The New York Times claims that President Bush turned down an Israeli request for bunker-busting bombs and permission to overfly Iraq so that the Israeli Air Force could disable or destroy Iran’s nuclear-bomb production.

The NYT cannot be trusted to report the truth, but in this instance it’s not easy to see how lying would be in the interests of that traitorous newspaper.

If the report is true, then Bush has imperiled the world. By letting Iran become a nuclear power, he becomes a co-author of the terror and destruction Iran will inflict on Israel and all of us.  

We praise President Bush for eliminating the tyrant Saddam Hussein, for leading America to victory in Iraq, and for keeping Americans safe from more terrorist attacks after 9/11.

But if he is now tolerating Iran’s arming itself with nuclear bombs, he is undoing the good he has done. A nuclear armed Iran is a far greater threat to America than Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden ever were.

President Clinton had a number of opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden and each time made the bad judgment not to do so. If President Bush has really stopped Israel from destroying Iran’s bomb-producing sites,  he has made a worse misjudgment. America will pay dearly for it.

All hope that the US itself will act effectively to stop Iran ends, we believe, with the Bush presidency. It seems to us most unlikely that Obama will do anything but make futile attempts to appease that evil regime.

 Ken Blackwell writes in Townhall (read the whole column here):

Only Republicans offer the conservative principles that can address our economic woes. Since our outgoing president has abandoned those principles – and never adhered to some of them – the GOP must speak with a different voice. The GOP must be the voice of reason before America goes past the point of no return in trading a capitalist economy for a socialist state. Everyone who knows President Bush will tell you he is an extraordinarily warm and pleasant person, and a true gentleman. Contrary to the left’s portrayal of him, Mr. Bush is full of compassion. But that is not enough. Some industries need change that government cannot provide. In a free market, company mismanagement and union shortsightedness result in corporate reorganization, not government involvement at the cost of countless billions of dollars that only delays the inevitable. The Republican Party was once the champion of limited government and economic freedom. President Bush’s recent actions have thoroughly distorted that image. It will take strong leadership for the GOP to reclaim its small government and free market reputation.

 Dick Morris and Eileen McGann write in Townhall:

The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy. In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in toto, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation and excessive government regulation. Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merger with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.

At the G-20 meeting, Bush agreed to subject the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other regulatory agencies to the supervision of a global entity that would critique its regulatory standards and demand changes if it felt they were necessary. Bush agreed to create a College of Supervisors.

According to The Washington Post, it would "examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks’ operations."

Their scrutiny would extend to hedge funds and to various "exotic" financial instruments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a European-dominated operation, would conduct "regular vigorous reviews" of American financial institutions and practices. The European-dominated College of Supervisors would also weigh in on issues like executive compensation and investment practices…

Bush, to say nothing of Obama, has given the government control over our major financial and insurance institutions. And it isn’t even our government! The power has now been transferred to the international community, led by the socialists in the European Union.

Will Obama govern from the left? He doesn’t have to. George W. Bush has done all the heavy lifting for him. It was under Bush that the government basically took over as the chief stockholder of our financial institutions and under Bush that we ceded our financial controls to the European Union. In doing so, he has done nothing to preserve what differentiates the vibrant American economy from those dying economies in Europe. Why have 80 percent of the jobs that have been created since 1980 in the industrialized world been created in the United States? How has America managed to retain its leading 24 percent share of global manufacturing even in the face of the Chinese surge? How has the U.S. GDP risen so high that it essentially equals that of the European Union, which has 50 percent more population? It has done so by an absence of stifling regulation, a liberation of capital to flow to innovative businesses, low taxes, and by a low level of unionization that has given business the flexibility to grow and prosper. Europe, stagnated by taxation and regulation, has grown by a pittance while we have roared ahead. But now Bush – not Obama – Bush has given that all up and caved in to European socialists.

The Bush legacy? European socialism. Who needs enemies with friends like Bush?