By Marisa RussellASSISTANT COPY CHIEF
After the presidency of George Walker Bush, the United States experienced numerous events that shaped the way the world operates today. From 9/11 to the Iraq War, he battled many important issues in the country, and while not everyone approves of him, many are happier with him now than they ever were when he was in office.
The Hofstra Cultural Center and the Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency hosted a conference March 24-26 to discuss G.W. Bush’s time in office. This was the 12th-consecutive presidential conference held by the Kalikow Center at Hofstra. The closing ceremony, moderated by Meena Bose, director of the Kalikow Center and the Bush Conference, and Jeffrey A. Engel, a history professor at Southern Methodist University, focused on the legacy Bush left as President and his political agenda while in power.
“It’s too early now to say what the legacy will be. It’s not what happened before Bush, it’s what happens after,” said Graham Dodds, associate professor of political science at Concordia University. After a long eight years as President, it will be difficult to tell what the last public opinion of G.W. Bush is, as many of his policies are still being implemented and fixed now.
As the conference continued, Dodds, Martha Kumar, political science professor at Towson University, and Shirley Anne Warshaw, political science professor at Gettysburg College, all discussed Bush’s political ideology in order to come to a conclusion about where his legacy currently stands.
“George Bush was a moral pragmatist,” said Warshaw. “He wanted to build a civil and moral society through his own words on a civil and moral society.” She added that he found God shortly before taking office and that that had a large influence on the ideas that he brought in.
He implemented worship after 9/11, a day of silence and prayer, and he saw the government as a way to build up a moral society. According to Warshaw, together with former Vice President Dick Cheney, the two were able to successfully implement many policies as a balanced team. Cheney presented all of the business policies while Bush focused on the agenda of the people’s well-being.
“The world was seen through the lens of good and evil, of right and wrong,” Warshaw said of Bush’s time in office. He was highly focused on the way people acted and tried to integrate religion into the society.
G.W. Bush left a lasting impact on the White House by the way he transitioned into and out of office.
“Transitions matter, and that one in particular did,” said Kumar. “President Bush got involved and he got involved early.” He helped both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama organize their exit and entrance, respectively.
While his No Child Left Behind Act is still being evaluated for its success, his ability to organize the United State’s leader transition was something that Kumar, and the other panelists, found extremely beneficial. It gained him some public approval after he left, despite the fact that it was already very low.
“Bush said he would not be defined by others, he would be defined himself,” Dodds added, which brought up the point that he experienced a lot of societal trauma and difficulties while in power.
“There is a legacy but I can’t see it,” said Dodds. “You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you’re gone.”