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Biggest accomplishment: managing to provide a conduit for the ideologically driven neo-cons to implement all their plans.
Biggest failure: managing to provide a conduit for the ideologically driven neo-cons to implement their plans :P
Seriously though, I think one of the really nasty side effects of this administration is the way it has damaged America's relations with so many countries. Ten years ago in Britain, politicians still used the phrase 'special relationship' to characterise UK and Usa relations. As politicians, they did this knowing it would be popular and well recieved by their electorate. This really doesn't happen now.
What's terribly sad to me, is that after 9/11, the British population grieved with America; we as a nation felt great sadness and anger at the attack on our friends. I am sure that feeling was echoed in many European nations, but I am equally sure that Britain felt it most keenly in Europe. The outpouring of goodwill, comradeship and willingness to stand by America's side, both in her grief and in her response to the attack, were heartfelt and apparent at pretty much every level of our society.
To me, one of the worst things Bush did was squander that goodwill and friendship by leading us, not after America's attacker, but on a stupid, unnecessary and bloody adventure in Iraq.
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