I think Sadly, No! nails it in this shorter version of Ross Douthat's Bush apologia (registration required):
Yeah, OK, so Bush fucked up everything he touched, but at least he had the good sense to scramble around at the very last minute while spending lots of lives and money to avert a complete zombies-roaming-the-streets type of disaster. In conclusion, Bush was a good president.
More on target, say, than this analysis of the spending habits of Bush vs. Obama offered up by Roland Melnick in retort to the Brawler's photo of an Obama supporter at September 19's sparingly attended Milwaukee Tea Party (sparingly attended, at least, in comparison to AFP's ludicrous crowd estimates):
Brave...maybe, but not in the way you think. Mathematically inclined? Not so much. Obama's flaccid stimulus spent more in one stroke of the pen than the entire war in Iraq. Claiming GW's military spending would buy 50 years of Obamacare is almost as dishonest and stupid as claiming you can pay for it by making government more efficient.
The Brawler is one of society's producers, so he needs to hurry to work. But just one point. The Brawler appreciates Roland desired a more turgid stimulus,. But the Brawler wishes Roland had a better sense of how much of our treasure Bush wasted in the Iraq War (particularly if he's going to quibble about someone's mathematical inclinations).
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