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George W. Bush

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.

George W. Bush
Official portrait, 2003
43rd President of the United States
In office
January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009
Vice PresidentDick Cheney
Preceded byBill Clinton
Succeeded byBarack Obama
46th Governor of Texas
In office
January 17, 1995 – December 21, 2000
Lieutenant
Preceded byAnn Richards
Succeeded byRick Perry
Personal details
Born
George Walker Bush

(1946-07-06) July 6, 1946 (age 76)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
(m. 1977)
Children
Parents
RelativesBush family
Residence(s)Prairie Chapel Ranch, Crawford, Texas, U.S.
Alma mater
Occupation
  • Politician
  • businessman
Civilian awardsList of honors and awards
Signature
Website
  • Official website
  • Presidential Library
  • Presidential Center
  • White House Archives
Nicknames
  • Dubya
  • GWB
  • Shrub
Military service
Branch/service
Years of service1968–1974
RankFirst Lieutenant
Unit
Military awards[better source needed]

While in his twenties, Bush flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. In 1978, Bush unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball before he was elected governor of Texas in 1994. As governor, Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform, increased education funding, set higher standards for schools, and reformed the criminal justice system. He also helped make Texas the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the nation. In the 2000 presidential election, Bush defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore despite losing the popular vote, after a narrow and contested win that involved a Supreme Court decision to stop a recount in Florida.

Upon taking office, Bush signed a major tax cut program and education reform bill, the No Child Left Behind Act. He pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based initiatives. A decisive event that reshaped his administration was the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, resulting in the start of the war on terror and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Bush ordered the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, to overthrow the Taliban, destroy al-Qaeda, and capture Osama bin Laden. He signed the Patriot Act to authorize surveillance of suspected terrorists. He also ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq, on the erroneous belief that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction; this led to Hussein's eventual overthrow and capture by U.S. forces. Bush also signed the Medicare Modernization Act, which created Medicare Part D.

Bush was re-elected president in 2004, defeating Democrat John Kerry and winning the popular vote. During his second term, Bush reached multiple free trade agreements. He appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. He sought major changes to Social Security and immigration laws, but both efforts failed in Congress. Bush was widely criticized for his handling of Hurricane Katrina and the midterm dismissal of U.S. attorneys. In the midst of his unpopularity, the Democrats regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars continued, and in January 2007, Bush launched a surge of troops in Iraq. By December, the U.S. entered the Great Recession, prompting the Bush administration to obtain congressional approval for multiple economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program. After finishing his second term, Bush returned to Texas, where his presidential library opened in 2013. He has maintained a low-profile since leaving office.

At various points in his presidency, Bush was among both the most popular and unpopular presidents in U.S. history. He received the highest recorded approval ratings in the wake of the September 11 attacks, but also one of the lowest such ratings during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Although public favorability of Bush has improved since he left office, his presidency has generally been rated as below-average by scholars.

Early life and career

 
George W. Bush with his parents, Barbara and George H. W. Bush, c. 1947

George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut.[1] He was the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, with four siblings: Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. Another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953.[2] His paternal grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U.S. senator from Connecticut.[3] His father was Ronald Reagan's vice president from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U.S. president from 1989 to 1993. Bush has English and some German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Welsh, Irish, French, and Scottish roots.[4]

Education

Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade. He then spent two years at The Kinkaid School, a college-preparatory school.[5]

Bush attended high school at Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, where he played baseball and was the head cheerleader during his senior year.[6][7] He attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history.[8] During this time, he was a cheerleader and a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon, serving as the president of the fraternity during his senior year.[9][10][11] Bush became a member of the Skull and Bones society as a senior.[12] Bush was a rugby union player and was on Yale's 1st XV.[13] He characterized himself as an average student.[14] His grade point average during his first three years at Yale was 77, and he had a similar average under a nonnumerical rating system in his final year.[15]

In the fall of 1973, Bush entered Harvard Business School. He graduated in 1975 with an MBA degree. He is the only U.S. president to have earned an MBA.[16]

Family and personal life

Bush was engaged to Cathryn Lee Wolfman in 1967, but the engagement did not last. Bush and Wolfman remained on good terms after the end of the relationship.[17] While Bush was at a backyard barbecue in 1977, friends introduced him to Laura Welch, a schoolteacher and librarian. After a three-month courtship, she accepted his marriage proposal and they wed on November 5 of that year.[18] The couple settled in Midland, Texas. Bush left his family's Episcopal Church to join his wife's United Methodist Church.[19] On November 25, 1981, Laura Bush gave birth to fraternal twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna.[18] Bush describes being challenged by Billy Graham to consider faith in Jesus "Christ as the risen Lord", how he began to read the Bible daily, "surrendering" to the "Almighty", that "faith is a walk" and that he was "moved by God's love".[20]

Alcohol abuse

Prior to getting married, Bush struggled with multiple episodes of alcohol abuse.[21] In one instance on September 4, 1976, he was pulled over near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, for driving under the influence of alcohol. He was cited for DUI, fined $150, and received a brief suspension of his Maine driver's license.[22] Bush said his wife has had a stabilizing effect on his life,[18] and he attributes her influence to his 1986 decision to give up alcohol.[23] While governor of Texas, Bush said of his wife, "I saw an elegant, beautiful woman who turned out not only to be elegant and beautiful, but very smart and willing to put up with my rough edges, and I must confess has smoothed them off over time."[18] Bush also claims that his faith in God was critical in the process to give up drink. "I believe that God helped open my eyes, which were closing because of booze".[24]

Hobbies

Bush has been an avid reader throughout his adult life, preferring biographies and histories.[25] During his presidency, Bush read the Bible daily,[26] though at the end of his second term he said on television that he is "not a literalist" about Bible interpretation.[27][28] Walt Harrington, a journalist, recalled seeing "books by John Fowles, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Gore Vidal lying about, as well as biographies of Willa Cather and Queen Victoria" in his home when Bush was a Texas oilman. Other activities include cigar smoking and golf.[29] Bush has also painted many paintings. One of his best known project is a collection of 43 painting of immigrants, titled Out of Many, One.[30] Another painting project was Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute To America's Warrior.[31]

Military career

In May 1968, Bush was commissioned into the Texas Air National Guard.[32] After two years of training in active-duty service,[33] he was assigned to Houston, flying Convair F-102s with the 147th Reconnaissance Wing out of the Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base.[32][34] Critics, including former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, have alleged that Bush was favorably treated due to his father's political standing as a member of the House of Representatives, citing his selection as a pilot despite his low pilot aptitude test scores and his irregular attendance.[32] In June 2005, the Department of Defense released all the records of Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, which remain in its official archives.[35]

In late 1972 and early 1973, he drilled with the 187th Fighter Wing of the Alabama Air National Guard. He had moved to Montgomery, Alabama, to work on the unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Winton M. Blount.[36][37] In 1972, Bush was suspended from flying for failure to take a scheduled physical exam.[38] He was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve on November 21, 1974.[39]

Bush remains the most recent president to have served in the military.[40]

Business career

In 1977, Bush established Arbusto Energy, a small oil exploration company, although it did not begin operations until the following year.[41][42] He later changed the name to Bush Exploration. In 1984, his company merged with the larger Spectrum 7, and Bush became chairman. The company was hurt by decreased oil prices, and it folded into HKN, Inc.,[43] with Bush becoming a member of HKN's board of directors. Questions of possible insider trading involving HKN arose, but a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation concluded that the information Bush had at the time of his stock sale was not sufficient to constitute insider trading.[44]

In April 1989, Bush arranged for a group of investors to purchase a controlling interest in the Texas Rangers baseball franchise for $89 million and invested $500,000 himself to start. He then was managing general partner for five years.[45] He actively led the team's projects and regularly attended its games, often choosing to sit in the open stands with fans.[46] Bush's sale of his shares in the Rangers in 1998 brought him over $15 million from his initial $800,000 investment.[47]

Prior to his eventual gubernatorial campaign, Bush briefly considered a candidacy to become the Commissioner of Baseball in the early to mid-1990s.[48][49][50]

Early political involvement

In the 1978 elections, Bush ran for the House of Representatives from Texas's 19th congressional district. The retiring member, George H. Mahon, had held the district for the Democratic Party since 1935. Bush's opponent, Kent Hance, portrayed him as out of touch with rural Texans, and Bush lost the election with 46.8 percent of the vote to Hance's 53.2 percent.[51]

Bush and his family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1988 to work on his father's campaign for the U.S. presidency.[52][53] He was a campaign advisor and liaison to the media, and assisted his father by campaigning across the country.[54] In December 1991, Bush was one of seven people named by his father to run his father's 1992 presidential re-election campaign as a campaign advisor.[55] The previous month, his father had asked him to tell White House chief of staff John H. Sununu to resign.[56]

Texas governorship (1995–2000)

Bush declared his candidacy for the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election at the same time his brother Jeb sought the governorship in Florida. His campaign focused on four themes: welfare reform, tort reform, crime reduction, and education improvement.[54] Bush's campaign advisers were Karen Hughes, Joe Allbaugh, and Karl Rove.[57]

 
Governor Bush (right) with father, former president George H. W. Bush, and wife, Laura, 1997

After easily winning the Republican primary, Bush faced popular Democratic incumbent Governor Ann Richards.[54][58] In the course of the campaign, Bush pledged to sign a bill allowing Texans to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons. Richards had vetoed the bill, but Bush signed it into law after he became governor.[59] According to The Atlantic, the race "featured a rumor that she was a lesbian, along with a rare instance of such a tactic's making it into the public record – when a regional chairman of the Bush campaign allowed himself, perhaps inadvertently, to be quoted criticizing Richards for 'appointing avowed homosexual activists' to state jobs".[60] The Atlantic, and others, connected the lesbian rumor to Karl Rove,[61] but Rove denied being involved.[62] Bush won the general election with 53.5 percent against Richards' 45.9 percent.[63]

Bush used a budget surplus to push through Texas's largest tax-cut, $2 billion.[57] He extended government funding for organizations providing education of the dangers of alcohol and drug use and abuse, and helping to reduce domestic violence.[64] Critics contended that during his tenure, Texas ranked near the bottom in environmental evaluations. Supporters pointed to his efforts to raise the salaries of teachers and improve educational test scores.[54]

In 1999, Bush signed a law that required electric retailers to buy a certain amount of energy from renewable sources (RPS),[65][66][67] which helped Texas eventually become the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the U.S.[68][69][70]

In 1998, Bush won re-election with a record[54] 69 percent of the vote.[71] He became the first governor in Texas history to be elected to two consecutive four-year terms.[54] In his second term, Bush promoted faith-based organizations and enjoyed high approval ratings.[54] He proclaimed June 10, 2000, to be Jesus Day in Texas, a day on which he urged all Texans to "answer the call to serve those in need".[72]

Throughout Bush's first term, he was the focus of national attention as a potential future presidential candidate. Following his re-election, speculation soared, and within a year he decided to seek the 2000 Republican presidential nomination.[54]

Presidential campaigns

2000 presidential candidacy

Primary

Bush portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative, implying he was more centrist than other Republicans. He campaigned on a platform that included bringing integrity and honor back to the White House, increasing the size of the military, cutting taxes, improving education, and aiding minorities.[54] By early 2000, the race had centered on Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain.[54]

Bush won the Iowa caucuses and, although heavily favored to win the New Hampshire primary, trailed McCain by 19 percent and lost. Despite this he regained momentum and effectively became the front runner after the South Carolina primary, which according to The Boston Globe made history for his campaign's negativity. The New York Times described it as a smear campaign.[73][74][75]

General election

 
2000 electoral vote results

On July 25, 2000, Bush surprised some observers when he selected Dick Cheney – a former White House chief of staff, representative and secretary of defense – to be his running mate. At the time, Cheney was serving as head of Bush's vice presidential search committee. Soon after at the 2000 Republican National Convention, Bush and Cheney were officially nominated by the Republican Party.[76]

Bush continued to campaign across the country and touted his record as Governor of Texas.[54] During his campaign, Bush criticized his Democratic opponent, incumbent Vice President Al Gore, over gun control and taxation.[77]

When the election returns were tallied on November 7, Bush had won 29 states, including Florida. The closeness of the Florida outcome led to a recount.[54] The initial recount also went to Bush, but the outcome was tied up in lower courts for a month until eventually reaching the U.S. Supreme Court.[78] On December 9, in the controversial Bush v. Gore ruling,[79] the Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court decision that had ordered a third count, and stopped an ordered statewide hand recount based on the argument that the use of different standards among Florida's counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[54] The machine recount showed that Bush had won the Florida vote by a margin of 537 votes out of six million casts.[80] Although he had received 543,895 fewer individual nationwide votes than Gore, Bush won the election, receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266 (Gore had actually been awarded 267 votes by the states pledged to him plus the District of Columbia, but one D.C. elector abstained). Bush was the first person to win a U.S. presidential election with fewer popular votes than another candidate since Benjamin Harrison in 1888.[80]

2004 presidential candidacy

 
2004 electoral vote results
 
George W. Bush re-election campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan

In his 2004 bid for re-election, Bush commanded broad support in the Republican Party and did not encounter a primary challenge. He appointed Ken Mehlman as campaign manager, and Karl Rove devised a political strategy.[81] Bush and the Republican platform emphasized a strong commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,[82] support for the USA PATRIOT Act,[83] a renewed shift in policy for constitutional amendments banning abortion and same-sex marriage,[82][84] reforming Social Security to create private investment accounts,[82] creation of an ownership society,[82] and opposing mandatory carbon emissions controls.[85] Bush also called for the implementation of a guest worker program for immigrants,[82] which was criticized by conservatives.[86]

The Bush campaign advertised across the U.S. against Democratic candidates, including Bush's emerging opponent, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Kerry and other Democrats attacked Bush on the Iraq War, and accused him of failing to stimulate the economy and job growth. The Bush campaign portrayed Kerry as a staunch liberal who would raise taxes and increase the size of government. The Bush campaign continuously criticized Kerry's seemingly contradictory statements on the war in Iraq,[54] and argued that Kerry lacked the decisiveness and vision necessary for success in the War on Terror.

Following the resignation of CIA director George Tenet in 2004, Bush nominated Porter Goss to head the agency. The White House ordered Goss to purge agency officers who were disloyal to the administration.[87] After Goss' appointment, many of the CIA's senior agents were fired or quit. The CIA has been accused of deliberately leaking classified information to undermine the 2004 election.[88]

In the election, Bush carried 31 of 50 states, receiving 286 electoral votes. He won an absolute majority of the popular vote (50.7 percent to his opponent's 48.3 percent).[89]

Presidency (2001–2009)

 
Bush on January 20, 2001, in Washington D.C., the day of his first inauguration as President of the United States

Bush had originally outlined an ambitious domestic agenda, but his priorities were significantly altered following the September 11 attacks.[90] Wars were waged in Afghanistan and Iraq, and there were significant domestic debates regarding immigration, healthcare, Social Security, economic policy, and treatment of terrorist detainees. Over an eight-year period, Bush's once-high approval ratings[91] steadily declined, while his disapproval numbers increased significantly.[92] In 2007, the United States entered the longest post-World War II recession.[93]

Domestic policy

Economic policy

Bush took office during a period of economic recession in the wake of the bursting of the dot-com bubble.[94] The September 11 terrorist attacks also impacted the economy.

His administration increased federal government spending from $1.789 trillion to $2.983 trillion (60 percent), while revenues increased from $2.025 trillion to $2.524 trillion (from 2000 to 2008). Individual income tax revenues increased by 14 percent, corporate tax revenues by 50 percent, and customs and duties by 40 percent. Discretionary defense spending was increased by 107 percent, discretionary domestic spending by 62 percent, Medicare spending by 131 percent, social security by 51 percent, and income security spending by 130 percent. Cyclically adjusted, revenues rose by 35 percent and spending by 65 percent.[95] The increase in spending was more than under any predecessor since Lyndon B. Johnson.[96] The number of economic regulation governmental workers increased by 91,196.[97]

The surplus in fiscal year 2000 was $237 billion – the third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever.[98] In 2001, Bush's budget estimated that there would be a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next ten years.[99] Facing congressional opposition, Bush held town hall style meetings across the U.S. to increase public support for his plan for a $1.35 trillion tax cut program, one of the largest tax cuts in U.S. history.[54] Bush argued that unspent government funds should be returned to taxpayers, saying "the surplus is not the government's money. The surplus is the people's money."[54] Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned of a recession and Bush stated that a tax cut would stimulate the economy and create jobs.[100] Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, opposed some of the tax cuts on the basis that they would contribute to budget deficits and undermine Social Security.[101] O'Neill disputes the claim, made in Bush's book Decision Points, that he never openly disagreed with him on planned tax cuts.[102] By 2003, the economy showed signs of improvement, though job growth remained stagnant.[54] Another tax cut was passed that year.[citation needed]

Between 2001 and 2008, GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2.125 percent,[103] less than for past business cycles.[104] Bush entered office with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 10,587, and the average peaked in October 2007 at over 14,000. When Bush left office, the average was at 7,949, one of the lowest levels of his presidency.[105] Only four other U.S. presidents have left office with the stock market lower than when they began.[106]

 
Deficit and debt increases from 2001 to 2009. Gross debt has increased over $500 billion each year since the 2003 fiscal year.

