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Even a half decade after his presidency--no, my thoughts about him haven't changed. I still think he ranks in the top 2 worst presidents in my lifetime (a toss up with Ronald Reagan--just as dreadful).
Let's start with the minuses:
He stole the election in 2000---orchestrated in a state that happened to be governed by his brother, Jeb. How convenient.
He wasn't honest about his past. Most notably he was AWOL from the Texas Nat'l Guard for over a year. He got away with it because of the political clout of the Bush family name. He was a spoiled frat boy with an influential father that helped him stay out of Vietnam.
He really loves the death penalty. He holds the record for the most executive orders putting people to death in the State of Texas---more than any other US governor in American history.
He ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden, and was intent on invading Iraq within days of becoming the "president."
He bold-face lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Then ignored the U.N. and launched war(s) where people are STILL dying today.
As Commander in Chief, he didn't make sure soldiers had adequate safety gear in Iraq. He goes to war--and then doesn't make sure the soldiers are well protected--what a guy.
Apparently, he never attended one soldier's funeral--even though Arlington Nat'l Cemetery is two miles from the White House. How sad is that?
He ignored the international ban on torture.
He cut veteran's healthcare funding at the height of the Iraq war.
He placed right-wing evangelicals in regulatory positions where they rejected new birth control drugs and issued regulations making women ineligible for federal healthcare.
He cut Pell Grants for poor students.
He let down the poor black communities of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina.
He panders to the loony religious right.
He took more vacations during office than any other modern-day president. No one else even comes close. He took 1,020 days off during two terms---that's one out of every three days. Wouldn't you love a vacation schedule like that?
He's associated with even more despicable men than himself: Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove.
Now for the positives:
He worked to create the largest ocean preserve (near Hawaii).
His initiative to fight AIDS across Africa saved a lot of lives.
I know a lot people will think the above is unbalanced---but it's the way I see it. He was no more qualified to be POTUS than the man in the moon.
Have your thoughts about Bush Jr.'s presidency changed in the last five years?
No. I still consider him as much of a miserable, contemptible failure as I ever did. He was not only a worthless excuse for a president, he was (and remains) a thoroughly despicable excuse for a human being. He entered office an ignorant, underachieving, frat boy rodeo clown, and in his 8 years in office, grew into a war criminal.
He was - at best - a sham, a fraud, and a poseur, and his presidency is one of the most disgraceful periods of American history. So no. My opinion of George W. Bush has not softened at all in 5 years, nor will it ever.
He bold-face lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"Bush lied, people died" will go down as one of the biggest idiocies in history when a half decade turns into a half century, and this topic is ready for the history forum, as opposed to the political hack forum.
There were no lies about WMD. At the time, everyone from the peaceniks at the Carnegie Foundation for Peace, to the intel agencies, to Saddam's own generals believed that Saddam still had WMD at his disposal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cobra II
Saddam told his military to "to hold the coalition for eight days and leave the rest to him," recalled Abdullah al-Mullah Huwaysh, the minister of military industrialization. The mysterious order came to some as a relief to some of Saddam's military officers. Despite Saddam's earlier revelations that Iraq was bereft of WMD, they concluded that Saddam must have a secret supply of WMD after all, and that the defense of Iraq would not depend entirely on their overmatched, ill-motivated troops.
(from Cobra II, the Inside Story of the invasion and Occupation of Iraq by NYT reporter M. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, p. 190).
I think GW was a good guy I just wish he hadn't gone into Iraq. I feel he really tried and was a good president. Poor fellow after five years he is still being blamed for things when no one else is available to take the blame.
Bush was an unremarkable president overall. He wasn't completely bad nor good. I will say people should not blame him for the economy, that was more Greenspan's fault rather than Bush's. The problem with Bush was that he gave up too much power to his advisers and Cheney was too powerful for his own good.
