by Eric Goudie

Created on: November 07, 2008   Last Updated: November 10, 2011

On election night 2008 there was dancing in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Cynical, overweight, stressed out Americans got out of bed and went to the seat of their democracy to celebrate the end of an era. Political jubilation in the streets over a change in government is usually seen on newscasts from countries halfway around the world, where democracy is a new, fragile and precious thing. The fact that it happened in America says more about the legacy of George W Bush than any future biographer will be able to put into words.

The prospects of a positive legacy were doomed from the start. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, but won the presidency in the courts, so immediately he was seen as having "stolen" the election. His initial response to 9/11 was to ask for Osama Bin Laden dead or alive, as if they could just saddle up a posse and go get him like Afghanistan was the Wild West. This created an unrealistic expectation that Bin Laden could be captured by sheer American might, and completely ignored the realities of fighting a counter-terrorist campaign, one built as much on changing hearts and minds as on firepower.

In Afghanistan, he got rid of the Taliban, then left before the job was finished, handing that country a bloody insurgency that continues to this day. In the process, Al-Quaida morphed from small terrorist network into an international philosophical movement. Bush's inability to understand and appreciate the cultural nuances driving Islamic terrorism, and how his own words were actually inflaming the Muslim world rather than placating it, served to do no more than ensure neither the Iraq War, the Afghan war nor the war on Terror would be won during his administration.

He invaded Iraq, a secular nation with no connection to 9/11, and turned it into a terrorist haven that still faces the serious threat of a faith-based civil war after the American pull-out.

His handling of some of worst political scandals in Washington since Watergate (Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, the WMD fiasco) came across as a slap in the face to all the Americans who thought they had voted for a more honest, ethical president. He has managed to make Bill Clinton's philandering seem nothing more than a cute, harmless diversion, while his own personal short-comings seem like dangerous, frightening traits in a commander in chief.

He annihilated America's reputation on the world stage. Terms like "Axis of Evil" and "The Bush Doctrine" have exemplified Bush's (and by extension America's) naivete about the priorities and sensitivities with rest of the world.

The only question left to be answered about Bush is just how kind history will be to him, and whether the label "worst president ever" will be made to stick. His inept, oversimplified views of the absolute power of his office have led to decisions that have left the average American far worse off today than they were at the end of the Clinton years, and there's nothing positive about that.

On November 4th America voted for change, and then rejoiced. That will be Bush's legacy.

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