Guys, I'm not talking about taking actions against Iraq. I'm talking about Afghanistan, a country that harbored terrorists but didn't attack us officially as a country. While it could be argued that Iraq's infractions didn't rise to the level of justifying a full-scale invasion, I'm not arguing that, either. I think that the invasion was the right thing to do, although the reasons had less to do with Saddam and more to do with establishing an effective presence in the region.
Mr. Tactical Pants, when have we invaded a country preemptively? I know that there are other countries that have done so, and so it's not novel, but we have not (unless you count some small incursion into Canada in the 1800's).
All I'm trying to say here is that Bush has been beaten up so badly that most people--even some on this forum--have unfairly relegated him to the dust bin of history, but history will eventually show a different picture.
Bush's primary shortfall was thinking that DC worked the same way that the government in Texas did, and that he could deal in good faith with the Democrats in DC as he did in Texas. He tried to work with them, and got stabbed in the back. Nothing he did was good enough for them or the media, even when he was working with such liberal stalwarts as Ted Kennedy, who bashed Bush on an education bill that they worked together on (it was Kennedy's bill, for crying out loud!).
When I say that Bush did what he did because of love of country, and people drag out Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao, those folks are being ridiculous, not to mention disingenuous. Clinton loved himself more than country; I think we'll see the same in Obama. I'm not entirely sure about Bush 41. Reagan definitely loved country over self. Jimmy Carter? I don't know what he was thinking. Nixon and LBJ loved power, as I think Kennedy did as well.
As I said, we could debate this forever. All I ask is that you look back ten years from now and see if you think the same about GW. Hindsight changed a lot of people's minds about Nixon, and he was redeemed to an extent a couple of decades after leaving office.