George W. Bush was a bad president.

George W. Bush was a good president coping with very difficult times. The efforts to demonize Bush are so extreme and so hollow one wonders if they speak to some need to have a devil to blame for all the ills of the world.Bush aid to Africa saved at least 1.3 million livesPresident Bush quadrupled aid to Africa and, unlike many ill-conceived foreign aid programs, the aid worked to good effect. the money was spent combating the spread of AIDS. [13. http://www.independent.co.uk...] When the Bush administration inaugurated the [President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] in 2003, fewer than 50,000 HIV-infected people on the African continent were receiving the antiretroviral drugs that keep the virus in check and halt the progression toward full-blown AIDS. By the time Bush left office, the number had increased to nearly 2 million. Today, the United States is directly supporting antiretroviral treatment for more than 4 million men, women and children in Africa. This is an amazing accomplishment, especially because it wasn't supposed to be possible. Before PEPFAR, the conventional wisdom was that the drug treatment regimens that had been saving lives in developed countries would not work in Africa. Poor, uneducated people in communities lacking even the most basic infrastructure could not be expected to take the right pill at the right time every day. When the drugs are taken haphazardly, the virus mutates and becomes resistant. Therefore, this reasoning went, trying to administer antiretroviral treatment in poor African countries might actually be worse than doing nothing at all. The Bush administration rejected these arguments, which turned out to be categorically wrong. Africans are every bit as diligent about taking their HIV medications as Americans or other Westerners. While there has been a "modest, contained and not alarming" rise in resistance to one class of drugs, according to a World Health Organization researcher who presented a study at this week's AIDS conference, scientists no longer envision a nightmare scenario in which drug-resistant strains of the virus run rampant." [14. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...] In 2008, near the end of the Bush administration, a Pew poll found that "the US image is much stronger in Africa than in other regions of the world". At least 80 per cent of respondents in Ghana, Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire were favourable to the US. In all other sub-Saharan African countries polled, there were more "favourables" than "non-favourables". [op cit 13] Bush worked with the opposition President Bush ever had the super majority needed to push legislation through Congress over the objections of Democrats. Everything that was enacted, including the use of force resolutions, education bills, and the expansion of the Medicare prescription drug program was accomplished with bipartisan support. "In the more than six years since, Mr. Bush has turned to Mr. Kennedy, the long time Massachusetts senator who is his most ardent liberal Democratic critic, time and again to push the biggest items on his domestic agenda: education, prescription drugs and the immigration bill that failed last week." [15. http://www.nytimes.com...] The Bush comprehension immigration reform bill that provided for tighter border enforcement and a path to citizenship for illegals, came within one vote of passage. Then-Senator Obama voted against the bill that would have ended the immigration controversy. [16. http://newsbusters.org... ] When President Obama was elected, he immediately promised to have an immigration bill in congress by year-end, when Democrats had a super-majority in congress. To date, no such legislation has even been introduced. We are not debating Obama, but it's important to understand the difficulties that Bush overcame to get legislation within one vote of passing on one of the most controversial issues of our time. The Patriot Act The Patriot Act has been extended repeatedly with strong bipartisan support. The latest extension passed the house by a vote of 250 to 153 and the Senate by a vote of 72 - 23. When a Senator, Obama voted against it, but as President he pressed for passage. As of May 2011, "At least 39 terrorist plots have been thwarted since 9/11. The PATRIOT Act has proved essential in halting a number of these attacks. For example, when Najibullah Zazi sought to employ a triacetone triperoxide (TATP) bomb to blow up the New York subway system, counterterrorism investigators were able to use “roving” surveillance to track Zazi and stop him before the public was in danger. A standard provision in counternarcotics operations, “roving” surveillance allows investigators to receive one authorization allowing them to link wiretaps to an individual rather than having to obtain separate authorizations for each telephone number used. Thus, investigators were able to pursue Zazi though multiple means of communication—including disposable cell phones, email, and text messages—streamlining the investigation and helping bring counterterrorism capabilities in line with 21st-century technology." [17. http://www.heritage.org...] Bush recognized the need to make the law enforcement tools used in domestic investigations available for fighting international terrorism. Clearly, Bush was ahead of the game and he has been proved right. Even President Obama now recognizes that. The rules of war are of necessity different from ordinary criminal procedures. For example, battlefield combatants cannot be subject to requirements for Miranda warnings or forensic evidence. During World War II, 500,000 captured enemy combatants were held in the United States without trials. In the Quirin decision in WWII, the Supreme court ruled at the time that an American who had trained overseas with German forces had de facto renounced American citizenship, and could be treated as a foreign enemy. [18. http://en.wikipedia.org...] The decision stated: …the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. Bush established the system of retaining unlawful enemy combatants in GITMO with the potential for trying them by military tribunals. The Constitutional sticking point was the classification of individuals as enemy combatants. The system was at first rejected by the Supreme Court, but a modified procedure answering the Court's concerns was passed into law. It allows for n appeal of the classification in a civilian court. President Obama seemed to originally reject the use of military tribunals, but has since embraced the system. Getting the system in place was a major achievement of President Bush. A "bad president"? I do not need to prove that Bush was one of the best presidents ever -- although I believe he was a good president. The question is whether President Bush did a bad job in the circumstances he was given. He did not. He responded to terrorist attack by bringing the fight to the terrorists and showing that the U.S. would not accept the contemptuous behavior of Saddam. He built the Homeland Security apparatus and the legal framework for fighting terrorist warfare. He worked with opponents on many issues. The resolution is negated.