Thank you #43, hello #44

After almost a year's absence, I'm resuming my review of the presidents. I'll be starting with William McKinley, and will post in February. I'll post a new one each month until I finish with Dubya, and then I'll write a preliminary assessment of Obama.

Got too intense for a while with too much politics, and I actually burned myself out. But no more. I have the itch to continue with this project, especially because I've added new books to my library on McKinley, FDR, Kennedy and Reagan.

So...


THANK YOU, #43, President George W. Bush, for your dedication, service and faithfulness!





And a hearty WELCOME to #44, Barack H. Obama!

(Note: I don't have the photo credits for any of the above. The photos are AP or the White House, while the images were passed along on the internet. If anyone knows the proper credit for the last two, please let me know.)

I thought this was a pretty cool event: five presidents (well, one soon-to-be when this was taken) meeting in the Oval Office. From left: George H. W. Bush (#41), Barack Obama (#44), George W. Bush (#43), Bill Clinton (#42) and Jimmy Carter (#39). The last time this many presidents were together was for, I think, Nixon's funeral in the mid-1990s.

G.W. Visits the Original G.W.'s Home

On Presidents Day, President Bush paid tribute to the first president, George Washington, at his beloved Mount Vernon. Bush made quite an interesting speech, one that no doubt left some in the media smirking at his comparisons to the present war to the Revolutionary War. Indeed, I was admittedly taken aback, until I read the speech.

He visits Washington’s Mount Vernon and identifies with Washington in a way that’s difficult for you or me: persevering over the course of a long struggle, being the man in charge but faced with set-backs, a difficult congress, a tenacious enemy, a largely unfriendly or indifferent world, and a nation divided over success or failure.

Does this mean that the Revolution and the GWOT (war against Islamic fascists, including the fight in Iraq) are the same? Hardly. Each war is different.

It’s just that Bush is finding common ground with Washington. It’s not unusual for presidents to do this. FDR, for example, found common ground with Jefferson’s grand themes of liberty for the common man when he was locked in the titanic struggle against the Nazis, Italian fascists and Imperial Japanese.

Remember, Bush is a man who sees in grand themes. He doesn’t see minutia, which is what his critics continually harp on. And sure, that causes him to stumble and make mistakes, or not respond forcefully to liberals, Democrats and media who richly deserve to be slapped down for their continual attacks against him since December 2000.