1. There were no successful terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland after September 11, 2001. The president united the nation in the immediate aftermath of the al Qaeda attacks. His administration, working with local law enforcement agencies and other nations, foiled all terrorism plots for the next seven-plus years. 2. Bush became just the fourth Republican president in American history to serve two full terms. The first three: Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald W. Reagan. But unlike the other three, who won six landslides, Bush had two close calls. His 2000 victory (while losing the popular VOTE) will go down as one of the most hotly disputed in U.S. history. His 2004 re-election was by a slim 2.5 percentage point margin. 3. The president won the biggest tax cut in American history. CANDIDATE Bush promised to cut taxes. President Bush did just that. The income tax rate cuts returned money to all Americans — but particularly the wealthy. Inheritance tax rates also were slashed and the marriage penalty was ended. The biggest victory for Bush came four years after he left the presidency when President Obama agreed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent on all but the top one-half of 1 percent of Americans. 4. Bush signed into law the biggest expansion of an entitlement program since the Great Society: the Medicare drug benefit. The drug benefit divided Republicans in the House of Representatives but House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas twisted enough arms to give Bush a narrow but historic legislative victory. It was the legislative high point of the Bush presidency. 5. Bush’s administration prevented a calamitous meltdown of the U.S. financial system in the fall of 2008. Though derided as a “Wall Street bailout,” Bush’s rapid response to the imminent meltdown of the U.S. financial system may have prevented another Great Depression from beginning in the waning days of his presidency. Yes, money was wasted. Yes, “bad guys” got some bailout money. Yes, no banking execs ended up behind BARS. But things could have been much, much worse if the president hadn’t CONVINCED Congress to act.Explanation: