Lies from CNN:Bush's legacy isn't "mixed"

CNN posts a story today entitled: "With one year to go, Bush's legacy is a mixed bag": But there's nothing mixed about Bush's legacy. It's all disaster.

I challenge any reader to name a single success from the Bush presidency. There isn't one.


The bad news for Bush is that other than the Medicare prescription drug program he signed into law early in his presidency, his domestic legacy is thin. Even his signature education reform law, No Child Left Behind, is under fire with some conservatives and struggling to be reauthorized.

First of all, the Medicare bill he signed cost millions more than legislators were told. It's common knowledge that the administration lied about the costs of the program and then passed the bill in the dead of night. If that's Bush lone success, that's a pretty sorry story.

NCLB has had a huge impact on schools, but the results are far from clear. The funding that was promised when the bill was signed into law hasn't been realized, so the support for struggling schools hasn't been there. In effect, it's been nothing more than a means to punish schools with high poverty and low parental involvement. The bottom line is that NEITHER of the domestic laws cited above is a clear achievement, a program that accomplished what it was promised at the price that was promised.

CNN calls the results in Iraq and Afghanistan "mixed" also. They're not. They're complete disasters.

Secondly, there's a very mixed picture emerging from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For Bush, 2007 may be a turning point in which his "surge" policy helped improve security on the ground in Baghdad.

But the other goal of sending an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq was to give the Iraqi government breathing space for political reconciliation, an area in which little progress has been achieved.

While the president touted some modest success by the Iraqi government, he acknowledged there needs to be a lot more movement. "Are we satisfied with the progress in Baghdad? No," he said. "But to say nothing's happening is just simply not the case."

So nearly five years after entering Iraq, we've finally seen a reduction--but not an elimination--in violence. That's "mixed"? To me, that's unmitigated failure.

Why CNN feels like they have to soft-peddle Bush's failures is beyond me. Every presidency leaves a mixed legacy of success and disappointment... not this one. It's been all failure. Nothing has worked. Anyone who thinks it's mixed is deluded or blind.