Unemployment originally rose from 4.2 percent in January 2001 to 6.3 percent in June 2003, but subsequently dropped to 4.5 percent in July 2007.[107] Adjusted for inflation, median household income dropped by $1,175 between 2000 and 2007,[108] while Professor Ken Homa of Georgetown University has noted that "Median real after-tax household income went up two percent".[109] The poverty rate increased from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.3 percent in 2006 after peaking at 12.7 percent in 2004.[110] By October 2008, due to increases in spending,[111]: 273  the national debt had risen to $11.3 trillion,[112] more than doubling it since 2000.[113][114][unreliable source?] Most debt was accumulated as a result of what became known as the "Bush tax cuts" and increased national security spending.[115] In March 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama said when he voted against raising the debt ceiling: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure."[116] By the end of Bush's presidency, unemployment climbed to 7.2 percent.[117]

2008 financial crisis

In December 2007, the United States entered the longest post–World War II recession,[93] caused by a housing market correction, a subprime mortgage crisis, soaring oil prices, and other factors. In February 2008, 63,000 jobs were lost, a five-year record,[118] and in November, over 500,000 jobs were lost, which marked the largest loss of jobs in the United States in 34 years.[119] The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the last four months of 2008, 1.9 million jobs were lost.[120] By the end of 2008, the U.S. had lost 2.6 million jobs.[121]

To aid with the situation, Bush signed a $170 billion economic stimulus package which was intended to improve the economic situation by sending tax rebate checks to many Americans and providing tax breaks for struggling businesses. The Bush administration pushed for significantly increased regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003,[122] and after two years, the regulations passed the House but died in the Senate. Many Republican senators, as well as influential members of the Bush Administration, feared that the agency created by these regulations would merely be mimicking the private sector's risky practices.[123][124][125] In September 2008, the crisis became much more serious beginning with the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a federal bailout of American International Group for $85 billion.[126]

Many economists and world governments determined that the situation had become the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.[127][128] Additional regulation over the housing market would have been beneficial, according to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.[129] Bush, meanwhile, proposed a financial rescue plan to buy back a large portion of the U.S. mortgage market.[130] Vince Reinhardt, a former Federal Reserve economist now at the American Enterprise Institute, said "it would have helped for the Bush administration to empower the folks at Treasury and the Federal Reserve and the comptroller of the currency and the FDIC to look at these issues more closely", and additionally, that it would have helped "for Congress to have held hearings".[124]

Education and public health

Bush undertook many educational agendas, such as increasing the funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in his first years of office and creating education programs to strengthen the grounding in science and mathematics for American high school students. Funding for the NIH was cut in 2006, the first such cut in 36 years, due to rising inflation.[131]

 
President Bush signing the No Child Left Behind Act into law, January 8, 2002

One of the administration's early major initiatives was the No Child Left Behind Act, which aimed to measure and close the gap between rich and poor student performance, provide options to parents with students in low-performing schools, and target more federal funding to low-income schools. This landmark education initiative passed with broad bipartisan support, including that of Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.[132] It was signed into law by Bush in early 2002.[133] Many contend that the initiative has been successful, as cited by the fact that students in the U.S. have performed significantly better on state reading and math tests since Bush signed "No Child Left Behind" into law.[134] Critics[who?] argue that it is underfunded[135][better source needed] and that NCLBA's focus on "high-stakes testing" and quantitative outcomes is counterproductive.[136]

On November 1, 2005, Bush announced a National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza to prepare the United States for a flu pandemic, which culminated in an implementation plan published by the Homeland Security Council in May 2006.[137][138]

After being re-elected, Bush signed into law a Medicare drug benefit program that, according to Jan Crawford, resulted in "the greatest expansion in America's welfare state in forty years" – the bill's costs approached $7 trillion.[111]: 274  In 2007, Bush opposed and vetoed State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) legislation, which was added by the Democrats onto a war funding bill and passed by Congress. The SCHIP legislation would have significantly expanded federally funded health care benefits and plans to children of some low-income families. It was to be funded by an increase in the cigarette tax.[139] Bush viewed the legislation as a move toward socialized health care, and asserted that the program could benefit families making as much as $83,000 per year who did not need the help.[140]

On May 21, 2008, Bush signed into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, aimed to protect Americans against health insurance and employment discrimination based on a person's genetic information. The issue had been debated for 13 years before it finally became law. The measure is designed to protect citizens without hindering genetic research.[141][142]

Social services and Social Security

Following Republican efforts to pass the Medicare Act of 2003, Bush signed the bill, which included major changes to the Medicare program by providing beneficiaries with some assistance in paying for prescription drugs, while relying on private insurance for the delivery of benefits.[143] The retired persons lobby group AARP worked with the Bush Administration on the program and gave their endorsement. Bush said the law, estimated to cost $400 billion over the first ten years, would give the elderly "better choices and more control over their health care".[144]

Bush began his second term by outlining a major initiative to "reform" Social Security,[145] which was facing record deficit projections beginning in 2005. Bush made it the centerpiece of his domestic agenda despite opposition from some in the U.S. Congress.[145] In his 2005 State of the Union Address, Bush discussed the potential impending bankruptcy of the program and outlined his new program, which included partial privatization of the system, personal Social Security accounts, and options to permit Americans to divert a portion of their Social Security tax (FICA) into secured investments.[145] Democrats opposed the proposal to partially privatize the system.[145]

Bush embarked on a 60-day national tour, campaigning for his initiative in media events known as "Conversations on Social Security" in an attempt to gain public support.[146] Nevertheless, public support for the proposal declined,[147] and the House Republican leadership decided not to put Social Security reform on the priority list for the remainder of their 2005 legislative agenda.[148] The proposal's legislative prospects were further diminished by autumn 2005 due to political fallout from the response to Hurricane Katrina.[149]

Environmental policies

Upon taking office in 2001, Bush stated his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which seeks to impose mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, citing that the treaty exempted 80 percent of the world's population[150] and would have cost tens of billions of dollars per year.[151] He also cited that the Senate had voted 95–0 in 1997 on a resolution expressing its disapproval of the protocol.

In May 2001, Bush signed an executive order to create an interagency task force to streamline energy projects,[152] and later signed two other executive orders to tackle environmental issues.[153]

In 2002, Bush proposed the Clear Skies Act of 2003,[154] which aimed at amending the Clean Air Act to reduce air pollution through the use of emissions trading programs. Many experts argued that this legislation would have weakened the original legislation by allowing higher emission rates of pollutants than were previously legal.[155] The initiative was introduced to Congress, but failed to make it out of committee.[citation needed]

Later in 2006, Bush declared the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a national monument, creating the largest marine reserve to date. The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument comprises 84 million acres (340,000 km2) and is home to 7,000 species of fish, birds, and other marine animals, many of which are specific to only those islands.[156] The move was hailed by conservationists for "its foresight and leadership in protecting this incredible area".[157]

Bush has said he believes that global warming is real[158] and has noted that it is a serious problem, but he asserted there is a "debate over whether it's man-made or naturally caused".[159] The Bush Administration's stance on global warming remained controversial in the scientific and environmental communities. Critics have alleged that the administration[160] misinformed the public and did not do enough to reduce carbon emissions and deter global warming.[161]

Energy policies

In his 2006 State of the Union Address, Bush declared, "America is addicted to oil" and announced his Advanced Energy Initiative to increase energy development research.[162]

 
President Bush delivering a statement on energy, urging Congress to end offshore oil drill ban, June 18, 2008

In his 2007 State of the Union Address, Bush renewed his pledge to work toward diminished reliance on foreign oil by reducing fossil fuel consumption and increasing alternative fuel production.[163] Amid high gasoline prices in 2008, Bush lifted a ban on offshore drilling.[164] However, the move was largely symbolic because there was still a federal law banning offshore drilling. Bush said, "This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil reserves is action from the U.S. Congress."[164] Bush had said in June 2008, "In the long run, the solution is to reduce demand for oil by promoting alternative energy technologies. My administration has worked with Congress to invest in gas-saving technologies like advanced batteries and hydrogen fuel cells ... In the short run, the American economy will continue to rely largely on oil. And that means we need to increase supply, especially here at home. So my administration has repeatedly called on Congress to expand domestic oil production."[165]

In his 2008 State of the Union Address, Bush announced that the U.S. would commit $2 billion over the next three years to a new international fund to promote clean energy technologies and fight climate change, saying, "Along with contributions from other countries, this fund will increase and accelerate the deployment of all forms of cleaner, more efficient technologies in developing nations like India and China, and help leverage substantial private-sector capital by making clean energy projects more financially attractive." He also announced plans to reaffirm the United States' commitment to work with major economies, and, through the UN, to complete an international agreement that will slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases; he stated, "This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride."[166]

Stem cell research and first veto

Federal funding for medical research involving the creation or destruction of human embryos through the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health has been forbidden by law since the passage of the Dickey–Wicker Amendment in 1995.[167] Bush has said he supports adult stem cell research and has supported federal legislation that finances adult stem cell research. However, Bush did not support embryonic stem cell research.[168] On August 9, 2001, Bush signed an executive order lifting the ban on federal funding for the 71 existing "lines" of stem cells,[169] but the ability of these existing lines to provide an adequate medium for testing has been questioned. Testing can be done on only 12 of the original lines, and all approved lines have been cultured in contact with mouse cells, which creates safety issues that complicate development and approval of therapies from these lines.[170] On July 19, 2006, Bush used his veto power for the first time in his presidency to veto the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. The bill would have repealed the Dickey–Wicker Amendment, thereby permitting federal money to be used for research where stem cells are derived from the destruction of an embryo.[171]

Immigration

 
President Bush discussing border security with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff near El Paso, November 2005

Nearly eight million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2005, more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history.[172] Almost half entered illegally.[173][unreliable source?] In 2006, Bush urged Congress to allow more than twelve million illegal immigrants to work in the United States with the creation of a "temporary guest-worker program". Bush also urged Congress to provide additional funds for border security and committed to deploying 6,000 National Guard troops to the Mexico–United States border.[174] From May to June 2007, Bush strongly supported the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which was written by a bipartisan group of Senators with the active participation of the Bush administration.[175] The bill envisioned a legalization program for illegal immigrants, with an eventual path to citizenship; establishing a guest worker program; a series of border and worksite enforcement measures; a reform of the green card application process and the introduction of a point-based "merit" system for green cards; elimination of "chain migration" and of the Diversity Immigrant Visa; and other measures. Bush argued that the lack of legal status denies the protections of U.S. laws to millions of people who face dangers of poverty and exploitation, and penalizes employers despite a demand for immigrant labor.[176] Bush contended that the proposed bill did not amount to amnesty.[177]

A heated public debate followed, which resulted in a substantial rift within the Republican Party, most conservatives opposed it because of its legalization or amnesty provisions.[178] The bill was eventually defeated in the Senate on June 28, 2007, when a cloture motion failed on a 46–53 vote.[179] Bush expressed disappointment upon the defeat of one of his signature domestic initiatives.[180] The Bush administration later proposed a series of immigration enforcement measures that do not require a change in law.[181]

On September 19, 2010, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Bush offered to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees as American citizens if a permanent settlement had been reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.[182]

Hurricane Katrina

 
President Bush with hurricane victims in Biloxi, September 2, 2005

Hurricane Katrina struck early in Bush's second term and was one of the most damaging natural disasters in U.S. history. Katrina formed in late August during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and devastated much of the north-central Gulf Coast of the United States, particularly New Orleans.[183]

Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on August 27[184] and in Mississippi and Alabama the following day.[185] The eye of the hurricane made landfall on August 29, and New Orleans began to flood due to levee breaches; later that day, Bush declared a major disaster in Louisiana,[186] officially authorizing FEMA to start using federal funds to assist in the recovery effort.

On August 30, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff declared it "an incident of national significance",[187] triggering the first use of the newly created National Response Plan. Three days later, on September 2, National Guard troops first entered the city of New Orleans.[188] The same day, Bush toured parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and declared that the success of the recovery effort up to that point was "not enough".[189]

As the disaster in New Orleans intensified, Bush received widespread criticism for downplaying his administration's role in the inadequate response. Leaders attacked Bush for having appointed incompetent leaders to positions of power at FEMA, notably Michael D. Brown;[190] federal response resources to respond were also limited as a result of being allocated to the Iraq War[191] and Bush himself did not act upon warnings of floods.[192][193] Bush responded to mounting criticism by claiming to accept full responsibility for the federal government's failures in its handling of the emergency.[188] It has been argued that with Katrina, Bush passed a political tipping point from which he would not recover.[194]

Midterm dismissal of U.S. attorneys

 
President Bush announcing his nomination of Alberto Gonzales as the next U.S. Attorney General, November 10, 2004

During Bush's second term, a controversy arose over the Justice Department's midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorneys.[195] The White House maintained that they were fired for poor performance.[196] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales later resigned over the issue, along with other senior members of the Justice Department.[197][198] The House Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas for advisers Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten to testify regarding this matter, but Bush directed Miers and Bolten to not comply with those subpoenas, invoking his right of executive privilege. Bush maintained that all his advisers were protected under a broad executive privilege protection to receive candid advice. The Justice Department determined that the President's order was legal.[199]

Although Congressional investigations focused on whether the Justice Department and the White House were using the U.S. Attorney positions for political advantage, no official findings have been released. On March 10, 2008, the Congress filed a federal lawsuit to enforce their issued subpoenas.[200] On July 31, 2008, a United States district court judge ruled that Bush's top advisers were not immune from Congressional subpoenas.[201]

In all, twelve Justice Department officials resigned rather than testify under oath before Congress. They included Attorney General Alberto Gonzales[202] and his chief of staff Kyle Sampson,[203] Gonzales' liaison to the White House Monica Goodling,[204] aide to the president Karl Rove[205] and his senior aide Sara Taylor.[206] In addition, legal counsel to the president Harriet Miers[207] and deputy chief of staff to the president Joshua Bolten[208] were both found in contempt of Congress.[206]

In 2010, the Justice Department investigator concluded that though political considerations did play a part in as many as four of the attorney firings,[209] the firings were "inappropriately political", but not criminal. According to the prosecutors, there was insufficient evidence to pursue prosecution for any criminal offense.[210]

Foreign policy

 
Countries visited by President George W. Bush during his time in office

During his presidential campaign, Bush's foreign policy platform included support for stronger economic and political relationships with Latin America, especially Mexico, and a reduction of involvement in "nation-building" and other small-scale military engagements. The administration pursued a national missile defense.[211] Bush was an advocate of China's entry into the World Trade Organization.[212]

Bush began his second term with an emphasis on improving strained relations with European nations. He appointed long-time adviser Karen Hughes to oversee a global public relations campaign. Bush lauded the pro-democracy struggles in Georgia and Ukraine.[213]

In March 2006, Bush reversed decades of U.S. policy when he visited India in a trip focused particularly on areas of nuclear energy, counter-terrorism co-operation, and discussions that would eventually lead to the India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement.[214][215] This was in stark contrast to the stance taken by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, whose approach and response to India after the 1998 nuclear tests has been characterized as "sanctions and hectoring".[216]

Midway through Bush's second term, questions arose whether Bush was retreating from his freedom and democracy agenda, which was highlighted in policy changes toward some oil-rich former Soviet republics in central Asia.[217]

 
President Bush with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Shanghai, October 21, 2001. Russia had cooperated with the U.S. in the war on terror.

Bush signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty with Russia. He withdrew U.S. support for several international agreements, including, in 2002, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) with Russia.[218] This marked the first time in post-World War II history that the United States had withdrawn from a major international arms treaty.[219] Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that American withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was a mistake.[220]

Bush emphasized a careful approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians; he denounced Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat for his support of violence, but sponsored dialogues between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Bush supported Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, and lauded the democratic elections held in Palestine after Arafat's death.

Bush also expressed U.S. support for the defense of Taiwan following the stand-off in April 2001 with China over the Hainan Island incident, when an EP-3E Aries II surveillance aircraft collided with a People's Liberation Army Air Force jet, leading to the detention of U.S. personnel. From 2003 to 2004, Bush authorized U.S. military intervention in Haiti and Liberia to protect U.S. interests. Bush condemned the militia attacks Darfur and denounced the killings in Sudan as genocide.[221] Bush said an international peacekeeping presence was critical in Darfur, but he opposed referring the situation to the International Criminal Court.

On June 10, 2007, Bush met with Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and became the first president to visit Albania.[222] He later voiced his support for the independence of Kosovo.[223]

In early 2008, Bush vowed full support for admitting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO[224] despite Russia's opposition to the further enlargement of NATO.[225] During the 2008 Russo-Georgian diplomatic crisis, Bush condemned Russia for recognizing the separatist government of South Ossetia.[226] Then, when Russian troops invaded Georgia that summer, Bush said: "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."[227]

September 11 attacks

 
President Bush, beside firefighter Bob Beckwith, addressing rescue workers at the World Trade Center site

The September 11 terrorist attacks were a major turning point in Bush's presidency. That evening, he addressed the nation from the Oval Office, promising a strong response to the attacks. He also emphasized the need for the nation to come together and comfort the families of the victims. Three days after the attacks, Bush visited Ground Zero and met with Mayor Rudy Giuliani, firefighters, police officers, and volunteers. Bush addressed the gathering via a megaphone while standing on rubble: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."[228]

In a September 20 speech, Bush condemned Osama bin Laden and his organization al-Qaeda, and issued an ultimatum to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, where bin Laden was operating, to "hand over the terrorists, or ... share in their fate".[229] The Taliban's leader, Mullah Omar, refused to handover bin Laden.[230]

The continued presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War was one of the stated motivations behind the September 11 attacks. In 2003, the U.S. withdrew most of its troops from Saudi Arabia.[231]

War on terror

 
Countries with major military operations throughout the war on terror launched by Bush, including those launched after his presidency

After September 11, Bush announced a global war on terror. The Afghan Taliban regime was not forthcoming with Osama bin Laden, so Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime.[232] In his January 29, 2002 State of the Union Address, he asserted that an "axis of evil" consisting of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq was "arming to threaten the peace of the world" and "pose[d] a grave and growing danger".[233] The Bush Administration asserted both a right and the intention to wage preemptive war, or preventive war.[234] This became the basis for the Bush Doctrine which weakened the unprecedented levels of international and domestic support for the United States which had followed the September 11 attacks.[235]

Dissent and criticism of Bush's leadership in the War on Terror increased as the war in Iraq continued.[236][237][238] In 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the Iraq War had become the "cause célèbre for jihadists".[239][240]

Afghanistan invasion

 
President Bush and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in Kabul, March 1, 2006

On October 7, 2001, U.S. and British forces initiated bombing campaigns that led to the arrival of Northern Alliance troops in Kabul on November 13. The main goals of the war were to defeat the Taliban, drive al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, and capture key al-Qaeda leaders. In December 2001, the Pentagon reported that the Taliban had been defeated,[241] but cautioned that the war would go on to continue weakening Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders.[241] Later that month the UN had installed the Afghan Transitional Administration chaired by Hamid Karzai.[242][243]

Efforts to kill or capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden failed as he escaped a battle in December 2001 in the mountainous region of Tora Bora, which the Bush Administration later acknowledged to have resulted from a failure to commit enough U.S. ground troops.[244] It was not until May 2011, two years after Bush left office, that bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces under the Obama administration.

