Published: January 18, 2009 12:15 am      

LUCINSKI: Let’s hear it for the Dubya

With Inauguration Day ceremonies set for Tuesday, Obamania sweeping the land and the president-elect reaching close to cult-figure status, it’s time to take one more look at the man he’s replacing. This might be considered blasphemy in some quarters, but George W. Bush wasn’t all that bad.

Members of the not-so-loyal opposition never got over the fact that Bush was elected (not selected) in 2000 in one of the closest contests ever. It’s clear that had the Sept. 11, 2001 disaster not taken place, a systematic and concerted liberal effort would have been made to make sure that Bush would be a one-term president.

But September 11 did happen. Some would argue that the virtual ignoring of the terrorist threat by the Clinton administration throughout the 1990s led to the World Trade Center disaster. America rallied around the new president with job approval ratings that reached into the 90 percent range.

It, however, didn’t last. Bush took the fall for faulty intelligence that said weapons of mass destruction were being maintained in Iraq. He used that as the justification for the war there. A majority of Americans never forgave him for that.

That aside, Iraq was a war that had to be fought. There was unfinished business from the early ‘90s (ironically, the result of a decision by Bush’s father, President George H.W.) that needed to be taken care of. Bush the Elder declined to take the Gulf War to Baghdad. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant dictator of the first order and he needed to be eliminated. Dubya, and thousands of brave American armed service members, did it.

Here’s a what if: If we had the foresight and the guts in the 1930s to get rid of Hitler or Stalin before World War Two, should we have done it? In hindsight, many would say yes. We did it with Sadaam Hussein, regardless of the justification for going in.

Bush himself said he regrets some of the circumstances surrounding Iraq: The faulty intelligence, the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier when, as it turned out, the mission had just begun, the tragic loss of life, both American and Iraqi. But not only did we rid the world of Saddam Hussein; in a way we got a world-class monkey off our backs at the same time: Vietnam.

As one who lived through the Vietnam era, a time when America’s resolve to keep its commitments was being questioned within and abroad, it’s clear we needed to show the world that we would take a stand and follow through. We needed to regain our self-respect and the respect of the world.

By winning (yes, we won) in Iraq, we did just that. Oh, the weak-kneed America haters might say we’re bullies and we push our way around the world. But when you’re the only superpower, would you rather be loved or respected for your resolve? It’s a tough world out there. I’ll take respect any day.

Then there was Hurricane Katrina. Bush took the hit on that one as well, even though the feds need a formal invitation to come in to aid in an emergency. It’s the law.

But the buffoons actually running the show, the governor of Louisiana and mayor of New Orleans, had no clue. They had disaster scenarios on their office shelves for years that predicted what could happen. They chose to ignore the warnings and placed blame on Uncle Sam via George W. Bush when it all fell apart.

Was Dubya the worst president ever? There’s a lot of competition for that title (Warren G. Harding, Franklin Pierce). But it’s probably too early to tell just where the current leader might fit into the presidential spectrum. Witness what happened to Harry Truman.

The post-war president also had huge swings in his approval ratings while in office. When he left in 1953, we were in an unpopular war (Korea), had gone through some economic upheaval and his approval ratings were right around Bush’s current numbers, in the mid-30 percent range.

Two decades later, the rock group Chicago wrote and performed the lyrics, “America needs you, Harry Truman.” History had decided that Truman’s no-nonsense, straight-forward style and the decisions that he made were the right ones for America. We just didn’t know it at the time. Truman is consistently voted into the top 10 when it comes to rating the best American presidents.

History may also show that there have been challenges from the bad guys over the past few years that we currently haven’t been told about. And the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks on our soil since Sept. 11, 2001 may just be the ticket to realizing that George W. Bush might have been a whole lot better than we think. We just don’t know it right now.

Dick Lucinski is the managing editor on the Niagara Gazette. His columns appear on Wednesday and Sunday.