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It's popular to rip George W. these days. Like every President before him, he made his fair share of mistakes. However, there are a couple of things that I would like to clear up regarding W's legacy as we say goodbye to our 43rd.
First of all, the recent subprime-mortgage-turned-bank meltdown cannot rationally be blamed on him. Nothing bothers me more than when someone says something along the lines of "Look where this economy is right now because of his failed policies!" Listen up, this collapse is traced back all the way to the Community Reinvestment Act, passed during Jimmy Carter's administration. This legislation was designed to encourage commercial banks to lend to all segments of their communities, especially low-income neighborhoods. As we all know, a profitable business practiced by a bank would be to lend money to those who are likely to pay it back. At some point in recent time, our society decided that everyone has the right to own a home. Individuals should not own things they cannot afford. Seems simple enough, right?
Then the Clinton administration pushed it even harder. Here. We ended up watching banks loan to less and less credible borrowers as the years passed, even not demanding that people put money down. That piece of legislation and also mortgage brokers had a lot to do with this, since mortgage brokers earn income based on commission received for writing a loan. That brings us to today, where banks have no idea how much their loans on their balance sheets are actually worth because they do not know who can actually pay them back.
Now here's some shocking news. Some Republicans attempting to de-regulate. I was skeptical at first, too-- but it's true. Republicans love free market principles, so when one of them comes out and says that something needs to be regulated, you better damn well listen up. Here they are in all of their glory attempting to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during Congressional hearings in 2004, but the Democrats said everything was just fine and dandy. For whatever reason, I have never heard this talked about in the mainstream media. It's always Bush's failed policies.
The verdict: there are many complexities involved in the recent market downturn/recession/depression/whatever. There are a shitload of people to blame-- greedy mortgage brokers, Congress, stupid people that bought a home by taking out a loan and putting no money down. Perhaps Bush should have pushed harder for regulating Fannie & Freddie than he did, but the point here is that the blame is spread among many different people-- both Democrats and Republicans, but definitely not one human being.
Secondly, most Republicans are portrayed as paranoid bigots, and whatever, that's fine. But that paranoid bigot George Bush protected our country from terrorist attacks on American soil for the last seven years. The difference between his appearance eight years ago and his appearance today shows the amount of stress he endured every day as he woke up each morning to read the latest intelligence report. When someone is elected President, I suppose they should not know exactly what to expect, but no one thought that was going to be part of the job description-- and I would say that W. adapted quite well.
Here's my point-- the American public needs to stop pointing fingers. If you watched the inauguration the other day, you heard those in attendance boo W. as he entered the scene. Like every good American, I look forward to being excited for Obama policies that I agree with, and I look forward to berating the policies that I disagree with. The one thing I won't do is blame him for everything that goes wrong for the next four, probably eight, years.