Despite the initial success in driving the Taliban from power in Kabul, by early 2003 the Taliban was regrouping, amassing new funds and recruits.[245] The 2005 failure of Operation Red Wings showed that the Taliban had returned.[246] In 2006, the Taliban insurgency appeared larger, fiercer and better organized than expected, with large-scale allied offensives such as Operation Mountain Thrust attaining limited success.[247][248][249] As a result, Bush commissioned 3,500 additional troops to the country in March 2007.[250]

Iraq invasion

 
President Bush, with Naval Flight Officer Lieutenant Ryan Philips, after landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln prior to his Mission Accomplished speech, May 1, 2003

Beginning with his January 29, 2002 State of the Union address, Bush began publicly focusing attention on Iraq, which he labeled as part of an "axis of evil" allied with terrorists and posing "a grave and growing danger" to U.S. interests through possession of weapons of mass destruction.[233][251]

In the latter half of 2002, CIA reports contained assertions of Saddam Hussein's intent of reconstituting nuclear weapons programs, not properly accounting for Iraqi biological and chemical weapons, and that some Iraqi missiles had a range greater than allowed by the UN sanctions.[252][253] Contentions that the Bush Administration manipulated or exaggerated the threat and evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities would eventually become a major point of criticism for the president.[254][255]

In late 2002 and early 2003, Bush urged the United Nations to enforce Iraqi disarmament mandates, precipitating a diplomatic crisis. In November 2002, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei led UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, but were advised by the U.S. to depart the country four days prior to the U.S. invasion, despite their requests for more time to complete their tasks.[256] The U.S. initially sought a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of military force but dropped the bid for UN approval due to vigorous opposition from several countries.[257] The Bush administration's claim that the Iraq War was part of the War on Terror had been questioned and contested by political analysts.[258]

More than 20 nations (most notably the United Kingdom), designated the "coalition of the willing" joined the United States[259] in invading Iraq. They launched the invasion on March 20, 2003. The Iraqi military was quickly defeated. The capital, Baghdad, fell on April 9, 2003. On May 1, Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq. The initial success of U.S. operations increased his popularity, but the U.S. and allied forces faced a growing insurgency led by sectarian groups; Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech was later criticized as premature.[260] From 2004 until 2007, the situation in Iraq deteriorated further, with some observers arguing that there was a full-scale civil war in Iraq.[261] Bush's policies met with criticism, including demands domestically to set a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq. The 2006 report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker, concluded that the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating". While Bush admitted there were strategic mistakes made in regards to the stability of Iraq,[262] he maintained he would not change the overall Iraq strategy.[263][264] According to Iraq Body Count, some 251,000 Iraqis have been killed in the civil war following the U.S.-led invasion, including at least 163,841 civilians.[265]

In January 2005, elections recognized by the West as free and fair were held in Iraq for the first time in 50 years.[266] This led to the election of Jalal Talabani as president and Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister of Iraq. A referendum to approve a constitution in Iraq was held in October 2005, supported by most Shiites and many Kurds.[267]

On January 10, 2007, Bush announced a surge of 21,500 more troops for Iraq, as well as a job program for Iraqis, more reconstruction proposals, and $1.2 billion (equivalent to $1.6 billion in 2021) for these programs.[268] On May 1, 2007, Bush used his second-ever veto to reject a bill setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops,[269] saying the debate over the conflict was "understandable" but insisting that a continued U.S. presence there was crucial.[270]

In March 2008, Bush praised the Iraqi government's "bold decision" to launch the Battle of Basra against the Mahdi Army, calling it "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq".[271] He said he would carefully weigh recommendations from his commanding General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker about how to proceed after the end of the military buildup in the summer of 2008. He also praised the Iraqis' legislative achievements, including a pension law, a revised de-Baathification law, a new budget, an amnesty law, and a provincial powers measure that, he said, set the stage for the Iraqi elections.[272] By July 2008, American troop deaths had reached their lowest number since the war began,[273] and due to increased stability in Iraq, Bush announced the withdrawal of additional American forces.[273] During his last visit to Iraq in December 2008, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw both of his shoes at Bush amid an official press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.[274] Al-Zaidi yelled that the shoes were a "farewell kiss" and "for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq".[275]

In March 2010, Center for Public Integrity released a report that President Bush's administration had made more than 900 false pretenses in a two-year period about alleged threat of Iraq against the United States, as his rationale to engage war in Iraq.[276]

Surveillance

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, Bush issued an executive order that authorized the President's Surveillance Program. The new directive allowed the National Security Agency to monitor communications between suspected terrorists outside the U.S. and parties within the U.S. without obtaining a warrant, which previously had been required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.[277] As of 2009, the other provisions of the program remained highly classified.[278] Once the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel questioned its original legal opinion that FISA did not apply in a time of war, the program was subsequently re-authorized by the President on the basis that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists.[279] The program proved to be controversial; critics of the administration and organizations such as the American Bar Association argued that it was illegal.[280] In August 2006, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the NSA electronic surveillance program was unconstitutional,[281] but on July 6, 2007, that ruling was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing.[282] On January 17, 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales informed U.S. Senate leaders that the program would not be reauthorized by the President, but would be subjected to judicial oversight.[283] Later in 2007, the NSA launched a replacement for the program, referred to as PRISM, which was subject to the oversight of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.[284] This program was not publicly revealed until reports by The Washington Post[284] and The Guardian[285] emerged in June 2013.[284]

Interrogation policies

Bush authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and several other "enhanced interrogation techniques" that several critics, including Barack Obama, would label as torture.[286][287][288][289] Between 2002 and 2003, the CIA considered certain enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, to be legal based on secret Justice Department legal opinions arguing that terror detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions' ban on torture, which was described as "an unconstitutional infringement of the President's authority to conduct war".[290][291] The CIA had exercised the technique on certain key terrorist suspects under authority given to it in the Bybee Memo from the Attorney General, though that memo was later withdrawn.[292] While not permitted by the U.S. Army Field Manuals which assert "that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information",[290] the Bush administration believed these enhanced interrogations "provided critical information" to preserve American lives.[293] Critics, such as former CIA officer Bob Baer, have stated that information was suspect, "you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough."[294]

On October 17, 2006, Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.[295] The new rule was enacted in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006),[296] which allowed the U.S. government to prosecute unlawful enemy combatants by military commission rather than a standard trial. The law also denied the detainees access to habeas corpus and barred the torture of prisoners. The provision of the law allowed the president to determine what constitutes "torture".[295]

On March 8, 2008, Bush vetoed H.R. 2082,[297] a bill that would have expanded congressional oversight over the intelligence community and banned the use of waterboarding as well as other forms of interrogation not permitted under the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations, saying that "the bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the War on Terror".[298] In April 2009, the ACLU sued and won release of the secret memos that had authorized the Bush administration's interrogation tactics.[299] One memo detailed specific interrogation tactics including a footnote that described waterboarding as torture as well as that the form of waterboarding used by the CIA was far more intense than authorized by the Justice Department.[300]

North Korea condemnation

Bush publicly condemned Kim Jong-il of North Korea and identified North Korea as one of three states in an "axis of evil". He said that "the United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."[233] Within months, "both countries had walked away from their respective commitments under the U.S.–DPRK Agreed Framework of October 1994."[301] North Korea's October 9, 2006, detonation of a nuclear device further complicated Bush's foreign policy, which centered for both terms of his presidency on "[preventing] the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world".[233] Bush condemned North Korea's position, reaffirmed his commitment to "a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula", and said that "transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States", for which North Korea would be held accountable.[302] On May 7, 2007, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear reactors immediately pending the release of frozen funds held in a foreign bank account. This was a result of a series of three-way talks initiated by the United States and including China.[303] On September 2, 2007, North Korea agreed to disclose and dismantle all its nuclear programs by the end of 2007.[304] By May 2009, North Korea had restarted its nuclear program and threatened to attack South Korea.[305]

On June 22, 2010, "While South Korea prospers, the people of North Korea have suffered profoundly," he said, adding that communism had resulted in dire poverty, mass starvation and brutal suppression. "In recent years," he went on to say, "the suffering has been compounded by the leader who wasted North Korea's precious few resources on personal luxuries and nuclear weapons programs."[306]

Syria sanctions

Bush expanded economic sanctions on Syria.[307] In 2003, Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act, which expanded sanctions on Syria. In early 2007, the Treasury Department, acting on a June 2005 executive order, froze American bank accounts of Syria's Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology, Electronics Institute, and National Standards and Calibration Laboratory. Bush's order prohibits Americans from doing business with these institutions suspected of helping spread weapons of mass destruction[308] and being supportive of terrorism.[309] Under separate executive orders signed by Bush in 2004 and later 2007, the Treasury Department froze the assets of two Lebanese and two Syrians, accusing them of activities to "undermine the legitimate political process in Lebanon" in November 2007. Those designated included: Assaad Halim Hardan, a member of Lebanon's parliament and current leader of the Syrian Socialist National Party; Wi'am Wahhab, a former member of Lebanon's government (Minister of the Environment) under Prime Minister Omar Karami (2004–2005); Hafiz Makhluf, a colonel and senior official in the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate and a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; and Muhammad Nasif Khayrbik, identified as a close adviser to Assad.[310]

PEPFAR

In the State of the Union address in January 2003, Bush outlined a five-year strategy for global emergency AIDS relief, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Bush announced $15 billion for this effort[311] which directly supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for more than 3.2 million men, women and children worldwide.[312] The U.S. government had spent some $44 billion on the project since 2003 (a figure that includes $7 billion contributed to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, a multilateral organization),[313] which saved an estimated five million lives.[314] According to The New York Times correspondent Peter Baker, "Bush did more to stop AIDS and more to help Africa than any president before or since."[314]

Security incidents

2001 White House shooting

On February 7, 2001, while Bush was in the residence area of the White House, Robert Pickett, standing outside the perimeter fence, discharged a number of shots from a Taurus .38 Special revolver "in the general direction" of the White House. Pickett was shot in the knee by a U.S. Secret Service agent and arrested. Furthermore, he was initially charged with discharging a firearm during a crime, carrying a 10-year mandatory sentence, but following a plea agreement, Pickett instead entered a guilty plea to a firearms violation and an Alford plea to assaulting a federal officer. He was sentenced to three years at the Federal Medical Center, Rochester followed by three years of probation.[315][316][317]

2005 Tbilisi grenade attack

On May 10, 2005, while President Bush was giving a speech in Freedom Square, Vladimir Arutyunian, a native Georgian who was born to a family of ethnic Armenians, threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade toward the podium. It landed in the crowd about 65 feet (20 m) from the podium after hitting a girl, but it did not detonate because a red tartan handkerchief was wrapped tightly around it, preventing the safety lever from detaching.[318][319] Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was seated nearby. After escaping that day, Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005. During his arrest, he killed an Interior Ministry agent. He was convicted in January 2006 and given a life sentence.[320][321]

2008 Baghdad shoeing

Shoeing incident in Baghdad, Iraq, December 2008

On December 14, 2008, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, threw both of his shoes at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. Bush was not injured, having ducked the pair of shoes.[322] However, White House press secretary Dana Perino received a bruise on her face after being hit by a microphone boom knocked over by security.[323] Al-Zaidi received a three-year prison sentence, which was reduced to one year. On September 15, 2009, he was released early for good behavior.[322]

Judicial appointments

Supreme Court

 
 
Supreme Court Justice nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito, 2005

On July 19, 2005, following the announcement of the retirement of Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 1, Bush nominated federal appellate judge John Roberts to be O'Connor's replacement; however, following the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 3, that still-pending nomination was withdrawn on September 5, with Bush instead nominating Roberts to be the next Chief Justice of the United States. He was confirmed by the Senate on September 29, 2005.[324]

On October 3, 2005, Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to succeed O'Connor; however, Miers withdrew her nomination on October 27 after encountering significant opposition from both parties, who found her to be ill-prepared and uninformed on the law,[111]: 278  once again leaving no nominee to replace O'Connor. Finally, on October 31, Bush nominated federal appellate judge Samuel Alito, who was confirmed by the Senate to replace O'Connor on January 31, 2006.[325]

Other courts

In addition to his two Supreme Court appointments, Bush appointed 61 judges to the United States courts of appeals and 261 judges to the United States district courts.[citation needed]

Cultural and political image

Image

Bush's upbringing in West Texas, his accent, his vacations on his Texas ranch, and his penchant for country metaphors contribute to his folksy, American cowboy image.[326][327] "I think people look at him and think John Wayne", said Piers Morgan, editor of the British Daily Mirror.[328]

Bush has been parodied by the media,[329] comedians, and other politicians.[330] Detractors tended to cite linguistic errors made by Bush during his public speeches, which are colloquially referred to as Bushisms.[331]

In contrast to his father, who was perceived as having troubles with an overarching unifying theme, Bush embraced larger visions and was seen as a man of larger ideas and associated huge risks.[332]

Tony Blair wrote in 2010 that the caricature of Bush as being dumb is "ludicrous" and that Bush is "very smart".[333] In an interview with Playboy, The New York Times columnist David Brooks said Bush "was 60 IQ points smarter in private than he was in public. He doesn't want anybody to think he's smarter than they are, so puts on a Texas act."[334][unreliable source?]

Job approval

 
  approve
  disapprove
  unsure
Gallup/USA Today Bush public opinion polling from February 2001 to January 2009

Bush began his presidency with approval ratings near 50 percent.[335] After the September 11 attacks, Bush gained an approval rating of 90 percent,[336] maintaining 80–90 percent approval for four months after the attacks. It remained over 50 percent during most of his first term[337] and then fell to as low as 19 percent in his second term.[338]

In 2000 and again in 2004, Time magazine named George W. Bush as its Person of the Year, a title awarded to someone who the editors believe "has done the most to influence the events of the year".[339] In May 2004, Gallup reported that 89 percent of the Republican electorate approved of Bush.[340] However, the support waned due mostly to a minority of Republicans' frustration with him on issues of spending, illegal immigration, and Middle Eastern affairs.[341]

Within the United States armed forces, according to an unscientific survey, the president was strongly supported in the 2004 presidential elections.[342] While 73 percent of military personnel said they would vote for Bush, 18 percent preferred his Democratic rival, John Kerry.[342] According to Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who has studied the political leanings of the U.S. military, members of the armed services supported Bush because they found him more likely than Kerry to complete the War in Iraq.[342]

Bush's approval rating surged to 74 percent at the beginning of the Iraq War, up 19 points from his pre-war rating of 55 percent.[343] Bush's approval rating went below the 50 percent mark in AP-Ipsos polling in December 2004.[344] Thereafter, his approval ratings and approval of his handling of domestic and foreign policy issues steadily dropped. After his re-election in 2004, Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the political spectrum[345][346][347] for his handling of the Iraq War, his response to Hurricane Katrina,[348][349][350] and to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, NSA warrantless surveillance, the Plame affair, and Guantanamo Bay detention camp controversies.[351]

Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. Polls conducted in 2006 showed an average of 37 percent approval ratings for Bush,[352] the lowest for any second-term president at that point in his term since Harry S. Truman in March 1951 (when Truman's approval rating was 28 percent),[344][353] which contributed to what Bush called the "thumping" of the Republican Party in the 2006 midterm elections.[354] Throughout most of 2007, Bush's approval rating hovered in the mid-thirties;[355] the average for his entire second term was 37 percent, according to Gallup.[356]

 
Protest against the Iraq War in New London, Connecticut on May 23, 2007

By the beginning of 2008, his final year in office, Bush's approval rating had dropped to a low of just 19 percent, largely from the loss of support among Republicans.[338] Commenting on his low poll numbers and accusations of being "the worst president",[357][358] Bush would say, "I make decisions on what I think is right for the United States based upon principles. I frankly don't give a damn about the polls."[359]

There were calls for Bush's impeachment, though most polls showed a plurality of Americans would not support such an action.[360] The arguments offered for impeachment usually centered on the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy,[361] the Bush administration's justification for the war in Iraq, and alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions.[362] Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who had run against Bush during the 2004 presidential campaign, introduced 35 articles of impeachment on the floor of the House of Representatives against Bush on June 9, 2008, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declared that impeachment was "off the table".[363]

In April 2008, Bush's disapproval ratings reached the highest ever recorded for any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup poll, with 69 percent of those polled disapproving of the job Bush was doing as president and 28 percent approving – although the majority (66 percent) of Republicans still approved of his job performance.[364]

