Don’t misunderestimate Bush’s record

Oh, the fun we’ve had. Not since the Reverend William Spooner dumbfounded Oxford undergraduates have we been so entertained by the garbled syntax and grammatical infelicities that have been one of the more diverting features of the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush.

‘Tell me, was it you or your brother that was killed in the war?’, a question Spooner asked a former student after the first world war, could just have easily been posed by Dubya to an American soldier fresh back from fighting on one of the many front lines in the war on terror.

The debate over the achievements and failings of the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush will last for many decades, but what is not beyond doubt is the fine legacy of Bushisms that will be bequeathed when the 43rd President of the United States finally takes his leave of the White House next week.

My personal favourite is the President’s remark, made in the summer of 2004 when presenting the annual defence budget, that ‘Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.’ Which, given the damage done to America’s reputation by scandals such as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, not to mention the thousands of unnecessary deaths caused by the Bush administration’s handling of post-Saddam Iraq, contains its own pathos.

Indeed, watching Bush’s performance during his final White House press conference, it was hard not to regard the president as a tragic-comic figure desperately seeking to justify a presidency that, at times, has lurched uncomfortably between the implementation of clear, decisive action and a bewildering inability to grasp the fundamental principles upon which a civilised nation should conduct itself in time of war.