The Good President [continued]

A few days ago I noted Stanley Fish's observation that history is already beginning to look upon the Bush presidency with a great deal more affection than contemporary critics could imagine. Jules Crittenden chimes in to say that he, too, misses Bush:

I miss the deliberativeness. The plain talk and lack of B.S. The heart-on-his-sleeve values. The ability to tell, most of the time, what really mattered, and the determination to keep the caravan moving, no matter how loud the dogs barked. The bipartisanship … even when, like that immigration thing, it was flawed. Fish notes the emerging consensus that maybe something good has been accomplished in Iraq. I suspect that before too much more history plays out, he’ll emerge as a visionary. A tortured one, ironically enough. Even a great president, who when handed great challenges, didn’t flinch from them, was willing to fight and understood like great presidents past that surrender wasn’t an option. Who took a lot of bad situations, did what he could to turn them around, and was remarkably successful … to the betterment of generations alive now and yet unborn, here and elsewhere.

I started missing all of it a while ago.* Almost before he was gone … though unlike one president I could name, he never really had a lame-duck period, no matter how often all those commentators kept prematurely announcing it.

Read the whole thing here.

Well said! Few presidents in our history can look back upon a record of accomplishment to match that of which Dubya could boast, that is, if he was a boasting man.