In polls conducted in the fall, just before the 2008 election, his approval ratings remained at record lows of 19 to 20 percent,[365][366] while his disapproval ratings ranged from 67 percent to as high as 75 percent.[366][367] In polling conducted January 9–11, 2009, his final job approval rating by Gallup was 34 percent, which placed him on par with Jimmy Carter and Harry S. Truman, the other presidents whose final Gallup ratings measured in the low 30s (Richard Nixon's final Gallup approval rating was even lower, at 24 percent).[368] According to a CBS News/New York Times poll conducted January 11–15, 2009, Bush's final approval rating in office was 22 percent, the lowest in American history.[365]

Foreign perceptions

 
Countries with a U.S. military presence in 2007

Bush was criticized internationally and targeted by the global anti-war and anti-globalization movements for his administration's foreign policy.[369][370] Views of him within the international community – even in France, a close ally of the United States – were more negative than those of most previous American presidents.[371]

Bush was described as having especially close personal relationships with Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and Vicente Fox of Mexico, although formal relations were sometimes strained.[372][373][374] Other leaders, such as Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan,[375] Yoweri Museveni of Uganda,[376] José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain,[377] and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela,[378] openly criticized the president. Later in Bush's presidency, tensions arose between him and Vladimir Putin, which led to a cooling of their relationship.[379]

In 2006, most respondents in 18 of 21 countries surveyed around the world were found to hold an unfavorable opinion of Bush. Respondents indicated that they judged his administration as negative for world security.[380][381] In 2007, the Pew Global Attitudes Project reported that during the Bush presidency, attitudes towards the United States, and towards Americans, became less favorable around the world.[382] The Pew Research Center's 2007 Global Attitudes poll found that in only nine countries of 47 did most respondents express "a lot of confidence" or "some confidence" in Bush: Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Israel, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda.[383] A March 2007 survey of Arab opinion conducted by Zogby International and the University of Maryland found that Bush was the most disliked leader in the Arab world.[384]

During a June 2007 visit to the predominantly Muslim[385] Albania, Bush was greeted enthusiastically. Albania has a population of 2.8 million,[386] has troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the country's government is highly supportive of American foreign policy.[387] A huge image of the President was hung in the middle of the capital city of Tirana flanked by Albanian and American flags while a local street was named after him.[388][389] A shirt-sleeved statue of Bush was unveiled in Fushë-Krujë, a few kilometers northwest of Tirana.[390] The Bush administration's support for the unilateral declaration of independence of Albanian-majority Kosovo, while endearing him to the Albanians, troubled U.S. relations with Serbia, leading to the February 2008 torching of the U.S. embassy in Belgrade.[391]

Post-presidency (2009–present)

 
Former President George W. Bush and his wife being escorted to a waiting helicopter by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama on January 20, 2009

Residence

Following the inauguration of Barack Obama, Bush and his family flew from Andrews Air Force Base to a homecoming celebration in Midland, Texas, following which they returned to their ranch in Crawford, Texas.[392] They bought a home in the Preston Hollow neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, where they settled down.[393]

Bush made regular appearances at various events throughout the Dallas–Fort Worth area, including the opening coin toss at the Dallas Cowboys' first game in the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington[394] and an April 2009 Texas Rangers game, where he thanked the people of Dallas for helping him settle in, which was met with a standing ovation.[395] He also attended every home playoff game during the Rangers' 2010 season and, accompanied by his father, threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington for Game 4 of the 2010 World Series on October 31.[396]

On August 6, 2013, Bush was successfully treated for a coronary artery blockage with a stent. The blockage had been found during an annual medical examination.[397]

In reaction to the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers, Bush said, "Laura and I are heartbroken by the heinous acts of violence in our city last night. Murdering the innocent is always evil, never more so than when the lives taken belong to those who protect our families and communities."[398]

Publications and appearances

Since leaving office, Bush has kept a relatively low profile.[399] Bush has spoken in favor of increased global participation of women in politics and societal matters in foreign countries.[400][401]

In March 2009, he delivered his first post-presidency speech in Calgary, Alberta,[402][403] appeared via video on The Colbert Report during which he praised U.S. troops for earning a "special place in American history",[404] and attended the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy.[405] Bush made his debut as a motivational speaker on October 26 at the "Get Motivated" seminar in Dallas.[406] In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting on November 5, 2009, the Bushes paid an undisclosed visit to the survivors and the victims' families the day following the shooting, having contacted the base commander requesting that the visit be private and not involve press coverage.[407]

Bush released his memoirs, Decision Points, on November 9, 2010.[408] During a pre-release appearance promoting the book, Bush said he considered his biggest accomplishment to be keeping "the country safe amid a real danger", and his greatest failure to be his inability to secure the passage of Social Security reform.[409] He also made news defending his administration's enhanced interrogation techniques, specifically the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, saying, "I'd do it again to save lives."[410]

In 2012, he wrote the foreword of The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs, an economics book published by the George W. Bush Presidential Center.[411][412] He also presented the book at the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas.[413]

Bush appeared on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on November 19, 2013, along with his wife Laura. When asked by Leno why he does not comment publicly about the Obama administration, Bush said, "I don't think it's good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor."[414] Despite this statement, Bush vocally disagreed with Obama's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, calling it a "strategic blunder".[415] In December, Bush travelled with President Obama to the memorial service of South African president and civil rights leader Nelson Mandela.[416] There, they joined former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.[417]

 
Charlie Strong (left), Texas Longhorns head football coach, George W. Bush and Reverend Jesse Jackson hold up a Texas Longhorns football jersey at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2014.

Alongside the 2014 United States–Africa Leaders Summit, Bush, Michelle Obama, the State Department, and the George W. Bush Institute hosted a daylong forum on education and health with the spouses of the African leaders attending the summit. Bush urged African leaders to avoid discriminatory laws that make the treatment of HIV/AIDS more difficult.[418] On November 2, Bush spoke at an event to 200 business and civic leaders at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum to raise awareness for the upcoming Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.[26][419] On November 11, Bush published a biography of his father titled 41: A Portrait of My Father.[420]

In an interview published by Israel Hayom magazine on June 12, 2015, Bush said "boots on the ground" would be needed to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). He added that people had said during his presidency that he should withdraw American troops from Iraq, but he chose the opposite, sending 30,000 more troops to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, and that they indeed were defeated. Bush was also asked about Iran but declined to answer, stating that any answer he gives would be interpreted as undermining Obama.[421]

During the early stages of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Bush spoke and campaigned for his brother Jeb Bush at a South Carolina rally.[422][unreliable source?] However, the party's nomination eventually went to Donald Trump, whom Bush refused to endorse.[423] Furthermore, he did not attend the party's convention.[424][425] On the eve of Trump's nomination, it was reported that Bush had privately expressed concern about the current direction of the Republican Party, telling a group of his former aides and advisors that "I'm worried that I will be the last Republican president."[426][427] According to a spokesperson for the Bush family, he did not vote for Trump in the general election, instead choosing to leave his presidential ballot blank.[428]

After the 2016 elections, Bush, his father, and his brother Jeb called Trump on the phone to congratulate him on his victory.[429] Both he and Laura attended Trump's inauguration. Images of Bush struggling to put on a rain poncho during the ceremony became an internet meme.[430] While leaving the event, Bush allegedly described the ceremony, and Trump's inaugural address in particular, as "some weird shit".[431]

In February 2017, Bush released a book of his own portraits of veterans called Portraits of Courage.[432] In August, following the white nationalist Unite the Right rally, Bush and his father released a joint statement condemning the violence and ideologies present there.[433] Subsequently, Bush gave a speech in New York where he noted of the current political climate, "Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication." He continued, "Bigotry in any form is blasphemy against the American creed and it means the very identity of our nation depends on the passing of civic ideals to the next generation," while urging citizens to oppose threats to American democracy and be positive role models for young people.[434] The speech was widely interpreted as a denouncement of Donald Trump and his ideologies, despite Bush not mentioning Trump by name.[434][435][436][437]

 
Bush eulogizing his father at the National Cathedral, December 5, 2018

On September 1, 2018, Bush and Laura Bush attended the funeral of John McCain at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.[438] On November 30, his father died at his home. Shortly before his death, Bush was able to talk with his father on the phone; his father responded with what would be his last words, "I love you too".[439] Bush attended his father's funeral on December 5, delivering a eulogy.[440]

In May 2019, the tenth anniversary of former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun's death, Bush visited South Korea to pay respects to Roh, delivering a short eulogy.[441]

On June 1, 2020, Bush released a statement addressing the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide reaction and protests.[442][443] In the statement, Bush wrote that he and former first lady Laura Bush "are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country".[444] He also elaborated on the racial injustices perpetrated by the police saying, that "it is time for America to examine our tragic failures", adding "Many doubt the justice of our country, and with good reason. Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions".[445] On July 30, Bush and his wife, along with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, attended and spoke at the funeral for civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.[446]

Bush did not give any endorsements during the 2020 presidential election,[447] but held a virtual fundraiser for U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Martha McSally (R-AZ), and Thom Tillis (R-NC). All four were up for reelection and were struggling in the polls.[448] He also did not attend the 2020 Republican National Convention where President Trump was re-nominated.[449] In April 2021, Bush told People magazine that he did not vote for either Trump or Joe Biden in the election. Instead, he wrote in Condoleezza Rice, who served as his national security advisor from 2001 to 2005 and as his secretary of state from 2005 to 2009.[450] When the election was called for Biden, Bush congratulated him and his running mate Kamala Harris. He also congratulated Trump and his supporters "on a hard-fought campaign". Bush's outreach to Biden was notable since Republican candidate Donald Trump had not yet conceded. Bush then issued a statement saying that while Trump was within his rights to call for recounts, he believed the election was "fundamentally fair" and that "its outcome is clear", and said he would offer Biden "my prayers for his success, and my pledge to help in any way I can", as he had for Trump and Obama.[451][452][453]

 
George W. Bush and Laura at the inauguration of Joe Biden

On January 6, 2021, following the U.S. Capitol attack, Bush denounced the violence and attack alongside the three other living former presidents, Obama, Clinton, and Carter,[454] releasing a statement saying that "this is how election results are disputed in a banana republic, not our democratic republic"[455] and that "it is a sickening and heartbreaking sight".[456] He also echoed President-elect Biden's message stating that what occurred at the capital was an "insurrection".[457] On January 20, Bush and his wife attended Biden's inauguration.[458]

Bush opposed President Biden's withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, saying that the withdrawal made him "concerned" and that it had the potential to "create a vacuum, and into that vacuum is likely to come people who treat women as second class citizens".[459] During an interview with Deutsche Welle on July 14, 2021, Bush reaffirmed his opposition to the troop withdrawal, calling the plan "a mistake".[460]

On September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Bush gave a speech at the Flight 93 National Memorial, praising the heroism of the people on Flight 93 and the spirit of America. He also said that he "saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know."[461]

Collaborations

President Obama with former presidents Clinton and Bush announce the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund after the 2010 earthquake.

In January 2010, at President Obama's request, Bush and Bill Clinton established the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to raise contributions for relief and recovery efforts following the 2010 Haiti earthquake earlier that month.[462]

On May 2, 2011, President Obama called Bush, who was at a restaurant with his wife, to inform him that Osama bin Laden had been killed.[463] The Bushes joined the Obamas in New York City to mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. At the Ground Zero memorial, Bush read a letter that President Abraham Lincoln wrote to a widow who had lost five sons during the Civil War.[464]

On September 7, 2017, Bush partnered with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama to work with One America Appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in the Gulf Coast and Texas communities.[465]

Over the years, President Bush has had a good-natured friendship with Michelle Obama. "President Bush and I, we are forever seatmates because of protocol, and that's how we sit at all the official functions," Mrs. Obama told the Today Show. "He's my partner in crime at every major thing where all the 'formers' gather. So we're together all the time." She later added, "I love him to death. He's a wonderful man, he's a funny man."[466] Bush and Obama have sat next to each other at many events including the 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights march in Selma (2015), the interfaith memorial service for the victims in Dallas (2016), the opening at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016), and at the funerals for Nancy Reagan (2016), and John McCain (2018). Bush famously passed mints to Mrs. Obama during the McCain funeral in September 2018 and gave them to her again during the funeral of his father in December 2018.[467]

Art

After serving as president, Bush began painting as a hobby after reading Winston Churchill's essay "Painting as a Pastime". Subjects have included people, dogs, and still life.[468] He has also painted self-portraits and portraits of world leaders, including Vladimir Putin and Tony Blair.[469][470][471] In February 2017, Bush released a book of portraits of veterans, Portraits of Courage.[432] The net proceeds from his book are donated to the George W. Bush Presidential Center. In May 2019, on the tenth anniversary of former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun's death, George Bush drew a portrait of Roh to give to his family.[472]

Legacy

Bush's legacy continues to develop today as supporters credit his counterterrorism policies with preventing another major terrorist attack from occurring in the U.S. after the September 11 attacks and also praise individual policies such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit and the AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR. Critics often point to his handling of the Iraq War, specifically the failure to find weapons of mass destruction after claiming they were in Iraq, as well as Bush's handling of tax policy, Hurricane Katrina, climate change and the 2008 financial crisis, as proof that he was unfit to be president.[473][474][475] Ben Ferencz, former chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Nuremberg Trials, has stated that Bush likely committed war crimes in relation to the Iraq War.[476][477][478]

Several historians and commentators hold that Bush was one of the most consequential presidents in American history. Princeton University scholar Julian Zelizer described Bush's presidency as a "transformative" one, and said that "some people hate him, some people love him, but I do think he'll have a much more substantive perception as time goes on".[479] Bryon Williams of The Huffington Post referred to Bush as "the most noteworthy president since FDR" and said the Patriot Act "increased authority of the executive branch at the expense of judicial opinions about when searches and seizures are reasonable" as evidence.[480] Bush's administration presided over the largest tax cuts since the presidency of Ronald Reagan,[481] and his homeland security reforms proved to be the most significant expansion of the federal government since the Great Society.[482]

Bush has been widely portrayed in film and television, both during and since his presidency.[483][484][485] He has had various nicknames, including "Dubya", "GWB" and "Shrub".[486][487][488]

Reception

The George W. Bush presidency has been ranked as below-average in surveys of presidential scholars published in the late 2000s and 2010s.[489][490][491]

A 2010 Siena Research Institute survey of the opinions of historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars ranked him 39th out of 43 presidents. The survey respondents gave President Bush low ratings on his handling of the U.S. economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments, and intelligence.[492] Bush said in 2013, "Ultimately history will judge the decisions I made, and I won't be around because it will take time for the objective historians to show up. So I am pretty comfortable with it. I did what I did."[493] C-SPAN's 2021 survey of historians ranked Bush as the 29th-best president; Bush had initially been ranked the 36th in 2009.[494]

Among the public, his reputation has improved since his presidency ended in 2009. In February 2012, Gallup reported that "Americans still rate George W. Bush among the worst presidents, though their views have become more positive in the three years since he left office."[495] Gallup had earlier noted that Bush's favorability ratings in public opinion surveys had begun to rise a year after he had left office, from 40 percent in January 2009 and 35 percent in March 2009, to 45 percent in July 2010, a period during which he had remained largely out of the news.[496] A poll conducted in June 2013 marked the first time recorded by Gallup where his ratings have been more positive than negative, with 49 percent viewing him favorably compared to 46 percent unfavorably.[497] Other pollsters have noted similar trends of slight improvement in Bush's personal favorability since the end of his presidency.[498] In April 2013, Bush's approval rating stood at 47 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval in a poll jointly conducted for The Washington Post and ABC, his highest approval rating since December 2005.[499] Bush had achieved notable gains among seniors, non-college whites, and moderate and conservative Democrats since leaving office, although majorities disapproved of his handling of the economy (53 percent) and the Iraq War (57 percent).[500] His 47 percent approval rating was equal to that of President Obama's in the same polling period.[501] A CNN poll conducted that same month found that 55 percent of Americans said Bush's presidency had been a failure, with opinions divided along party lines, and 43 percent of independents calling it a success.[502] Bush's public image saw greater improvement in 2017, with a YouGov survey showing 51 percent of favorability from Democrats.[503] A 2018 CNN poll subsequently found that 61 percent of respondents held of a favorable view of Bush, an increase of nine points from 2015.[504] The improvement has been interpreted as Democrats viewing him more favorably in response to Donald Trump's presidency,[505][506][507] an assessment that has also been expressed by Bush himself.[508]

Acknowledgments and dedications

A street in Tirana, formerly known as Rruga Punëtorët e Rilindjes, situated directly outside the Albanian Parliament, was renamed after Bush a few days before he made the first-ever visit by an American president to Albania in June 2007.[509]

In 2012, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves awarded Bush the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana for his work in expanding NATO.[510]

Two elementary schools are named after him: George W. Bush Elementary School of the Stockton Unified School District in Stockton, California,[511] and George W. Bush Elementary School of the Wylie independent school District in St. Paul, Texas, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.[512]

