Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Economist and Tech Central Station writer Arnold Kling has an excellent analysis of the George W. Bush presidency. Kling explodes several of the Left's favorite myths about the GWB presidency, including the foundational myth that Bush actually lost the 2000 election. Kling:

It is a myth that George Bush lost the election in 2000. He lost the popular vote, but that is not how elections are decided. Both George Bush and Al Gore based their electoral strategies on the rules in place at the time, which determines the winner on the basis of electoral votes. Saying after the fact that the Presidency should go to the winner of the popular vote is like saying that the 1964 World Series Championship belongs to the Yankees because they scored more total runs, although the Cardinals took four games out of seven.

It is a myth that George Bush stole the vote in Florida. Every recount has given the victory there to Bush. There is no doubt in my mind that the real villain of 2000 is Al Gore. His challenge of the electoral results was blatantly unfair (recall, he wanted to recount only in certain precincts where he hoped to gain votes) and served only to transform a close election into an illegitimate one. Instead of working to unite the country, Gore set an example of deep partisan bitterness that maximized the long-term damage of the 2000 election for American politics.

Kling's analysis is on-target. Gore, not Bush, sought to steal Florida by a selective recount designed to count votes in heavily Democratic precincts under looser standards than the rest of the state (and looser standards than allowed by Florida law). The result of that would have been that votes in non-recounted precincts would have had their votes devalued, violating the equal-protection clause in the U.S. constitution.

Gore tried to steal Florida, and failed. 

Kling also looks at Bush's performance on the economy, examines his Iraq policy, and explains that Bush was neither a right wing ideologue nor to partisan.

And what has GWB gotten right? Kling:

I think that President Bush has got one thing very much right, which is that Arab-Islamic terrorism is a symptom that something is rotten in the Middle East. If anything, his failures in Iraq and Palestine are due to underestimating the degree of rot. For all the allegations of his lack of intellect, George Bush is a brainiac compared to people who want to see terrorism as a symptom of something rotten in the United States or Israel.

I'm not pleased with everything Bush has done or tried to do. But I can't for the life of me understand how anyone with a brain can look at the economy and think it is in bad shape. By almost any objective measure it is the best economy in our country's history

As for the war, it has not gone as hoped for when almost every Democrat and Republican in the Senate voted for it. But wars never do go exactly as planned. That doesn't mean you quit fighting.

Bush has never been more right about anything than he is in his belief that the way, long-term, to protect America against Islamofacist terrorism is to challenge Middle East tyranny - Islamist and secular - with a competing ideal of liberty.

Democrats, who perhaps have forgotten how their mamas told them winners never quit and quitters never win, want to quit Iraq and let it descend into terrorist-breeding chaos. But they don't have the courage to actually defund the war, and be blamed for the defeat.

George W. Bush, for all his policy imperfections, should be lauded by conservatives for refusing to accept anything other than American victory over Islamofacist terror.