ARNOLD KLING LOOKS AT GEORGE BUSH’S PRESIDENCY:

As I listen to people discuss the Presidency of George Bush, I find myself hearing the same things over and over. He has been too ideological, too closed-minded, too partisan, and too incompetent, resulting in a disastrous Presidency. I am not sure that this analysis will survive a more sober, detached perspective. Later in this essay, I will spell out what I see as the myths embedded in the conventional wisdom.

Read the whole thing. I can certainly identify with this bit: “I have never felt comfortable with George Bush. I voted for Al Gore–although I never felt comfortable with him, either. I felt even less comfortable with John Kerry, so that I voted for Bush in 2004. . . . I think that President Bush has got one thing very much right, which is that Arab-Islamic terrorism is a symptom that something is rotten in the Middle East. If anything, his failures in Iraq and Palestine are due to underestimating the degree of rot.”

UPDATE: More thoughts from Ron Coleman.