See also

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george, bush, this, article, about, 43rd, president, united, states, father, 41st, president, george, bush, george, walker, bush, born, july, 1946, american, politician, served, 43rd, president, united, states, from, 2001, 2009, member, republican, party, bush. This article is about the 43rd president of the United States For his father the 41st president see George H W Bush George Walker Bush born July 6 1946 is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 A member of the Republican Party Bush family and son of the 41st president George H W Bush he previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 George W BushOfficial portrait 200343rd President of the United StatesIn office January 20 2001 January 20 2009Vice PresidentDick CheneyPreceded byBill ClintonSucceeded byBarack Obama46th Governor of TexasIn office January 17 1995 December 21 2000LieutenantBob Bullock Rick PerryPreceded byAnn RichardsSucceeded byRick PerryPersonal detailsBornGeorge Walker Bush 1946 07 06 July 6 1946 age 76 New Haven Connecticut U S Political partyRepublicanSpouseLaura Welch m 1977 wbr ChildrenBarbaraJennaParentsGeorge H W Bush Barbara PierceRelativesBush familyResidence s Prairie Chapel Ranch Crawford Texas U S Alma materYale University BA Harvard University MBA OccupationPoliticianbusinessmanCivilian awardsList of honors and awardsSignatureWebsiteOfficial website Presidential Library Presidential Center White House ArchivesNicknamesDubyaGWBShrubMilitary serviceBranch serviceTexas Air National Guard Alabama Air National GuardYears of service1968 1974RankFirst LieutenantUnit147th Reconnaissance Wing187th Fighter WingMilitary awardsAir Force Pilot s BadgeOutstanding Unit AwardNational Defense Service Medal better source needed While in his twenties Bush flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975 he worked in the oil industry In 1978 Bush unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives He later co owned the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball before he was elected governor of Texas in 1994 As governor Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform increased education funding set higher standards for schools and reformed the criminal justice system He also helped make Texas the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the nation In the 2000 presidential election Bush defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore despite losing the popular vote after a narrow and contested win that involved a Supreme Court decision to stop a recount in Florida Upon taking office Bush signed a major tax cut program and education reform bill the No Child Left Behind Act He pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith based initiatives A decisive event that reshaped his administration was the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001 resulting in the start of the war on terror and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security Bush ordered the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban destroy al Qaeda and capture Osama bin Laden He signed the Patriot Act to authorize surveillance of suspected terrorists He also ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq on the erroneous belief that Saddam Hussein s regime possessed weapons of mass destruction this led to Hussein s eventual overthrow and capture by U S forces Bush also signed the Medicare Modernization Act which created Medicare Part D Bush was re elected president in 2004 defeating Democrat John Kerry and winning the popular vote During his second term Bush reached multiple free trade agreements He appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court He sought major changes to Social Security and immigration laws but both efforts failed in Congress Bush was widely criticized for his handling of Hurricane Katrina and the midterm dismissal of U S attorneys In the midst of his unpopularity the Democrats regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections The Afghanistan and Iraq wars continued and in January 2007 Bush launched a surge of troops in Iraq By December the U S entered the Great Recession prompting the Bush administration to obtain congressional approval for multiple economic programs intended to preserve the country s financial system including the Troubled Asset Relief Program After finishing his second term Bush returned to Texas where his presidential library opened in 2013 He has maintained a low profile since leaving office At various points in his presidency Bush was among both the most popular and unpopular presidents in U S history He received the highest recorded approval ratings in the wake of the September 11 attacks but also one of the lowest such ratings during the 2007 2008 financial crisis Although public favorability of Bush has improved since he left office his presidency has generally been rated as below average by scholars Contents 1 Early life and career 1 1 Education 1 2 Family and personal life 1 2 1 Alcohol abuse 1 2 2 Hobbies 1 3 Military career 1 4 Business career 1 5 Early political involvement 2 Texas governorship 1995 2000 3 Presidential campaigns 3 1 2000 presidential candidacy 3 1 1 Primary 3 1 2 General election 3 2 2004 presidential candidacy 4 Presidency 2001 2009 4 1 Domestic policy 4 1 1 Economic policy 4 1 1 1 2008 financial crisis 4 1 2 Education and public health 4 1 3 Social services and Social Security 4 1 4 Environmental policies 4 1 5 Energy policies 4 1 6 Stem cell research and first veto 4 1 7 Immigration 4 1 8 Hurricane Katrina 4 1 9 Midterm dismissal of U S attorneys 4 2 Foreign policy 4 2 1 September 11 attacks 4 2 2 War on terror 4 2 3 Afghanistan invasion 4 2 4 Iraq invasion 4 2 5 Surveillance 4 2 6 Interrogation policies 4 2 7 North Korea condemnation 4 2 8 Syria sanctions 4 2 9 PEPFAR 4 3 Security incidents 4 3 1 2001 White House shooting 4 3 2 2005 Tbilisi grenade attack 4 3 3 2008 Baghdad shoeing 4 4 Judicial appointments 4 4 1 Supreme Court 4 4 2 Other courts 4 5 Cultural and political image 4 5 1 Image 4 5 2 Job approval 4 5 3 Foreign perceptions 5 Post presidency 2009 present 5 1 Residence 5 2 Publications and appearances 5 3 Collaborations 5 4 Art 6 Legacy 6 1 Reception 6 2 Acknowledgments and dedications 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 9 1 Academic 9 2 Reflections on the Bush presidency 9 3 Primary sources 10 External linksEarly life and careerMain article Early life of George W Bush George W Bush with his parents Barbara and George H W Bush c 1947 George Walker Bush was born on July 6 1946 at Grace New Haven Hospital in New Haven Connecticut 1 He was the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce He was raised in Midland and Houston Texas with four siblings Jeb Neil Marvin and Dorothy Another younger sister Robin died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953 2 His paternal grandfather Prescott Bush was a U S senator from Connecticut 3 His father was Ronald Reagan s vice president from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U S president from 1989 to 1993 Bush has English and some German ancestry along with more distant Dutch Welsh Irish French and Scottish roots 4 Education Bush attended public schools in Midland Texas until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade He then spent two years at The Kinkaid School a college preparatory school 5 Bush attended high school at Phillips Academy a boarding school in Andover Massachusetts where he played baseball and was the head cheerleader during his senior year 6 7 He attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968 graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history 8 During this time he was a cheerleader and a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon serving as the president of the fraternity during his senior year 9 10 11 Bush became a member of the Skull and Bones society as a senior 12 Bush was a rugby union player and was on Yale s 1st XV 13 He characterized himself as an average student 14 His grade point average during his first three years at Yale was 77 and he had a similar average under a nonnumerical rating system in his final year 15 In the fall of 1973 Bush entered Harvard Business School He graduated in 1975 with an MBA degree He is the only U S president to have earned an MBA 16 Family and personal life See also Bush family Bush was engaged to Cathryn Lee Wolfman in 1967 but the engagement did not last Bush and Wolfman remained on good terms after the end of the relationship 17 While Bush was at a backyard barbecue in 1977 friends introduced him to Laura Welch a schoolteacher and librarian After a three month courtship she accepted his marriage proposal and they wed on November 5 of that year 18 The couple settled in Midland Texas Bush left his family s Episcopal Church to join his wife s United Methodist Church 19 On November 25 1981 Laura Bush gave birth to fraternal twin daughters Barbara and Jenna 18 Bush describes being challenged by Billy Graham to consider faith in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord how he began to read the Bible daily surrendering to the Almighty that faith is a walk and that he was moved by God s love 20 Alcohol abuse Prior to getting married Bush struggled with multiple episodes of alcohol abuse 21 In one instance on September 4 1976 he was pulled over near his family s summer home in Kennebunkport Maine for driving under the influence of alcohol He was cited for DUI fined 150 and received a brief suspension of his Maine driver s license 22 Bush said his wife has had a stabilizing effect on his life 18 and he attributes her influence to his 1986 decision to give up alcohol 23 While governor of Texas Bush said of his wife I saw an elegant beautiful woman who turned out not only to be elegant and beautiful but very smart and willing to put up with my rough edges and I must confess has smoothed them off over time 18 Bush also claims that his faith in God was critical in the process to give up drink I believe that God helped open my eyes which were closing because of booze 24 Hobbies Bush has been an avid reader throughout his adult life preferring biographies and histories 25 During his presidency Bush read the Bible daily 26 though at the end of his second term he said on television that he is not a literalist about Bible interpretation 27 28 Walt Harrington a journalist recalled seeing books by John Fowles F Scott Fitzgerald James Joyce and Gore Vidal lying about as well as biographies of Willa Cather and Queen Victoria in his home when Bush was a Texas oilman Other activities include cigar smoking and golf 29 Bush has also painted many paintings One of his best known project is a collection of 43 painting of immigrants titled Out of Many One 30 Another painting project was Portraits of Courage A Commander in Chief s Tribute To America s Warrior 31 Military career Main article George W Bush military service controversy See also Killian documents controversy and Killian documents authenticity issues In May 1968 Bush was commissioned into the Texas Air National Guard 32 After two years of training in active duty service 33 he was assigned to Houston flying Convair F 102s with the 147th Reconnaissance Wing out of the Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base 32 34 Critics including former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe have alleged that Bush was favorably treated due to his father s political standing as a member of the House of Representatives citing his selection as a pilot despite his low pilot aptitude test scores and his irregular attendance 32 In June 2005 the Department of Defense released all the records of Bush s Texas Air National Guard service which remain in its official archives 35 In late 1972 and early 1973 he drilled with the 187th Fighter Wing of the Alabama Air National Guard He had moved to Montgomery Alabama to work on the unsuccessful U S Senate campaign of Republican Winton M Blount 36 37 In 1972 Bush was suspended from flying for failure to take a scheduled physical exam 38 He was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve on November 21 1974 39 Bush remains the most recent president to have served in the military 40 Business career Main article Professional life of George W Bush In 1977 Bush established Arbusto Energy a small oil exploration company although it did not begin operations until the following year 41 42 He later changed the name to Bush Exploration In 1984 his company merged with the larger Spectrum 7 and Bush became chairman The company was hurt by decreased oil prices and it folded into HKN Inc 43 with Bush becoming a member of HKN s board of directors Questions of possible insider trading involving HKN arose but a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation concluded that the information Bush had at the time of his stock sale was not sufficient to constitute insider trading 44 In April 1989 Bush arranged for a group of investors to purchase a controlling interest in the Texas Rangers baseball franchise for 89 million and invested 500 000 himself to start He then was managing general partner for five years 45 He actively led the team s projects and regularly attended its games often choosing to sit in the open stands with fans 46 Bush s sale of his shares in the Rangers in 1998 brought him over 15 million from his initial 800 000 investment 47 Prior to his eventual gubernatorial campaign Bush briefly considered a candidacy to become the Commissioner of Baseball in the early to mid 1990s 48 49 50 Early political involvement In the 1978 elections Bush ran for the House of Representatives from Texas s 19th congressional district The retiring member George H Mahon had held the district for the Democratic Party since 1935 Bush s opponent Kent Hance portrayed him as out of touch with rural Texans and Bush lost the election with 46 8 percent of the vote to Hance s 53 2 percent 51 Bush and his family moved to Washington D C in 1988 to work on his father s campaign for the U S presidency 52 53 He was a campaign advisor and liaison to the media and assisted his father by campaigning across the country 54 In December 1991 Bush was one of seven people named by his father to run his father s 1992 presidential re election campaign as a campaign advisor 55 The previous month his father had asked him to tell White House chief of staff John H Sununu to resign 56 Texas governorship 1995 2000 Main article Governorship of George W Bush Bush declared his candidacy for the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election at the same time his brother Jeb sought the governorship in Florida His campaign focused on four themes welfare reform tort reform crime reduction and education improvement 54 Bush s campaign advisers were Karen Hughes Joe Allbaugh and Karl Rove 57 Governor Bush right with father former president George H W Bush and wife Laura 1997 After easily winning the Republican primary Bush faced popular Democratic incumbent Governor Ann Richards 54 58 In the course of the campaign Bush pledged to sign a bill allowing Texans to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons Richards had vetoed the bill but Bush signed it into law after he became governor 59 According to The Atlantic the race featured a rumor that she was a lesbian along with a rare instance of such a tactic s making it into the public record when a regional chairman of the Bush campaign allowed himself perhaps inadvertently to be quoted criticizing Richards for appointing avowed homosexual activists to state jobs 60 The Atlantic and others connected the lesbian rumor to Karl Rove 61 but Rove denied being involved 62 Bush won the general election with 53 5 percent against Richards 45 9 percent 63 Bush used a budget surplus to push through Texas s largest tax cut 2 billion 57 He extended government funding for organizations providing education of the dangers of alcohol and drug use and abuse and helping to reduce domestic violence 64 Critics contended that during his tenure Texas ranked near the bottom in environmental evaluations Supporters pointed to his efforts to raise the salaries of teachers and improve educational test scores 54 In 1999 Bush signed a law that required electric retailers to buy a certain amount of energy from renewable sources RPS 65 66 67 which helped Texas eventually become the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the U S 68 69 70 In 1998 Bush won re election with a record 54 69 percent of the vote 71 He became the first governor in Texas history to be elected to two consecutive four year terms 54 In his second term Bush promoted faith based organizations and enjoyed high approval ratings 54 He proclaimed June 10 2000 to be Jesus Day in Texas a day on which he urged all Texans to answer the call to serve those in need 72 Throughout Bush s first term he was the focus of national attention as a potential future presidential candidate Following his re election speculation soared and within a year he decided to seek the 2000 Republican presidential nomination 54 Presidential campaigns2000 presidential candidacy Main articles George W Bush 2000 presidential campaign 2000 Republican Party presidential primaries and 2000 United States presidential election Primary Bush portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative implying he was more centrist than other Republicans He campaigned on a platform that included bringing integrity and honor back to the White House increasing the size of the military cutting taxes improving education and aiding minorities 54 By early 2000 the race had centered on Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain 54 Bush won the Iowa caucuses and although heavily favored to win the New Hampshire primary trailed McCain by 19 percent and lost Despite this he regained momentum and effectively became the front runner after the South Carolina primary which according to The Boston Globe made history for his campaign s negativity The New York Times described it as a smear campaign 73 74 75 General election 2000 electoral vote results On July 25 2000 Bush surprised some observers when he selected Dick Cheney a former White House chief of staff representative and secretary of defense to be his running mate At the time Cheney was serving as head of Bush s vice presidential search committee Soon after at the 2000 Republican National Convention Bush and Cheney were officially nominated by the Republican Party 76 Bush continued to campaign across the country and touted his record as Governor of Texas 54 During his campaign Bush criticized his Democratic opponent incumbent Vice President Al Gore over gun control and taxation 77 When the election returns were tallied on November 7 Bush had won 29 states including Florida The closeness of the Florida outcome led to a recount 54 The initial recount also went to Bush but the outcome was tied up in lower courts for a month until eventually reaching the U S Supreme Court 78 On December 9 in the controversial Bush v Gore ruling 79 the Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court decision that had ordered a third count and stopped an ordered statewide hand recount based on the argument that the use of different standards among Florida s counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment 54 The machine recount showed that Bush had won the Florida vote by a margin of 537 votes out of six million casts 80 Although he had received 543 895 fewer individual nationwide votes than Gore Bush won the election receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore s 266 Gore had actually been awarded 267 votes by the states pledged to him plus the District of Columbia but one D C elector abstained Bush was the first person to win a U S presidential election with fewer popular votes than another candidate since Benjamin Harrison in 1888 80 2004 presidential candidacy Main articles George W Bush 2004 presidential campaign and 2004 United States presidential election 2004 electoral vote results George W Bush re election campaign stop in Grand Rapids Michigan In his 2004 bid for re election Bush commanded broad support in the Republican Party and did not encounter a primary challenge He appointed Ken Mehlman as campaign manager and Karl Rove devised a political strategy 81 Bush and the Republican platform emphasized a strong commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan 82 support for the USA PATRIOT Act 83 a renewed shift in policy for constitutional amendments banning abortion and same sex marriage 82 84 reforming Social Security to create private investment accounts 82 creation of an ownership society 82 and opposing mandatory carbon emissions controls 85 Bush also called for the implementation of a guest worker program for immigrants 82 which was criticized by conservatives 86 The Bush campaign advertised across the U S against Democratic candidates including Bush s emerging opponent Massachusetts Senator John Kerry Kerry and other Democrats attacked Bush on the Iraq War and accused him of failing to stimulate the economy and job growth The Bush campaign portrayed Kerry as a staunch liberal who would raise taxes and increase the size of government The Bush campaign continuously criticized Kerry s seemingly contradictory statements on the war in Iraq 54 and argued that Kerry lacked the decisiveness and vision necessary for success in the War on Terror Following the resignation of CIA director George Tenet in 2004 Bush nominated Porter Goss to head the agency The White House ordered Goss to purge agency officers who were disloyal to the administration 87 After Goss appointment many of the CIA s senior agents were fired or quit The CIA has been accused of deliberately leaking classified information to undermine the 2004 election 88 In the election Bush carried 31 of 50 states receiving 286 electoral votes He won an absolute majority of the popular vote 50 7 percent to his opponent s 48 3 percent 89 Presidency 2001 2009 Main article Presidency of George W Bush For a chronological guide see Timeline of the George W Bush presidency Bush on January 20 2001 in Washington D C the day of his first inauguration as President of the United States Bush had originally outlined an ambitious domestic agenda but his priorities were significantly altered following the September 11 attacks 90 Wars were waged in Afghanistan and Iraq and there were significant domestic debates regarding immigration healthcare Social Security economic policy and treatment of terrorist detainees Over an eight year period Bush s once high approval ratings 91 steadily declined while his disapproval numbers increased significantly 92 In 2007 the United States entered the longest post World War II recession 93 Domestic policy Main article Domestic policy of the George W Bush administration Economic policy Main article Economic policy of the George W Bush administration Bush took office during a period of economic recession in the wake of the bursting of the dot com bubble 94 The September 11 terrorist attacks also impacted the economy His administration increased federal government spending from 1 789 trillion to 2 983 trillion 60 percent while revenues increased from 2 025 trillion to 2 524 trillion from 2000 to 2008 Individual income tax revenues increased by 14 percent corporate tax revenues by 50 percent and customs and duties by 40 percent Discretionary defense spending was increased by 107 percent discretionary domestic spending by 62 percent Medicare spending by 131 percent social security by 51 percent and income security spending by 130 percent Cyclically adjusted revenues rose by 35 percent and spending by 65 percent 95 The increase in spending was more than under any predecessor since Lyndon B Johnson 96 The number of economic regulation governmental workers increased by 91 196 97 The surplus in fiscal year 2000 was 237 billion the third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever 98 In 2001 Bush s budget estimated that there would be a 5 6 trillion surplus over the next ten years 99 Facing congressional opposition Bush held town hall style meetings across the U S to increase public support for his plan for a 1 35 trillion tax cut program one of the largest tax cuts in U S history 54 Bush argued that unspent government funds should be returned to taxpayers saying the surplus is not the government s money The surplus is the people s money 54 Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned of a recession and Bush stated that a tax cut would stimulate the economy and create jobs 