Why the presidency of George W. Bush is a failure

The presidency of George W. Bush is coming to an end. His term will expire in a little more than a year. So it is not too early to begin assessing his position and his place in history in terms of his administration and its successes and failures now that he has entered into the lame duck phase of his presidency and his power diminishes more and more with each passing day it seems. Most historians that i have heard speak on the matter are just about unanimous about the fact that his presidency has been if not a total disaster than a near total disaster and here are some reasons why.
1. the war-It is safe to say at this point that the war in Iraq while initially beginning with some great successes has turned into one of the great and long lasting quagmires in the experience of this country. It is difficult to pin down exact figures about it but most estimates are that the united states has spent somewhere north of 500 billion dollars so far on the effort in Iraq and there seems to be no real end in sight. Currently estimates are that we are spending 8 billion dollars a month which boils down to 2 billion a week. While there have been some successes lately with toning down the violence in Baghdad and some other parts of Iraq for the most part the violence continues there and the population of Iraq lives in great fear and feels little hope for the future of their country. The loss in terms of human life is equally difficult to pin down in terms of exact numbers but estimates range from the low side being somewhere around 40,000 iraqi civillians killed to estimates that go into the hundreds of thousands. Most human rights organizations believe that the higher figure is likely the more accurate one in terms of being closer to the truth. Our war dead are closing in on 4000 and we have suffered in the neighborhood of 25,000 wounded. And all this leading to a situation where the middle east is about as unstable as ever and you are facing the reality that the biggest winner in the thing may very well be Iran. They are poised to basically take over the running of Iraq thru the weak government in Baghdad when the americans pull out. Not to mention the fact that we got rid of their biggest enemy in the region for them when we kicked out Sadam Hussein. If you had to call this a success or a failure i cant really see how you could label this a success in and kind of way. Not only is this a failure but its a disaster. The worst foreign policy blunder since the Vietnam war.
2. - The national debt - The national debt under President Bush has risen at a rate that is roughly twice as fast as the rate at which it rose under the last three presidents before him. The debt under President Bush stood at about 5.6 trillion when he took over in january of 2001 and now stands at 9.1 trillion with about one more year to go in his term. That is the largest increase by far of the national debt under any president in the history of this country. To give you something to compare it to, under president Clinton in his eight years the national debt went from about 4 trillion in january of 1993 to about 5.6 trillion when he left office. Under president Bush's father George Herbert Walker Bush the debt went from about 2.6 trillion to about 4 trillion. Under President Reagan the debt went from about 1 trillion to about 2.6 trillion. Each of the three presidents before Bush each rose the national debt by about 1.5 trillion in their terms in office. The current occupant of the white house has raised it by 3.5 trillion and he still had more than a year to go. I dont see any success here either. This is known in some circles as a fiscal diasaster.
3. - The response to Katrina - What else can be said about the inept response to hurricane Katrina in Louisiana by this administration that has not been already said by millions of other observers the world over. The way the Bush white house handled the whole matter basically made the United states look like it had no idea what it was doing in the eyes of both our allies and our enemies overseas. It took almost a week for the federal government to even begin to get any kind of relief into the city. You had the mayor of New Orleans going on the radio days after the hurricane hit actually begging for the federal and state governments to provide relief while many of his citizens were drowning and dying. Instead of taking charge of the situation the white house basically blamed everybody else and their mother and began finger pointing at everyone and accepting little of the responsibility. If i am not mistaken i believe that President Bush at the time was where he usually is, vacationing on his ranch in Texas and topped it all off by going down there and famously patting FEMA head Michael Brown on the back and uttering one of the most famous quotes of his presidency " Your doing a heck of a job Brownie".
4. - The erosion of civil liberties - It is clear that the president wants to know everything that is going on at all times. In this effort he seems to have no concern over any civil liberties or rights to privacy he violates all in the name of national security. If the government wishes to search your house and your property without a warrant president bush feels it has the right. If it wants to listen in on your private phone conversations, it has that right. If the government wishes to arrest you and detain you indefinately without charge, it has that right. No president in the history of this union has ever rolled back so many of the long standing rights of its citizens as this president has done and has attempted to do. These rights date back in some cases for centuries. They are part and parcel of what it is to be american. Everytime anybody gives him any resistance to these endeavours he simply does what he usually does and brings up the Al queda boogie man and tries to scare the whole country into going along with it to beat down any resistance. What the people on the other side of the argument are simply saying is this: if you suspect someone of being involved in something illegal you have to prove it. You have to prove it in a trial in open court for all to see by bringing forth evidence. I mean the founding fathers of this country came up with this idea. Its part of the DNA of this country. You cant just call someone a terrorist and then just lock them away at gitmo and leave it at that. You cant accuse anybody of anything and just lock them away. It is actually a violation of the constitution. Its a violation of the right of unreasonable search and seizures. If it was good enough for people like Jefferson and Franklin and Adams, who were basically some of the most intelligent and forward thinking people of the 18th and 19th century, then it should be good enough for a c average student from an "ivy league" school with a drinking problem in the 20th century.