NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) -- A prominent Southern Baptist leader has compared George W. Bush to Harry Truman, another president whose approval ratings dropped to the 20s in his final months in office but is now considered one of the greatest American presidents of the 20th century.

"Just remember that you heard it here from me," Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said Dec. 6 on his weekly radio program. "He will be the Harry Truman of our time."

Commenting on reports of a debate about whether Bush would go down as one of the worst presidents in the last 50 years, Land predicted that, like Truman's, Bush's legacy will be vindicated by the long scope of history.

That includes the president's least popular decision, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. While acknowledging the entry into war was handled poorly, Land said, the 2007 troop surge has placed the U.S.-led coalition on the cusp of victory of Iraq.

In addition to making America safer, Land applauded Bush for blunting "the metastasizing of abortion" by opposing late-term abortions and research using embryonic stem cells.

Land quoted a paragraph from Allen Guelzo in the National Post saying: "Like Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov, one act of killing requires more acts of killing to legitimize itself. This has been the real agenda behind the enigmatic enthusiasm for stem-cell research and the furious criticism of bans on late-term, or 'partial-birth,' abortion. It was an act of singular political courage for Bush to see this agenda for what it was, expose it publicly for what it is, and obstruct it for as long as he has."

"Well, I can only say 'amen' to that," Land said, noting that judges appointed by Bush during the last eight years represent sitting majorities on 10 out of 13 federal appeals courts.

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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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