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By Li Hongmei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-01-14 15:16

No president in the U.S history has borne more praise and abuse than the outgoing President George W. Bush. And it was reported that never since the advent of the modern polling has one president rivaled Mr. Bush in job approval, in which he has experienced such extremely highs and lows—his popularity hitting 90 percent in Gallup immediately after 9/11 when he managed to rally a shocked nation, but drifting historically below 30 percent at the time when he leaves Oval Office in a few days.

But for now, albeit Bush has expressed on several occasions his indifference to the way history books will treat him, the president and his team have gone to unprecedented lengths in these final days of his tenure to try to shape his legacy, an endeavor scorned by some as ‘crass legacy-hunting’. On top of a ‘Bush legacy project’ organized by the president’s current and past top advisers, the White House has posted online a 50-page defense called ‘100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration Record.’

Admittedly, whether it is his single-minded determination to defeat Islamic extremism in the wake of 9/11, or a wide array of reforms he adopts in education, immigration system, medical care, social security, taxes, energy and environment, Bush has made his mark on history. Even though some of the reforms are considered risky ventures on which he spent almost all of his political capital and came up empty-handed, they might be viewed, from another perspective, as bold moves or a launch point for initiatives shaping debate for the future.

The biggest legacy he leaves behind might be the heavy-handed clampdown on terror, which led to two foreign wars—one, Iraq, launched on the basis of faulty intelligence, resulting in a black eye for America’s image abroad and also his own image badly in need of repair; the other, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden still remains at large. Besides, he also leaves behind a party in disarray, and Guantanamo, a U.S-controlled secret prison with terrorist suspects jailed and  accused of ‘aggressive interrogation techniques’ or torture as called by human-rights experts, even when the Iraq war, which broke out in 2003, is gradually receding in American public consciousness.

Second legacy only vying for his biggest when he leaves office might be the economy on the brink of collapse, which is supposed to be unfair, as the U.S. enjoyed a consistent six-year economic growth preceding the financial crisis. But the deepest ever crisis in 80 years speaks for itself that Bush will go down with a gloomy economic record.

Some observers say Bush, as the president, is hard to pigeonhole ideologically, but he has enriched his legacy by introducing new mechanisms and opening up new channels, especially in realms of diplomacy and international relations. Judging from opinion polls and expert opinions from within and outside of the U.S, Bush fared considerably better in Asia, where he gained both momentum and achievements in terms of his foreign-policy forays. In particular, he has made much headway in deepening Sino-U.S. ties and helped set up the best-ever bilateral relations, which is widely considered positive to his diplomatic record.

After eight years in office, President Bush leaves a legacy rich for both historians and his successor, Barak Obama, busy with his inauguration rehearsal right now and to host White House on the coming Tuesday. But whether Bush is rated among the worst presidents in the U.S. history as suggested by the ‘History News Network’ poll in 2008 will be vindicated by history itself.