The talk of the Airhead America crowd these days can be summed up as hearings, censure and impeachment. The rabid left has done everything they can to destroy the president over the past few years and, with the 2006 election results in hand, they are now going for the jugular. They are so excited at the prospect that they are fast-forwarding in time to proclaim that Bush will go down as “the worst president in history”. With their “Bush-derangement syndrome” (I can’t recall who to credit with that term), they continue to believe that “he lied us into war to benefit his oil buddies and then used the war to justify the trampling of the constitution by taking away our civil liberties”. Their great hope is that they get his legacy started by putting an “Impeached” stamp on his presidency before he leaves the White House for the last time.

The problem for the liberals is that President Bush is nearly a lock to be one of the best presidents in history and the war on Islamo-fascist terror is the key. Even if the Democrats are able to impeach the President and/or win the 2008 presidential election, it will not take away from the President’s elevated place in the history books.

When the Bush history is written, it will see this as a time when the free world was in a war against Islamo-fascism that unofficially started in 1979 with the Iranian hostage situation. 9/11 was the “Pearl Harbor” that provoked the United States to fully engage and take the battle to the terrorists. President Bush’s objectives to take down Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Taliban control in Afghanistan, and help the citizens replace them with democratic forms of government, was completed swiftly and successfully. This was the right decision for Afghanistan where the planning for the 9/11 attack was initiated. Aside from all the support that was there for the initial invasion of Iraq, the real validation came when the terrorists were dispatched to Iraq to try and create enough havoc to drive out the U.S. military and topple the fledging democracy.  They would never have bothered if having control of Iraq was not strategic to the Islamo-fascist jihad.

The ensuing terrorism, following the establishment of the new governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, was not fully accounted for and has resulted in problems in determining the most effective military tactics and in getting the Iraqi government to be more self-supporting. History will note that President Bush continued to provide military support for those governments despite the persistent undermining of his efforts from the liberal activists and politicians. On the smoldering heap of the twin towers, President Bush declared, “Either you are with us or with the terrorists!” The liberal activists and politicians ended up siding with the terrorists and did all they could to cause the President and the United States to lose the war. Their near-traitorous actions will go down in history as the worst ever support of a Commander-in-Chief and our armed forces in a time of war. Even with low ratings in the public opinion polls, the President has courageously stood by his commitment to get those two countries in a position where they can be self-sustaining democracies. The recent military “surge” will be seen as effective, but the President will historically receive low marks for not using his bully pulpit effectively enough to achieve broad support for his objectives from the U.S. citizenry and the international community.

Additionally, a big plus for President Bush is the lack of successful terrorist attacks since 9/11. The military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with the surveillance and monitoring of terrorist finances and communications, will be credited as the reason we haven’t been attacked again.

A historical synopsis of the Bush presidency: When the United States was attacked by terrorists on 9/11/2001, President Bush responded with successful removal of Taliban control in Afghanistan and removal of Saddam Hussein from Iraq, helped establish democracies in both countries and made the United States safer from future terrorist attacks.

This is hardly a description of the “worst president in history.”

So let’s look at the scenarios for the remaining days of the Bush presidency…

If the democratic Afghanistan and Iraq governments remain in place and there are no additional attacks on U.S. soil, then the President gets credit for a great foreign policy victory. The next President is the one who will then be saddled with the decision on how long these countries need to have U.S military support.

If the troops are pulled by the next President and the governments sustain themselves, then the military action would be considered complete and successful. President Bush’s initial decision would be validated. If the troops are pulled and the governments are overthrown by terrorists, then the new President will be blamed for removing the troops prematurely and losing those fronts. If a successful terrorist attack then follows on the heels of the government overthrows, that President would surely be packing his or her bags at the end of the term.

Even if there is a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil before President Bush’s term ends, he will still be given credit for the years he prevented and shutdown several potential terrorist attacks. It will also remind everyone that the war against Islamo-fascism is still being waged and continue to give Bush credit for his efforts to take the battle to the enemy and not sit around and simply wait for the next attack.

There is really only a single scenario, albeit a totally improbable one, where the Bush legacy could be damaged by the extended military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. The scenario is that the next President pulls the troops out, the terrorists overthrow the democratic governments and they declare the jihad over, with the justification that they were only fighting to get the country back from U.S. occupation. Basically, they would be saying that if the President hadn’t initiated the war, then they would have never considered another terrorist attack against the United States. I said it was improbable!

No, President Bush will not go down as the worst president in history. On the contrary, the military overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the establishment of two new democratic governments in the Middle East and the prevention of additional attacks on U.S. citizens will lock him in as one of the best. Depending on how this plays out, he should also be a lock for the Nobel Peace prize. However, after seeing Al Gore get it this year for his global warming sham, I won’t hold my breath that President Bush will ever return to the White House to be honored for his deserved peace prize.