Believe it or not, foreign policy wise, Bush was actually more mixed rather than completely negative. He maintained strong relations with Japan (Koizumi is a good friend of Bush) and also maintained good relations with China (Bush is popular in China believe it or not) and handled the Hainan crisis fairly well. He also helped build relations with India. He also called for the resignation of Charles Taylor of Liberia and eventually helped bring the end of the Liberian Civil War. Of course all of these positive developments are overshadowed by his disastrous Middle East policies but Bush wasn't bad when it came to Asia and Africa although he is often criticized for letting big business essentially decide Asia policies esp. in regards to China. People will say he failed when it comes to North Korea but can anyone name a single US president, with the exception of Eisenhower, that has accomplished anything when it comes to North Korea?
Overall, despite my hatred of the Bush administration I am willing to say that he wasn't as bad as people made him out to be and we shouldn't judge him completely based on his failures.
I think GW was a good guy I just wish he hadn't gone into Iraq. I feel he really tried and was a good president. Poor fellow after five years he is still being blamed for things when no one else is available to take the blame.
I think Bush had some positive qualities. The problem I have with this statement though is that it is kind of like saying "X was a good man, but he spent the family fortune and made a mistake that got three of his children killed".
Iraq wasn't a simple mistake. It was a huge mistake that will have implications for this country for probably decades. Saddam Hussein was a tyrannical leader and I don't know of anyone who misses him. That being said, he served a function of sorts. He kept forces in his country under control and prevented a civil war from occurring. He also served as a "counterweight" or balance to the Shiite regime in Iran. When SH and his Baathist Party disappeared, a civil war started that is probably still going on. More people were killed int his conflict than were murdered by SH in all his years in power. You can put all that aside though. If we look at it Iraq today, we find Shiite leaders in power that are working as allies of their neighbor Iran. In short, what Bush did, strengthened the most dangerous power in the area, Iran.
Other Presidents had kept SH under control through establishing a "no-fly zone" that kept him from engaging in serious military operations against any country or people. These methods weren't perfect, but they were comparatively cheap and most importantly, I don't believe a single American life was lost in the process.
I don't believe that Bush deliberately lied or manufactured evidence to support what he did. I think its more a case of accepting intelligence that told him what he wanted to hear. At the same time, he disregarded intelligence that contradicted other findings. One can "cherry pick" sources and arrive at different conclusions. That's what I believe happened.
In the process of invading and occupying Iraq this country, we spent over $1 trillion and lost over 5,000 soldiers. Perhaps, the worst of it is we are still trying to treat thousands of soldiers who suffered head injuries and amputations. We still haven't absorbed the full cost of that war and it may literally be decades before we do.
Ultimately, what we think of GWB seems to turn so much on politics. I try to tune out a lot of things that I simply disagreed with and instead focus on what an objective person would have to say. I see darn little good that came out of the Iraq War and a great deal of cost.
There were no lies about WMD. At the time, everyone from the peaceniks at the Carnegie Foundation for Peace, to the intel agencies, to Saddam's own generals believed that Saddam still had WMD at his disposal.
That may be true, but it is only evidence that the lies were believed. Go back and look at Colin Powell's "proof" at the UN. He presented four exhibits:
1. Pencil drawings of "trucks like this" that could transport WMDs.
2. Aerial photos of the roofs of buildings that "could" house WMDs.
3. Empty vials from the UN infirmary capable of holding enough anthrax to kill thousands.
4. A phone call between two of "Saddam's own generals" actually verifying the near-completion in the Saddam-ordered dismantling of all WMD systems.
If there was any other proof of WMDs, the Secretary of State would have been able to present it to the UN in defense of the proposition. And then, the US had to bribe rotating member states of the UN Security Council to endorse the US resolution to invade Iraq, the famous "coalition of the billing", as it was laughingly called by the world media, who just barely dared to challenge the virtually infinite power of the US to punish any nonbelievers. Reluctant countries who didn't want to wake up in the morning with a horse's head in their beds.
"Everyone" did not believe the lies. I didn't, a lowly forum poster, and I couldn't possibly have been only one who saw them as lies . The plain and simple fact is that Bush was lying and Saddam was telling the truth.
Franky, just because some Yale professor said GWB didn't lie about WMDs doesn't make it so. So you think an Ivy League college professor is beneath lying? And you think an Ivy Leaguer cannot be influenced by power mongers like the Bushes and Cheneys of the world? Come on, GWB is Yale alumni! Probably old frat boy compadres! They stick together, you know.