100 Treasury Secretary Paul H O Neill opposed some of the tax cuts on the basis that they would contribute to budget deficits and undermine Social Security 101 O Neill disputes the claim made in Bush s book Decision Points that he never openly disagreed with him on planned tax cuts 102 By 2003 the economy showed signs of improvement though job growth remained stagnant 54 Another tax cut was passed that year citation needed Between 2001 and 2008 GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2 125 percent 103 less than for past business cycles 104 Bush entered office with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 10 587 and the average peaked in October 2007 at over 14 000 When Bush left office the average was at 7 949 one of the lowest levels of his presidency 105 Only four other U S presidents have left office with the stock market lower than when they began 106 Deficit and debt increases from 2001 to 2009 Gross debt has increased over 500 billion each year since the 2003 fiscal year Unemployment originally rose from 4 2 percent in January 2001 to 6 3 percent in June 2003 but subsequently dropped to 4 5 percent in July 2007 107 Adjusted for inflation median household income dropped by 1 175 between 2000 and 2007 108 while Professor Ken Homa of Georgetown University has noted that Median real after tax household income went up two percent 109 The poverty rate increased from 11 3 percent in 2000 to 12 3 percent in 2006 after peaking at 12 7 percent in 2004 110 By October 2008 due to increases in spending 111 273 the national debt had risen to 11 3 trillion 112 more than doubling it since 2000 113 114 unreliable source Most debt was accumulated as a result of what became known as the Bush tax cuts and increased national security spending 115 In March 2006 then Senator Barack Obama said when he voted against raising the debt ceiling The fact that we are here today to debate raising America s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure 116 By the end of Bush s presidency unemployment climbed to 7 2 percent 117 2008 financial crisis In December 2007 the United States entered the longest post World War II recession 93 caused by a housing market correction a subprime mortgage crisis soaring oil prices and other factors In February 2008 63 000 jobs were lost a five year record 118 and in November over 500 000 jobs were lost which marked the largest loss of jobs in the United States in 34 years 119 The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the last four months of 2008 1 9 million jobs were lost 120 By the end of 2008 the U S had lost 2 6 million jobs 121 To aid with the situation Bush signed a 170 billion economic stimulus package which was intended to improve the economic situation by sending tax rebate checks to many Americans and providing tax breaks for struggling businesses The Bush administration pushed for significantly increased regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003 122 and after two years the regulations passed the House but died in the Senate Many Republican senators as well as influential members of the Bush Administration feared that the agency created by these regulations would merely be mimicking the private sector s risky practices 123 124 125 In September 2008 the crisis became much more serious beginning with the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a federal bailout of American International Group for 85 billion 126 Many economists and world governments determined that the situation had become the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression 127 128 Additional regulation over the housing market would have been beneficial according to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan 129 Bush meanwhile proposed a financial rescue plan to buy back a large portion of the U S mortgage market 130 Vince Reinhardt a former Federal Reserve economist now at the American Enterprise Institute said it would have helped for the Bush administration to empower the folks at Treasury and the Federal Reserve and the comptroller of the currency and the FDIC to look at these issues more closely and additionally that it would have helped for Congress to have held hearings 124 Education and public health Bush undertook many educational agendas such as increasing the funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in his first years of office and creating education programs to strengthen the grounding in science and mathematics for American high school students Funding for the NIH was cut in 2006 the first such cut in 36 years due to rising inflation 131 President Bush signing the No Child Left Behind Act into law January 8 2002 One of the administration s early major initiatives was the No Child Left Behind Act which aimed to measure and close the gap between rich and poor student performance provide options to parents with students in low performing schools and target more federal funding to low income schools This landmark education initiative passed with broad bipartisan support including that of Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts 132 It was signed into law by Bush in early 2002 133 Many contend that the initiative has been successful as cited by the fact that students in the U S have performed significantly better on state reading and math tests since Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law 134 Critics who argue that it is underfunded 135 better source needed and that NCLBA s focus on high stakes testing and quantitative outcomes is counterproductive 136 On November 1 2005 Bush announced a National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza to prepare the United States for a flu pandemic which culminated in an implementation plan published by the Homeland Security Council in May 2006 137 138 After being re elected Bush signed into law a Medicare drug benefit program that according to Jan Crawford resulted in the greatest expansion in America s welfare state in forty years the bill s costs approached 7 trillion 111 274 In 2007 Bush opposed and vetoed State Children s Health Insurance Program SCHIP legislation which was added by the Democrats onto a war funding bill and passed by Congress The SCHIP legislation would have significantly expanded federally funded health care benefits and plans to children of some low income families It was to be funded by an increase in the cigarette tax 139 Bush viewed the legislation as a move toward socialized health care and asserted that the program could benefit families making as much as 83 000 per year who did not need the help 140 On May 21 2008 Bush signed into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act aimed to protect Americans against health insurance and employment discrimination based on a person s genetic information The issue had been debated for 13 years before it finally became law The measure is designed to protect citizens without hindering genetic research 141 142 Social services and Social Security Following Republican efforts to pass the Medicare Act of 2003 Bush signed the bill which included major changes to the Medicare program by providing beneficiaries with some assistance in paying for prescription drugs while relying on private insurance for the delivery of benefits 143 The retired persons lobby group AARP worked with the Bush Administration on the program and gave their endorsement Bush said the law estimated to cost 400 billion over the first ten years would give the elderly better choices and more control over their health care 144 Bush began his second term by outlining a major initiative to reform Social Security 145 which was facing record deficit projections beginning in 2005 Bush made it the centerpiece of his domestic agenda despite opposition from some in the U S Congress 145 In his 2005 State of the Union Address Bush discussed the potential impending bankruptcy of the program and outlined his new program which included partial privatization of the system personal Social Security accounts and options to permit Americans to divert a portion of their Social Security tax FICA into secured investments 145 Democrats opposed the proposal to partially privatize the system 145 Bush embarked on a 60 day national tour campaigning for his initiative in media events known as Conversations on Social Security in an attempt to gain public support 146 Nevertheless public support for the proposal declined 147 and the House Republican leadership decided not to put Social Security reform on the priority list for the remainder of their 2005 legislative agenda 148 The proposal s legislative prospects were further diminished by autumn 2005 due to political fallout from the response to Hurricane Katrina 149 Environmental policies Main article Domestic policy of the George W Bush administration Environment Upon taking office in 2001 Bush stated his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which seeks to impose mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions citing that the treaty exempted 80 percent of the world s population 150 and would have cost tens of billions of dollars per year 151 He also cited that the Senate had voted 95 0 in 1997 on a resolution expressing its disapproval of the protocol In May 2001 Bush signed an executive order to create an interagency task force to streamline energy projects 152 and later signed two other executive orders to tackle environmental issues 153 In 2002 Bush proposed the Clear Skies Act of 2003 154 which aimed at amending the Clean Air Act to reduce air pollution through the use of emissions trading programs Many experts argued that this legislation would have weakened the original legislation by allowing higher emission rates of pollutants than were previously legal 155 The initiative was introduced to Congress but failed to make it out of committee citation needed Later in 2006 Bush declared the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a national monument creating the largest marine reserve to date The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument comprises 84 million acres 340 000 km2 and is home to 7 000 species of fish birds and other marine animals many of which are specific to only those islands 156 The move was hailed by conservationists for its foresight and leadership in protecting this incredible area 157 Bush has said he believes that global warming is real 158 and has noted that it is a serious problem but he asserted there is a debate over whether it s man made or naturally caused 159 The Bush Administration s stance on global warming remained controversial in the scientific and environmental communities Critics have alleged that the administration 160 misinformed the public and did not do enough to reduce carbon emissions and deter global warming 161 Energy policies In his 2006 State of the Union Address Bush declared America is addicted to oil and announced his Advanced Energy Initiative to increase energy development research 162 President Bush delivering a statement on energy urging Congress to end offshore oil drill ban June 18 2008 In his 2007 State of the Union Address Bush renewed his pledge to work toward diminished reliance on foreign oil by reducing fossil fuel consumption and increasing alternative fuel production 163 Amid high gasoline prices in 2008 Bush lifted a ban on offshore drilling 164 However the move was largely symbolic because there was still a federal law banning offshore drilling Bush said This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil reserves is action from the U S Congress 164 Bush had said in June 2008 In the long run the solution is to reduce demand for oil by promoting alternative energy technologies My administration has worked with Congress to invest in gas saving technologies like advanced batteries and hydrogen fuel cells In the short run the American economy will continue to rely largely on oil And that means we need to increase supply especially here at home So my administration has repeatedly called on Congress to expand domestic oil production 165 In his 2008 State of the Union Address Bush announced that the U S would commit 2 billion over the next three years to a new international fund to promote clean energy technologies and fight climate change saying Along with contributions from other countries this fund will increase and accelerate the deployment of all forms of cleaner more efficient technologies in developing nations like India and China and help leverage substantial private sector capital by making clean energy projects more financially attractive He also announced plans to reaffirm the United States commitment to work with major economies and through the UN to complete an international agreement that will slow stop and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases he stated This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride 166 Stem cell research and first veto Federal funding for medical research involving the creation or destruction of human embryos through the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health has been forbidden by law since the passage of the Dickey Wicker Amendment in 1995 167 Bush has said he supports adult stem cell research and has supported federal legislation that finances adult stem cell research However Bush did not support embryonic stem cell research 168 On August 9 2001 Bush signed an executive order lifting the ban on federal funding for the 71 existing lines of stem cells 169 but the ability of these existing lines to provide an adequate medium for testing has been questioned Testing can be done on only 12 of the original lines and all approved lines have been cultured in contact with mouse cells which creates safety issues that complicate development and approval of therapies from these lines 170 On July 19 2006 Bush used his veto power for the first time in his presidency to veto the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act The bill would have repealed the Dickey Wicker Amendment thereby permitting federal money to be used for research where stem cells are derived from the destruction of an embryo 171 Immigration President Bush discussing border security with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff near El Paso November 2005 Nearly eight million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2005 more than in any other five year period in the nation s history 172 Almost half entered illegally 173 unreliable source In 2006 Bush urged Congress to allow more than twelve million illegal immigrants to work in the United States with the creation of a temporary guest worker program Bush also urged Congress to provide additional funds for border security and committed to deploying 6 000 National Guard troops to the Mexico United States border 174 From May to June 2007 Bush strongly supported the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 which was written by a bipartisan group of Senators with the active participation of the Bush administration 175 The bill envisioned a legalization program for illegal immigrants with an eventual path to citizenship establishing a guest worker program a series of border and worksite enforcement measures a reform of the green card application process and the introduction of a point based merit system for green cards elimination of chain migration and of the Diversity Immigrant Visa and other measures Bush argued that the lack of legal status denies the protections of U S laws to millions of people who face dangers of poverty and exploitation and penalizes employers despite a demand for immigrant labor 176 Bush contended that the proposed bill did not amount to amnesty 177 A heated public debate followed which resulted in a substantial rift within the Republican Party most conservatives opposed it because of its legalization or amnesty provisions 178 The bill was eventually defeated in the Senate on June 28 2007 when a cloture motion failed on a 46 53 vote 179 Bush expressed disappointment upon the defeat of one of his signature domestic initiatives 180 The Bush administration later proposed a series of immigration enforcement measures that do not require a change in law 181 On September 19 2010 former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Bush offered to accept 100 000 Palestinian refugees as American citizens if a permanent settlement had been reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority 182 Hurricane Katrina Main article Political effects of Hurricane Katrina President Bush with hurricane victims in Biloxi September 2 2005 Hurricane Katrina struck early in Bush s second term and was one of the most damaging natural disasters in U S history Katrina formed in late August during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and devastated much of the north central Gulf Coast of the United States particularly New Orleans 183 Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on August 27 184 and in Mississippi and Alabama the following day 185 The eye of the hurricane made landfall on August 29 and New Orleans began to flood due to levee breaches later that day Bush declared a major disaster in Louisiana 186 officially authorizing FEMA to start using federal funds to assist in the recovery effort On August 30 DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff declared it an incident of national significance 187 triggering the first use of the newly created National Response Plan Three days later on September 2 National Guard troops first entered the city of New Orleans 188 The same day Bush toured parts of Louisiana Mississippi and Alabama and declared that the success of the recovery effort up to that point was not enough 189 As the disaster in New Orleans intensified Bush received widespread criticism for downplaying his administration s role in the inadequate response Leaders attacked Bush for having appointed incompetent leaders to positions of power at FEMA notably Michael D Brown 190 federal response resources to respond were also limited as a result of being allocated to the Iraq War 191 and Bush himself did not act upon warnings of floods 192 193 Bush responded to mounting criticism by claiming to accept full responsibility for the federal government s failures in its handling of the emergency 188 It has been argued that with Katrina Bush passed a political tipping point from which he would not recover 194 Midterm dismissal of U S attorneys Main article Dismissal of U S attorneys controversy President Bush announcing his nomination of Alberto Gonzales as the next U S Attorney General November 10 2004 During Bush s second term a controversy arose over the Justice Department s midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorneys 195 The White House maintained that they were fired for poor performance 196 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales later resigned over the issue along with other senior members of the Justice Department 197 198 The House Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas for advisers Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten to testify regarding this matter but Bush directed Miers and Bolten to not comply with those subpoenas invoking his right of executive privilege Bush maintained that all his advisers were protected under a broad executive privilege protection to receive candid advice The Justice Department determined that the President s order was legal 199 Although Congressional investigations focused on whether the Justice Department and the White House were using the U S Attorney positions for political advantage no official findings have been released On March 10 2008 the Congress filed a federal lawsuit to enforce their issued subpoenas 200 On July 31 2008 a United States district court judge ruled that Bush s top advisers were not immune from Congressional subpoenas 201 In all twelve Justice Department officials resigned rather than testify under oath before Congress They included Attorney General Alberto Gonzales 202 and his chief of staff Kyle Sampson 203 Gonzales liaison to the White House Monica Goodling 204 aide to the president Karl Rove 205 and his senior aide Sara Taylor 206 In addition legal counsel to the president Harriet Miers 207 and deputy chief of staff to the president Joshua Bolten 208 were both found in contempt of Congress 206 In 2010 the Justice Department investigator concluded that though political considerations did play a part in as many as four of the attorney firings 209 the firings were inappropriately political but not criminal According to the prosecutors there was insufficient evidence to pursue prosecution for any criminal offense 210 Foreign policy Main article Foreign policy of the George W Bush administration Countries visited by President George W Bush during his time in office During his presidential campaign Bush s foreign policy platform included support for stronger economic and political relationships with Latin America especially Mexico and a reduction of involvement in nation building and other small scale military engagements The administration pursued a national missile defense 211 Bush was an advocate of China s entry into the World Trade Organization 212 Bush began his second term with an emphasis on improving strained relations with European nations He appointed long time adviser Karen Hughes to oversee a global public relations campaign Bush lauded the pro democracy struggles in Georgia and Ukraine 213 In March 2006 Bush reversed decades of U S policy when he visited India in a trip focused particularly on areas of nuclear energy counter terrorism co operation and discussions that would eventually lead to the India United States Civil Nuclear Agreement 214 215 This was in stark contrast to the stance taken by his predecessor Bill Clinton whose approach and response to India after the 1998 nuclear tests has been characterized as sanctions and hectoring 216 Midway through Bush s second term questions arose whether Bush was retreating from his freedom and democracy agenda which was highlighted in policy changes toward some oil rich former Soviet republics in central Asia 217 President Bush with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Shanghai October 21 2001 Russia had cooperated with the U S in the war on terror Bush signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty with Russia He withdrew U S support for several international agreements including in 2002 the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty ABM with Russia 218 This marked the first time in post World War II history that the United States had withdrawn from a major international arms treaty 219 Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that American withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was a mistake 220 Bush emphasized a careful approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians he denounced Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat for his support of violence but sponsored dialogues between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Bush supported Sharon s unilateral disengagement plan and lauded the democratic elections held in Palestine after Arafat s death Bush also expressed U S support for the defense of Taiwan following the stand off in April 2001 with China over the Hainan Island incident when an EP 3E Aries II surveillance aircraft collided with a People s Liberation Army Air Force jet leading to the detention of U S personnel From 2003 to 2004 Bush authorized U S military intervention in Haiti and Liberia to protect U S interests Bush condemned the militia attacks Darfur and denounced the killings in Sudan as genocide 221 Bush said an international peacekeeping presence was critical in Darfur but he opposed referring the situation to the International Criminal Court On June 10 2007 Bush met with Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and became the first president to visit Albania 222 He later voiced his support for the independence of Kosovo 223 In early 2008 Bush vowed full support for admitting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO 224 despite Russia s opposition to the further enlargement of NATO 225 During the 2008 Russo Georgian diplomatic crisis Bush condemned Russia for recognizing the separatist government of South Ossetia 226 Then when Russian troops invaded Georgia that summer Bush said Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century 227 September 11 attacks Main article September 11 attacks President Bush beside firefighter Bob Beckwith addressing rescue workers at the World Trade Center site The September 11 terrorist