"Mind-boggling and hair-raising" episodes.
On January 20, US President George W. Bush hands over the keys to the White House and turns out the lights on an eight-year span of war and, as one ally put it, "mind-boggling and hair-raising" episodes.
The Bush presidency, forged in the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes, now melts away with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and fears of recession and widespread unemployment.
In between, he began the still-unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two fronts in a "war on terrorism" whose tactics have at times worried allies and drawn widespread condemnation at home and overseas.
He drove mammoth tax cuts through the US Congress, which he credits for spurring the US economy despite soaring deficits, and oversaw an unprecedented expansion of aid to Africa to battle disease and poverty.
After scaling historic heights of popularity, Bush leaves office with abysmally low standing with a US public that still recalls the nightmare images from the botched government response to killer Hurricane Katrina.
But he survived political storms whipped up by foes of an administration seen by its critics as one of the most partisan and secretive in US history.
Bush, who never stopped talking about the need to protect the United States, faced charges of betraying core US values with a network of secret prisons, or by putting detainees in the legal limbo of Guantanamo Bay, or green-lighting interrogation practices long seen as torture, or spying on Americans.
Often misjudged by those who mocked his erratic English or spoofed his folksy demeanor, the former oil man and Texas governor challenged those who saw only a son of privilege who owed his rise to his powerful father and won the White House only because of the botched 2000 election.
The Bush presidency, forged in the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes, now melts away with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and fears of recession and widespread unemployment.
In between, he began the still-unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two fronts in a "war on terrorism" whose tactics have at times worried allies and drawn widespread condemnation at home and overseas.
He drove mammoth tax cuts through the US Congress, which he credits for spurring the US economy despite soaring deficits, and oversaw an unprecedented expansion of aid to Africa to battle disease and poverty.
After scaling historic heights of popularity, Bush leaves office with abysmally low standing with a US public that still recalls the nightmare images from the botched government response to killer Hurricane Katrina.
But he survived political storms whipped up by foes of an administration seen by its critics as one of the most partisan and secretive in US history.
Bush, who never stopped talking about the need to protect the United States, faced charges of betraying core US values with a network of secret prisons, or by putting detainees in the legal limbo of Guantanamo Bay, or green-lighting interrogation practices long seen as torture, or spying on Americans.
Often misjudged by those who mocked his erratic English or spoofed his folksy demeanor, the former oil man and Texas governor challenged those who saw only a son of privilege who owed his rise to his powerful father and won the White House only because of the botched 2000 election.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 9:02 PM
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