How about words right from GWB's mouth, instead? This is much more telling than anything some Yale guy comes up with. And I quote from a speech GWB gave in October of 2002, "We cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud..." Does this statement, right from the horses mouth, sound like he was 100% convinced there were WMDs in Iraq? I think not. This statement was pure fear-mongering, plain and simple. Fear-mongering to garner support for launching a war against a country that had nothing to do with the events of 9/11. None of the highjackers were from Iraq. Fifteen of the nineteen highjackers were from Saudi Arabia (the other four were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon). Why didn't we wage war with Saudi Arabia? I'll tell you why--because the royal Saudi family and other oil-rich gazillionaires in S.A. have very close ties to the Bush family and their oil interests and holdings.
For anyone to think that GWB didn't bold-face lie about going into Iraq---well, they are just plain naive and refuse to see the forest through the trees, in my opinion. To launch a war without undeniable and inarguable proof of WMDs smacks of ulterior motive. (Side note: It's no coincidence that Dick Cheney's company, Haliburton, was contracted to "rebuild" Iraq. Not to mention all that is at stake for Israel in that part of the world...but that's another topic). And to drag our troops into a quagmire based on uncertainty about WMDs (against people who had nothing to do with 9/11)---a war that will negatively affect this country and the innocent Iraqis for probably the next 20 to 30 years is a pretty damn HUGE mistake. It's unconscionable and shameful, that's what it is. GWB and his war-mongering administration deserve every bit of criticism Americans (and Iraqis) can hurl at them. They should all be tried for war crimes and sent to an Iraqi prison for some waterboarding and more---Abu Ghraib style. That's what they deserve.
And that's just a small snippet of stories, because most times, this was done in private without the media in attendance or knowing about it. Find similar numbers of stories regarding Obama.
The president attending a funeral is problematic.. So, I don't fault either for that.. President attends a funeral, it becomes a media circus, and that's not what most families would want.
Quote:
He took more vacations during office than any other modern-day president. No one else even comes close. He took 1,020 days off during two terms---that's one out of every three days. Wouldn't you love a vacation schedule like that?
While according to the facts, to come close to your numbers, GWB would have had to spend his last 3 years 'on vacation'.. Bush owned his ranch in Texas and spent quite a bit of time there. Considering all those days 'vacation' is a reach. Obama just doesn't have another home to go to. Bush used the Texas ranch as.. I would consider it a 'working from home' situation or telecommuting.
The rest of the items.. The above are the patently false or misleading ones that you posted. I could go through them all and shoot most of them down.. "He lied" about WMD.. ok, well, if you believe that, then you must also believe that Obama lied about "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it"
The WMD part.. I can't consider it a lie, but it certainly was one of the biggest failures of the administration.. Even GWB admits that. They took what this guy said..
And ran with it. With little to no vetting on the guy until after the fact.
The budget surplus.. Remember, the recession hit.. And, i'm not sure it was technically a recession, but.. The whole Dot-Com bubble, which Clinton rode throughout his presidency, hit in 99 and 2000.. BEFORE Bush was elected. By 9/11/01, we were in that shaky post-recession stage where things are starting to recover.. Then were plunged into a full-on recession after 9/11. Many of the policies that led to the Great Recession have their roots in Clinton's presidency.
One of the big ones is that interest rates have been artificially low now for over 10 years. That.. Spells more trouble down the road. Just a matter of who's in office when it hits as to whose fault it is.
"Bush lied, people died" will go down as one of the biggest idiocies in history when a half decade turns into a half century, and this topic is ready for the history forum, as opposed to the political hack forum............
There are lies and then there are stupid lies that no reasonable person would buy into. The above is an example of a lie. Perpetuated by those who are able to re-write history in their head and then attempt to convince others of their omniscience.
Stupid lies:
Chaney actually ran the administration.
He stole the election. No facts to support this.
He's a moron. "Moronists" are unable to explain why Bush had the same grades at Yale as Kerry.
An example of what Bush had to deal with is the infamous episode at CBS where the fake letters regarding his National Guard fitness were waved about gleefully until they were shown to be fake.
He remains one of the most popular Commanders in Chief in history, and that, after all, is one of the duties assigned to him. It may even be the most important duty of POTUS.
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