attacks were a major turning point in Bush s presidency That evening he addressed the nation from the Oval Office promising a strong response to the attacks He also emphasized the need for the nation to come together and comfort the families of the victims Three days after the attacks Bush visited Ground Zero and met with Mayor Rudy Giuliani firefighters police officers and volunteers Bush addressed the gathering via a megaphone while standing on rubble I can hear you The rest of the world hears you And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon 228 President Bush declares freedom at war with fear September 20 2001 source source Problems playing this file See media help In a September 20 speech Bush condemned Osama bin Laden and his organization al Qaeda and issued an ultimatum to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan where bin Laden was operating to hand over the terrorists or share in their fate 229 The Taliban s leader Mullah Omar refused to handover bin Laden 230 The continued presence of U S troops in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War was one of the stated motivations behind the September 11 attacks In 2003 the U S withdrew most of its troops from Saudi Arabia 231 War on terror Main article War on terror Countries with major military operations throughout the war on terror launched by Bush including those launched after his presidency After September 11 Bush announced a global war on terror The Afghan Taliban regime was not forthcoming with Osama bin Laden so Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime 232 In his January 29 2002 State of the Union Address he asserted that an axis of evil consisting of North Korea Iran and Iraq was arming to threaten the peace of the world and pose d a grave and growing danger 233 The Bush Administration asserted both a right and the intention to wage preemptive war or preventive war 234 This became the basis for the Bush Doctrine which weakened the unprecedented levels of international and domestic support for the United States which had followed the September 11 attacks 235 Dissent and criticism of Bush s leadership in the War on Terror increased as the war in Iraq continued 236 237 238 In 2006 a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the Iraq War had become the cause celebre for jihadists 239 240 Afghanistan invasion Main article War in Afghanistan 2001 2021 President Bush and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in Kabul March 1 2006 On October 7 2001 U S and British forces initiated bombing campaigns that led to the arrival of Northern Alliance troops in Kabul on November 13 The main goals of the war were to defeat the Taliban drive al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and capture key al Qaeda leaders In December 2001 the Pentagon reported that the Taliban had been defeated 241 but cautioned that the war would go on to continue weakening Taliban and al Qaeda leaders 241 Later that month the UN had installed the Afghan Transitional Administration chaired by Hamid Karzai 242 243 Efforts to kill or capture al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden failed as he escaped a battle in December 2001 in the mountainous region of Tora Bora which the Bush Administration later acknowledged to have resulted from a failure to commit enough U S ground troops 244 It was not until May 2011 two years after Bush left office that bin Laden was killed by U S forces under the Obama administration Despite the initial success in driving the Taliban from power in Kabul by early 2003 the Taliban was regrouping amassing new funds and recruits 245 The 2005 failure of Operation Red Wings showed that the Taliban had returned 246 In 2006 the Taliban insurgency appeared larger fiercer and better organized than expected with large scale allied offensives such as Operation Mountain Thrust attaining limited success 247 248 249 As a result Bush commissioned 3 500 additional troops to the country in March 2007 250 Iraq invasion Main article Iraq War President Bush with Naval Flight Officer Lieutenant Ryan Philips after landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln prior to his Mission Accomplished speech May 1 2003 Beginning with his January 29 2002 State of the Union address Bush began publicly focusing attention on Iraq which he labeled as part of an axis of evil allied with terrorists and posing a grave and growing danger to U S interests through possession of weapons of mass destruction 233 251 In the latter half of 2002 CIA reports contained assertions of Saddam Hussein s intent of reconstituting nuclear weapons programs not properly accounting for Iraqi biological and chemical weapons and that some Iraqi missiles had a range greater than allowed by the UN sanctions 252 253 Contentions that the Bush Administration manipulated or exaggerated the threat and evidence of Iraq s weapons of mass destruction capabilities would eventually become a major point of criticism for the president 254 255 In late 2002 and early 2003 Bush urged the United Nations to enforce Iraqi disarmament mandates precipitating a diplomatic crisis In November 2002 Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei led UN weapons inspectors in Iraq but were advised by the U S to depart the country four days prior to the U S invasion despite their requests for more time to complete their tasks 256 The U S initially sought a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of military force but dropped the bid for UN approval due to vigorous opposition from several countries 257 The Bush administration s claim that the Iraq War was part of the War on Terror had been questioned and contested by political analysts 258 More than 20 nations most notably the United Kingdom designated the coalition of the willing joined the United States 259 in invading Iraq They launched the invasion on March 20 2003 The Iraqi military was quickly defeated The capital Baghdad fell on April 9 2003 On May 1 Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq The initial success of U S operations increased his popularity but the U S and allied forces faced a growing insurgency led by sectarian groups Bush s Mission Accomplished speech was later criticized as premature 260 From 2004 until 2007 the situation in Iraq deteriorated further with some observers arguing that there was a full scale civil war in Iraq 261 Bush s policies met with criticism including demands domestically to set a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq The 2006 report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group led by James Baker concluded that the situation in Iraq was grave and deteriorating While Bush admitted there were strategic mistakes made in regards to the stability of Iraq 262 he maintained he would not change the overall Iraq strategy 263 264 According to Iraq Body Count some 251 000 Iraqis have been killed in the civil war following the U S led invasion including at least 163 841 civilians 265 In January 2005 elections recognized by the West as free and fair were held in Iraq for the first time in 50 years 266 This led to the election of Jalal Talabani as president and Nouri al Maliki as Prime Minister of Iraq A referendum to approve a constitution in Iraq was held in October 2005 supported by most Shiites and many Kurds 267 On January 10 2007 Bush announced a surge of 21 500 more troops for Iraq as well as a job program for Iraqis more reconstruction proposals and 1 2 billion equivalent to 1 6 billion in 2021 for these programs 268 On May 1 2007 Bush used his second ever veto to reject a bill setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U S troops 269 saying the debate over the conflict was understandable but insisting that a continued U S presence there was crucial 270 In March 2008 Bush praised the Iraqi government s bold decision to launch the Battle of Basra against the Mahdi Army calling it a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq 271 He said he would carefully weigh recommendations from his commanding General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker about how to proceed after the end of the military buildup in the summer of 2008 He also praised the Iraqis legislative achievements including a pension law a revised de Baathification law a new budget an amnesty law and a provincial powers measure that he said set the stage for the Iraqi elections 272 By July 2008 American troop deaths had reached their lowest number since the war began 273 and due to increased stability in Iraq Bush announced the withdrawal of additional American forces 273 During his last visit to Iraq in December 2008 Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al Zaidi threw both of his shoes at Bush amid an official press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki 274 Al Zaidi yelled that the shoes were a farewell kiss and for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq 275 In March 2010 Center for Public Integrity released a report that President Bush s administration had made more than 900 false pretenses in a two year period about alleged threat of Iraq against the United States as his rationale to engage war in Iraq 276 Surveillance See also Global surveillance disclosures 2013 present Following the terrorist attacks of September 11 Bush issued an executive order that authorized the President s Surveillance Program The new directive allowed the National Security Agency to monitor communications between suspected terrorists outside the U S and parties within the U S without obtaining a warrant which previously had been required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 277 As of 2009 update the other provisions of the program remained highly classified 278 Once the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel questioned its original legal opinion that FISA did not apply in a time of war the program was subsequently re authorized by the President on the basis that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists 279 The program proved to be controversial critics of the administration and organizations such as the American Bar Association argued that it was illegal 280 In August 2006 a U S district court judge ruled that the NSA electronic surveillance program was unconstitutional 281 but on July 6 2007 that ruling was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing 282 On January 17 2007 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales informed U S Senate leaders that the program would not be reauthorized by the President but would be subjected to judicial oversight 283 Later in 2007 the NSA launched a replacement for the program referred to as PRISM which was subject to the oversight of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court 284 This program was not publicly revealed until reports by The Washington Post 284 and The Guardian 285 emerged in June 2013 284 Interrogation policies See also Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture and Torture Memos Bush authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and several other enhanced interrogation techniques that several critics including Barack Obama would label as torture 286 287 288 289 Between 2002 and 2003 the CIA considered certain enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding to be legal based on secret Justice Department legal opinions arguing that terror detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions ban on torture which was described as an unconstitutional infringement of the President s authority to conduct war 290 291 The CIA had exercised the technique on certain key terrorist suspects under authority given to it in the Bybee Memo from the Attorney General though that memo was later withdrawn 292 While not permitted by the U S Army Field Manuals which assert that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information 290 the Bush administration believed these enhanced interrogations provided critical information to preserve American lives 293 Critics such as former CIA officer Bob Baer have stated that information was suspect you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture s bad enough 294 On October 17 2006 Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law 295 The new rule was enacted in the wake of the Supreme Court s decision in Hamdan v Rumsfeld 548 U S 557 2006 296 which allowed the U S government to prosecute unlawful enemy combatants by military commission rather than a standard trial The law also denied the detainees access to habeas corpus and barred the torture of prisoners The provision of the law allowed the president to determine what constitutes torture 295 On March 8 2008 Bush vetoed H R 2082 297 a bill that would have expanded congressional oversight over the intelligence community and banned the use of waterboarding as well as other forms of interrogation not permitted under the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations saying that the bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the War on Terror 298 In April 2009 the ACLU sued and won release of the secret memos that had authorized the Bush administration s interrogation tactics 299 One memo detailed specific interrogation tactics including a footnote that described waterboarding as torture as well as that the form of waterboarding used by the CIA was far more intense than authorized by the Justice Department 300 North Korea condemnation Main article North Korea United States relations Bush publicly condemned Kim Jong il of North Korea and identified North Korea as one of three states in an axis of evil He said that the United States of America will not permit the world s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world s most destructive weapons 233 Within months both countries had walked away from their respective commitments under the U S DPRK Agreed Framework of October 1994 301 North Korea s October 9 2006 detonation of a nuclear device further complicated Bush s foreign policy which centered for both terms of his presidency on preventing the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world 233 Bush condemned North Korea s position reaffirmed his commitment to a nuclear free Korean Peninsula and said that transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States for which North Korea would be held accountable 302 On May 7 2007 North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear reactors immediately pending the release of frozen funds held in a foreign bank account This was a result of a series of three way talks initiated by the United States and including China 303 On September 2 2007 North Korea agreed to disclose and dismantle all its nuclear programs by the end of 2007 304 By May 2009 North Korea had restarted its nuclear program and threatened to attack South Korea 305 On June 22 2010 While South Korea prospers the people of North Korea have suffered profoundly he said adding that communism had resulted in dire poverty mass starvation and brutal suppression In recent years he went on to say the suffering has been compounded by the leader who wasted North Korea s precious few resources on personal luxuries and nuclear weapons programs 306 Syria sanctions Bush expanded economic sanctions on Syria 307 In 2003 Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act which expanded sanctions on Syria In early 2007 the Treasury Department acting on a June 2005 executive order froze American bank accounts of Syria s Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology Electronics Institute and National Standards and Calibration Laboratory Bush s order prohibits Americans from doing business with these institutions suspected of helping spread weapons of mass destruction 308 and being supportive of terrorism 309 Under separate executive orders signed by Bush in 2004 and later 2007 the Treasury Department froze the assets of two Lebanese and two Syrians accusing them of activities to undermine the legitimate political process in Lebanon in November 2007 Those designated included Assaad Halim Hardan a member of Lebanon s parliament and current leader of the Syrian Socialist National Party Wi am Wahhab a former member of Lebanon s government Minister of the Environment under Prime Minister Omar Karami 2004 2005 Hafiz Makhluf a colonel and senior official in the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate and a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Muhammad Nasif Khayrbik identified as a close adviser to Assad 310 PEPFAR In the State of the Union address in January 2003 Bush outlined a five year strategy for global emergency AIDS relief the President s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief PEPFAR Bush announced 15 billion for this effort 311 which directly supported life saving antiretroviral treatment for more than 3 2 million men women and children worldwide 312 The U S government had spent some 44 billion on the project since 2003 a figure that includes 7 billion contributed to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria a multilateral organization 313 which saved an estimated five million lives 314 According to The New York Times correspondent Peter Baker Bush did more to stop AIDS and more to help Africa than any president before or since 314 Security incidents Main article Security incidents involving George W Bush 2001 White House shooting On February 7 2001 while Bush was in the residence area of the White House Robert Pickett standing outside the perimeter fence discharged a number of shots from a Taurus 38 Special revolver in the general direction of the White House Pickett was shot in the knee by a U S Secret Service agent and arrested Furthermore he was initially charged with discharging a firearm during a crime carrying a 10 year mandatory sentence but following a plea agreement Pickett instead entered a guilty plea to a firearms violation and an Alford plea to assaulting a federal officer He was sentenced to three years at the Federal Medical Center Rochester followed by three years of probation 315 316 317 2005 Tbilisi grenade attack On May 10 2005 while President Bush was giving a speech in Freedom Square Vladimir Arutyunian a native Georgian who was born to a family of ethnic Armenians threw a live Soviet made RGD 5 hand grenade toward the podium It landed in the crowd about 65 feet 20 m from the podium after hitting a girl but it did not detonate because a red tartan handkerchief was wrapped tightly around it preventing the safety lever from detaching 318 319 Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was seated nearby After escaping that day Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005 During his arrest he killed an Interior Ministry agent He was convicted in January 2006 and given a life sentence 320 321 2008 Baghdad shoeing Main article George W Bush shoeing incident source source source source Shoeing incident in Baghdad Iraq December 2008 On December 14 2008 Muntadhar al Zaidi an Iraqi journalist threw both of his shoes at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad Bush was not injured having ducked the pair of shoes 322 However White House press secretary Dana Perino received a bruise on her face after being hit by a microphone boom knocked over by security 323 Al Zaidi received a three year prison sentence which was reduced to one year On September 15 2009 he was released early for good behavior 322 Judicial appointments Supreme Court Main article George W Bush Supreme Court candidates Supreme Court Justice nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito 2005 On July 19 2005 following the announcement of the retirement of Associate Justice Sandra Day O Connor on July 1 Bush nominated federal appellate judge John Roberts to be O Connor s replacement however following the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 3 that still pending nomination was withdrawn on September 5 with Bush instead nominating Roberts to be the next Chief Justice of the United States He was confirmed by the Senate on September 29 2005 324 On October 3 2005 Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to succeed O Connor however Miers withdrew her nomination on October 27 after encountering significant opposition from both parties who found her to be ill prepared and uninformed on the law 111 278 once again leaving no nominee to replace O Connor Finally on October 31 Bush nominated federal appellate judge Samuel Alito who was confirmed by the Senate to replace O Connor on January 31 2006 325 Other courts Main article List of federal judges appointed by George W Bush In addition to his two Supreme Court appointments Bush appointed 61 judges to the United States courts of appeals and 261 judges to the United States district courts citation needed Cultural and political image Main article Public image of George W Bush See also Efforts to impeach George W Bush Image Bush s upbringing in West Texas his accent his vacations on his Texas ranch and his penchant for country metaphors contribute to his folksy American cowboy image 326 327 I think people look at him and think John Wayne said Piers Morgan editor of the British Daily Mirror 328 Bush has been parodied by the media 329 comedians and other politicians 330 Detractors tended to cite linguistic errors made by Bush during his public speeches which are colloquially referred to as Bushisms 331 In contrast to his father who was perceived as having troubles with an overarching unifying theme Bush embraced larger visions and was seen as a man of larger ideas and associated huge risks 332 Tony Blair wrote in 2010 that the caricature of Bush as being dumb is ludicrous and that Bush is very smart 333 In an interview with Playboy The New York Times columnist David Brooks said Bush was 60 IQ points smarter in private than he was in public He doesn t want anybody to think he s smarter than they are so puts on a Texas act 334 unreliable source Job approval approve disapprove unsureGallup USA Today Bush public opinion polling from February 2001 to January 2009 Bush began his presidency with approval ratings near 50 percent 335 After the September 11 attacks Bush gained an approval rating of 90 percent 336 maintaining 80 90 percent approval for four months after the attacks It remained over 50 percent during most of his first term 337 and then fell to as low as 19 percent in his second term 338 In 2000 and again in 2004 Time magazine named George W Bush as its Person of the Year a title awarded to someone who the editors believe has done the most to influence the events of the year 339 In May 2004 Gallup reported that 89 percent of the Republican electorate approved of Bush 340 However the support waned due mostly to a minority of Republicans frustration with him on issues of spending illegal immigration and Middle Eastern affairs 341 Within the United States armed forces according to an unscientific survey the president was strongly supported in the 2004 presidential elections 342 While 73 percent of military personnel said they would vote for Bush 18 percent preferred his Democratic rival John Kerry 342 According to Peter Feaver a Duke University political scientist who has studied the political leanings of the U S military members of the armed services supported Bush because they found him more likely than Kerry to complete the War in Iraq 342 Bush s approval rating surged to 74 percent at the beginning of the Iraq War up 19 points from his pre war rating of 55 percent 343 Bush s approval rating went below the 50 percent mark in AP Ipsos polling in December 2004 344 Thereafter his approval ratings and approval of his handling of domestic and foreign policy issues steadily dropped After his re election in 2004 Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the political spectrum 345 346 347 for his handling of the Iraq War his response to Hurricane Katrina 348 349 350 and to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse NSA warrantless surveillance the Plame affair and Guantanamo Bay detention camp controversies 351 Amid this criticism the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections Polls conducted in 2006 showed an average of 37 percent approval ratings for Bush 352 the lowest for any second term president at that point in his term since Harry S Truman in March 1951 when Truman s approval rating was 28 percent 344 353 which contributed to what Bush called the thumping of the Republican Party in the 2006 midterm elections 354 Throughout most of 2007 Bush s approval rating hovered in the mid thirties 355 the average for his entire second term