wave" at a college football game. This really is the test of our time, perhaps more devastating than 9/11 in both its real economic and psychological impacts -- and the numbers are starting to come out as to what the impact on households will look like. It took America a couple of years to recover from 9/11, and it will likely take a lot longer when all the dust settles and the Congress settles on permanent legislation to regulate the evolving financial sector.

In one hour, the American presidential candidates will spar for the second of three times before Nov. 4, and for the first time since Gov. Sarah Palin accused Sen. Barack Obama of "palling with terrorists." It's an outrageous but certainly answerable claim, considering her source was The New York Times, which, undoubtedly to the dismay of the Obama campaign, Gov. Palin (or her speechwriters) most likely was reading for the first time when the article appeared.

Those are my "brain droppings" (RIP George Carlin) for now. Check back for a couple write-ups soon on recent lectures I attended here at the LSE. This truly is an amazing place; 160 countries represented, and lectures and professors that cover almost everything under the sun.