As george W. Bush's term came to a close, he had few defenders left in the world of foreign policy. Mainstream commentators almost unanimously agreed the Bush years had been marked by arrogance and incompetence. "Mr. Bush's characteristic failing was to apply a black-and-white mindset to too many gray areas of national security and foreign affairs," editorialized The Washington Post. Even Richard Perle, the neoconservative guru, acknowledgedrecently that "Bush mostly failed to implement an effective foreign and defense policy." There was hope that President Obama would abandon some of his predecessor's rigid ideological stances. But, the Post warned, "it won't be easy to undo what Mr. Bush has done."
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