was 37 percent according to Gallup 356 Protest against the Iraq War in New London Connecticut on May 23 2007 By the beginning of 2008 his final year in office Bush s approval rating had dropped to a low of just 19 percent largely from the loss of support among Republicans 338 Commenting on his low poll numbers and accusations of being the worst president 357 358 Bush would say I make decisions on what I think is right for the United States based upon principles I frankly don t give a damn about the polls 359 There were calls for Bush s impeachment though most polls showed a plurality of Americans would not support such an action 360 The arguments offered for impeachment usually centered on the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy 361 the Bush administration s justification for the war in Iraq and alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions 362 Representative Dennis Kucinich D OH who had run against Bush during the 2004 presidential campaign introduced 35 articles of impeachment on the floor of the House of Representatives against Bush on June 9 2008 but Speaker Nancy Pelosi D CA declared that impeachment was off the table 363 In April 2008 Bush s disapproval ratings reached the highest ever recorded for any president in the 70 year history of the Gallup poll with 69 percent of those polled disapproving of the job Bush was doing as president and 28 percent approving although the majority 66 percent of Republicans still approved of his job performance 364 In polls conducted in the fall just before the 2008 election his approval ratings remained at record lows of 19 to 20 percent 365 366 while his disapproval ratings ranged from 67 percent to as high as 75 percent 366 367 In polling conducted January 9 11 2009 his final job approval rating by Gallup was 34 percent which placed him on par with Jimmy Carter and Harry S Truman the other presidents whose final Gallup ratings measured in the low 30s Richard Nixon s final Gallup approval rating was even lower at 24 percent 368 According to a CBS News New York Times poll conducted January 11 15 2009 Bush s final approval rating in office was 22 percent the lowest in American history 365 Foreign perceptions Countries with a U S military presence in 2007 Bush was criticized internationally and targeted by the global anti war and anti globalization movements for his administration s foreign policy 369 370 Views of him within the international community even in France a close ally of the United States were more negative than those of most previous American presidents 371 Bush was described as having especially close personal relationships with Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and Vicente Fox of Mexico although formal relations were sometimes strained 372 373 374 Other leaders such as Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan 375 Yoweri Museveni of Uganda 376 Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain 377 and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela 378 openly criticized the president Later in Bush s presidency tensions arose between him and Vladimir Putin which led to a cooling of their relationship 379 In 2006 most respondents in 18 of 21 countries surveyed around the world were found to hold an unfavorable opinion of Bush Respondents indicated that they judged his administration as negative for world security 380 381 In 2007 the Pew Global Attitudes Project reported that during the Bush presidency attitudes towards the United States and towards Americans became less favorable around the world 382 The Pew Research Center s 2007 Global Attitudes poll found that in only nine countries of 47 did most respondents express a lot of confidence or some confidence in Bush Ethiopia Ghana India Israel Ivory Coast Kenya Mali Nigeria and Uganda 383 A March 2007 survey of Arab opinion conducted by Zogby International and the University of Maryland found that Bush was the most disliked leader in the Arab world 384 During a June 2007 visit to the predominantly Muslim 385 Albania Bush was greeted enthusiastically Albania has a population of 2 8 million 386 has troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan and the country s government is highly supportive of American foreign policy 387 A huge image of the President was hung in the middle of the capital city of Tirana flanked by Albanian and American flags while a local street was named after him 388 389 A shirt sleeved statue of Bush was unveiled in Fushe Kruje a few kilometers northwest of Tirana 390 The Bush administration s support for the unilateral declaration of independence of Albanian majority Kosovo while endearing him to the Albanians troubled U S relations with Serbia leading to the February 2008 torching of the U S embassy in Belgrade 391 Post presidency 2009 present Former President George W Bush and his wife being escorted to a waiting helicopter by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama on January 20 2009 Residence Following the inauguration of Barack Obama Bush and his family flew from Andrews Air Force Base to a homecoming celebration in Midland Texas following which they returned to their ranch in Crawford Texas 392 They bought a home in the Preston Hollow neighborhood of Dallas Texas where they settled down 393 Bush made regular appearances at various events throughout the Dallas Fort Worth area including the opening coin toss at the Dallas Cowboys first game in the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington 394 and an April 2009 Texas Rangers game where he thanked the people of Dallas for helping him settle in which was met with a standing ovation 395 He also attended every home playoff game during the Rangers 2010 season and accompanied by his father threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington for Game 4 of the 2010 World Series on October 31 396 On August 6 2013 Bush was successfully treated for a coronary artery blockage with a stent The blockage had been found during an annual medical examination 397 In reaction to the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers Bush said Laura and I are heartbroken by the heinous acts of violence in our city last night Murdering the innocent is always evil never more so than when the lives taken belong to those who protect our families and communities 398 Publications and appearances Since leaving office Bush has kept a relatively low profile 399 Bush has spoken in favor of increased global participation of women in politics and societal matters in foreign countries 400 401 In March 2009 he delivered his first post presidency speech in Calgary Alberta 402 403 appeared via video on The Colbert Report during which he praised U S troops for earning a special place in American history 404 and attended the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy 405 Bush made his debut as a motivational speaker on October 26 at the Get Motivated seminar in Dallas 406 In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting on November 5 2009 the Bushes paid an undisclosed visit to the survivors and the victims families the day following the shooting having contacted the base commander requesting that the visit be private and not involve press coverage 407 Bush released his memoirs Decision Points on November 9 2010 408 During a pre release appearance promoting the book Bush said he considered his biggest accomplishment to be keeping the country safe amid a real danger and his greatest failure to be his inability to secure the passage of Social Security reform 409 He also made news defending his administration s enhanced interrogation techniques specifically the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed saying I d do it again to save lives 410 In 2012 he wrote the foreword of The 4 Solution Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs an economics book published by the George W Bush Presidential Center 411 412 He also presented the book at the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas Texas 413 Bush appeared on NBC s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on November 19 2013 along with his wife Laura When asked by Leno why he does not comment publicly about the Obama administration Bush said I don t think it s good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor 414 Despite this statement Bush vocally disagreed with Obama s withdrawal of U S troops from Iraq in 2011 calling it a strategic blunder 415 In December Bush travelled with President Obama to the memorial service of South African president and civil rights leader Nelson Mandela 416 There they joined former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter 417 Charlie Strong left Texas Longhorns head football coach George W Bush and Reverend Jesse Jackson hold up a Texas Longhorns football jersey at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2014 Alongside the 2014 United States Africa Leaders Summit Bush Michelle Obama the State Department and the George W Bush Institute hosted a daylong forum on education and health with the spouses of the African leaders attending the summit Bush urged African leaders to avoid discriminatory laws that make the treatment of HIV AIDS more difficult 418 On November 2 Bush spoke at an event to 200 business and civic leaders at the George W Bush Presidential Library and Museum to raise awareness for the upcoming Museum of the Bible in Washington D C 26 419 On November 11 Bush published a biography of his father titled 41 A Portrait of My Father 420 In an interview published by Israel Hayom magazine on June 12 2015 Bush said boots on the ground would be needed to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIS He added that people had said during his presidency that he should withdraw American troops from Iraq but he chose the opposite sending 30 000 more troops to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq and that they indeed were defeated Bush was also asked about Iran but declined to answer stating that any answer he gives would be interpreted as undermining Obama 421 During the early stages of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries Bush spoke and campaigned for his brother Jeb Bush at a South Carolina rally 422 unreliable source However the party s nomination eventually went to Donald Trump whom Bush refused to endorse 423 Furthermore he did not attend the party s convention 424 425 On the eve of Trump s nomination it was reported that Bush had privately expressed concern about the current direction of the Republican Party telling a group of his former aides and advisors that I m worried that I will be the last Republican president 426 427 According to a spokesperson for the Bush family he did not vote for Trump in the general election instead choosing to leave his presidential ballot blank 428 After the 2016 elections Bush his father and his brother Jeb called Trump on the phone to congratulate him on his victory 429 Both he and Laura attended Trump s inauguration Images of Bush struggling to put on a rain poncho during the ceremony became an internet meme 430 While leaving the event Bush allegedly described the ceremony and Trump s inaugural address in particular as some weird shit 431 In February 2017 Bush released a book of his own portraits of veterans called Portraits of Courage 432 In August following the white nationalist Unite the Right rally Bush and his father released a joint statement condemning the violence and ideologies present there 433 Subsequently Bush gave a speech in New York where he noted of the current political climate Bigotry seems emboldened Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication He continued Bigotry in any form is blasphemy against the American creed and it means the very identity of our nation depends on the passing of civic ideals to the next generation while urging citizens to oppose threats to American democracy and be positive role models for young people 434 The speech was widely interpreted as a denouncement of Donald Trump and his ideologies despite Bush not mentioning Trump by name 434 435 436 437 Bush eulogizing his father at the National Cathedral December 5 2018 On September 1 2018 Bush and Laura Bush attended the funeral of John McCain at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington D C 438 On November 30 his father died at his home Shortly before his death Bush was able to talk with his father on the phone his father responded with what would be his last words I love you too 439 Bush attended his father s funeral on December 5 delivering a eulogy 440 In May 2019 the tenth anniversary of former South Korean president Roh Moo hyun s death Bush visited South Korea to pay respects to Roh delivering a short eulogy 441 On June 1 2020 Bush released a statement addressing the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide reaction and protests 442 443 In the statement Bush wrote that he and former first lady Laura Bush are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country 444 He also elaborated on the racial injustices perpetrated by the police saying that it is time for America to examine our tragic failures adding Many doubt the justice of our country and with good reason Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions 445 On July 30 Bush and his wife along with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama attended and spoke at the funeral for civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta 446 Bush did not give any endorsements during the 2020 presidential election 447 but held a virtual fundraiser for U S Senators Susan Collins R ME Cory Gardner R CO Martha McSally R AZ and Thom Tillis R NC All four were up for reelection and were struggling in the polls 448 He also did not attend the 2020 Republican National Convention where President Trump was re nominated 449 In April 2021 Bush told People magazine that he did not vote for either Trump or Joe Biden in the election Instead he wrote in Condoleezza Rice who served as his national security advisor from 2001 to 2005 and as his secretary of state from 2005 to 2009 450 When the election was called for Biden Bush congratulated him and his running mate Kamala Harris He also congratulated Trump and his supporters on a hard fought campaign Bush s outreach to Biden was notable since Republican candidate Donald Trump had not yet conceded Bush then issued a statement saying that while Trump was within his rights to call for recounts he believed the election was fundamentally fair and that its outcome is clear and said he would offer Biden my prayers for his success and my pledge to help in any way I can as he had for Trump and Obama 451 452 453 George W Bush and Laura at the inauguration of Joe Biden On January 6 2021 following the U S Capitol attack Bush denounced the violence and attack alongside the three other living former presidents Obama Clinton and Carter 454 releasing a statement saying that this is how election results are disputed in a banana republic not our democratic republic 455 and that it is a sickening and heartbreaking sight 456 He also echoed President elect Biden s message stating that what occurred at the capital was an insurrection 457 On January 20 Bush and his wife attended Biden s inauguration 458 Bush opposed President Biden s withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan saying that the withdrawal made him concerned and that it had the potential to create a vacuum and into that vacuum is likely to come people who treat women as second class citizens 459 During an interview with Deutsche Welle on July 14 2021 Bush reaffirmed his opposition to the troop withdrawal calling the plan a mistake 460 On September 11 2021 the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks Bush gave a speech at the Flight 93 National Memorial praising the heroism of the people on Flight 93 and the spirit of America He also said that he saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor s hand and rally to the cause of one another That is the America I know 461 Collaborations source source source source source source source source source source source source track President Obama with former presidents Clinton and Bush announce the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund after the 2010 earthquake In January 2010 at President Obama s request Bush and Bill Clinton established the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to raise contributions for relief and recovery efforts following the 2010 Haiti earthquake earlier that month 462 On May 2 2011 President Obama called Bush who was at a restaurant with his wife to inform him that Osama bin Laden had been killed 463 The Bushes joined the Obamas in New York City to mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks At the Ground Zero memorial Bush read a letter that President Abraham Lincoln wrote to a widow who had lost five sons during the Civil War 464 On September 7 2017 Bush partnered with former presidents Jimmy Carter George H W Bush Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to work with One America Appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in the Gulf Coast and Texas communities 465 Over the years President Bush has had a good natured friendship with Michelle Obama President Bush and I we are forever seatmates because of protocol and that s how we sit at all the official functions Mrs Obama told the Today Show He s my partner in crime at every major thing where all the formers gather So we re together all the time She later added I love him to death He s a wonderful man he s a funny man 466 Bush and Obama have sat next to each other at many events including the 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights march in Selma 2015 the interfaith memorial service for the victims in Dallas 2016 the opening at the National Museum of African American History and Culture 2016 and at the funerals for Nancy Reagan 2016 and John McCain 2018 Bush famously passed mints to Mrs Obama during the McCain funeral in September 2018 and gave them to her again during the funeral of his father in December 2018 467 Art After serving as president Bush began painting as a hobby after reading Winston Churchill s essay Painting as a Pastime Subjects have included people dogs and still life 468 He has also painted self portraits and portraits of world leaders including Vladimir Putin and Tony Blair 469 470 471 In February 2017 Bush released a book of portraits of veterans Portraits of Courage 432 The net proceeds from his book are donated to the George W Bush Presidential Center In May 2019 on the tenth anniversary of former South Korean president Roh Moo hyun s death George Bush drew a portrait of Roh to give to his family 472 Legacy George W Bush Presidential Center on the campus of Southern Methodist University Bush s legacy continues to develop today as supporters credit his counterterrorism policies with preventing another major terrorist attack from occurring in the U S after the September 11 attacks and also praise individual policies such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit and the AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR Critics often point to his handling of the Iraq War specifically the failure to find weapons of mass destruction after claiming they were in Iraq as well as Bush s handling of tax policy Hurricane Katrina climate change and the 2008 financial crisis as proof that he was unfit to be president 473 474 475 Ben Ferencz former chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Nuremberg Trials has stated that Bush likely committed war crimes in relation to the Iraq War 476 477 478 Several historians and commentators hold that Bush was one of the most consequential presidents in American history Princeton University scholar Julian Zelizer described Bush s presidency as a transformative one and said that some people hate him some people love him but I do think he ll have a much more substantive perception as time goes on 479 Bryon Williams of The Huffington Post referred to Bush as the most noteworthy president since FDR and said the Patriot Act increased authority of the executive branch at the expense of judicial opinions about when searches and seizures are reasonable as evidence 480 Bush s administration presided over the largest tax cuts since the presidency of Ronald Reagan 481 and his homeland security reforms proved to be the most significant expansion of the federal government since the Great Society 482 Bush has been widely portrayed in film and television both during and since his presidency 483 484 485 He has had various nicknames including Dubya GWB and Shrub 486 487 488 Reception The George W Bush presidency has been ranked as below average in surveys of presidential scholars published in the late 2000s and 2010s 489 490 491 A 2010 Siena Research Institute survey of the opinions of historians political scientists and presidential scholars ranked him 39th out of 43 presidents The survey respondents gave President Bush low ratings on his handling of the U S economy communication ability to compromise foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence 492 Bush said in 2013 Ultimately history will judge the decisions I made and I won t be around because it will take time for the objective historians to show up So I am pretty comfortable with it I did what I did 493 C SPAN s 2021 survey of historians ranked Bush as the 29th best president Bush had initially been ranked the 36th in 2009 494 Among the public his reputation has improved since his presidency ended in 2009 In February 2012 Gallup reported that Americans still rate George W Bush among the worst presidents though their views have become more positive in the three years since he left office 495 Gallup had earlier noted that Bush s favorability ratings in public opinion surveys had begun to rise a year after he had left office from 40 percent in January 2009 and 35 percent in March 2009 to 45 percent in July 2010 a period during which he had remained largely out of the news 496 A poll conducted in June 2013 marked the first time recorded by Gallup where his ratings have been more positive than negative with 49 percent viewing him favorably compared to 46 percent unfavorably 497 Other pollsters have noted similar trends of slight improvement in Bush s personal favorability since the end of his presidency 498 In April 2013 Bush s approval rating stood at 47 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval in a poll jointly conducted for The Washington Post and ABC his highest approval rating since December 2005 499 Bush had achieved notable gains among seniors non college whites and moderate and conservative Democrats since leaving office although majorities disapproved of his handling of the economy 53 percent and the Iraq War 57 percent 500 His 47 percent approval rating was equal to that of President Obama s in the same polling period 501 A CNN poll conducted that same month found that 55 percent of Americans said Bush s presidency had been a failure with opinions divided along party lines and 43 percent of independents calling it a success 502 Bush s public image saw greater improvement in 2017 with a YouGov survey showing 51 percent of favorability from Democrats 503 A 2018 CNN poll subsequently found that 61 percent of respondents held of a favorable view of Bush an increase of nine points from 2015 504 The improvement has been interpreted as Democrats viewing him more favorably in response to Donald Trump s presidency 505 506 507 an assessment that has also been expressed by Bush himself 508 Acknowledgments and dedications See also List of honors and awards received by George W Bush A street in Tirana formerly known as Rruga Punetoret e Rilindjes situated directly outside the Albanian Parliament was renamed after Bush a few days before he made the first ever visit by an American president to Albania in June 2007 509 In 2012 Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves awarded Bush the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana for his work in expanding NATO 510 Two elementary schools are named after him George W Bush Elementary School of the Stockton Unified School District in Stockton California 511 and George W Bush Elementary School of the Wylie independent school District in St Paul Texas in the Dallas Fort Worth area 512 See alsoBibliography of George W Bush Fictionalized portrayals of George W Bush List of George W Bush legislation and programsReferences Ahles Dick December 24 2000 Bush s Birthplace It s Deep in the 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