Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And then I recall that he was President......omg, how did THAT ever happen? It really is an embarrassment when you see him among global leaders, behaving like a dufus. It's just a bad vision best kept out of one's mind.
Two Words.. Joe Biden.
I realize he isn't president.. And there's not a chance in hell that he will be unless Obama keels over in the next 3 years. Have you seen the video of him asking the guy in a wheelchair to stand up and take a bow? The picture of him holding the classified document towards the camera? So many others..
Not that I think Biden is a bad person.. He's just a ninny. I consider him worse than Quayle.. because I think Quayle had a decent grasp of what was going on.. But was absolutely horrible at public speaking.. Sadly, a requirement for political office.. Not that I'd ever put him in the top 10 of my presidential picks, either.
I actually supported and hoped for McCain in 2000 over GWB. Either option was better than Al Gore.
The sad part is that we have so much partisanship currently. I fully believe that if you were to put Hitler up as a republican, he'd get 40% of the vote.. And you put Stalin up as a Democrat, he gets 40% of the vote.
I think that the Libertarian party represents the views of the "Average American" more closely than EITHER the democrats or republicans.. But they just can't get established as a legitimate 3rd party.
^^ I agree with what you say to some degree. However, with W, there are some pretty solid blunders that won't really soften over the course of the century. For all of the support that the Iraq War supposedly had, you can't find a single soul who will own it today.............
"Supposedly had"?
Oh, spin it, Brother!
We invaded in March, 2003. Support was solid.
I still feel W' was the right man for the post 9/11 job. I can't even imagine what it must have felt like to him to face an enemy hidden away in caves in a land that had worn down the russians for years to the point of tucking tail and running. I also can't imagine the feeling of finding Anthrax in your postal system close to the same time. How do you deal with that? I clearly remember the actor James Woods sitting on Letterman's chair shortly after 9/11, praising Bush's measured and steadfast response to all of this, saying how hard it would've been for him (woods) to not push the little red button in response. This country was soooo thirst for blood, yet he kept it on track. It was a frightening time, and he was the coolest hand in the game.
I also think he was quite honest, too honest in fact. If you watch his address to Congress speach on 9/20/01, given that hindsight is 20/20, he basically told the world what was about to happen, and it did for the next 7 years. That speach, in my opinion, is one of the best Presidential speaches ever made and deserves a marker in history.
I have always felt that Iraq was less about SH and more about Iran. On 9/10/01, we had a few airfields in Turkey, S. Arabia and Kuwait, all pretty much on bare-bone detail. We had no way of responding to Iran's threats (even back then) other than a few cruise missles, and Iran knew it. On 9/10/08, we had the world's military might on all of their borders. They were surrounded and the world was in a position to respond to anything from them with a moment's notice. I think that's impressive. I'll also note that there are documented reports and supporting video out there taken by US Recon troops sitting in the dark along the border of Iraq and Syria, just watching Iraqi military vehicle after vehicle crossing into Syria with "unknown" cargo, for several weeks that led up to the war. Some have said, those containers were the chemicals weapons. I think we might actually be seeing those weapons today being used in Syria.
W was our 9/11 President. 9/11 was his presidency, and I think he did an excellent job.
I also echo Bono's praise of him and his dedication to Africa.
Domestically though - I think he put too much trust and power in the hands of a few that messed up. I'm not a fan of guns, and for the assault rifle ban to expire was terrible in my opinion. The SEC was allowed to operate as little more than a girl scout table selling cookies. It was staffed with lawyers, not finance professionals who understood what a credit-default-swap was really about. I think the land of the free needs regulation to remain free from it's own demons. Too few regulations, and things go sideways for the many to generate profit for a few. However, the same can be said about too many regulations too. I don't think either Bush or Obama have figured this out. Bush allowed capitalism to run the show. Obama is allowing the Treasury Dept. to run the show under his watch.
I've been a fan of Bush since 9/11 (even though I voted for Gore). I think Bush was given to hands to play. One on foriegn engagement, which I think he played very well. The other on domestic policy, which I think he probably lost a buck or two at, but certainly didn't go broke. But, I do think some responsiblity for the economic mess falls on the shoulders of us Americans in general. I think we were trusted to understand our own personal boundaries and failed ourselves. Just because you say we can, doesn't necessarily mean it's your fault because we did.
Bush was our 9/11 President, and did a fantastic job with it.
My opinion hasn’t changed in the past 5 years. I’ve never considered myself an outright “hater” of Bush, but my opinion of him has been towards the low side. From the conservative side, I was dismayed by his expansion of Medicare and of the police-state. From the liberal side, I didn’t care for his overt Christianity as motivation for policy, his stance on stem-cells and related social issues.
In his first 6 months, Bush was a generic, passive president. Soon after 9/11, he overplayed his hand as “wartime president”, reneging on many of his campaign promises, such as eschewing “nation building”. He exchanged a modest and unassuming foreign policy for Wilsonian activism, but without diplomatic elan. Bush took too literally the American narrative of exceptionalism and mandate to remake the world as a better place, failing to apprehend risk, or the difference between theory and practice. The world isn’t black and white, us vs. them.
Bush stands amidst a long line of presidents who have expanded executive power. How we feel about this depends on the closeness between our own political orientation and that of the incumbent at a given time. I see much symmetry between the current critique of Obama from the right, and recent critique of Bush from the left. In fact the two presidents appear to me to be quite similar… similar in effectiveness (or lack thereof), in aloofness, in achievement.
Bush failed to build an economic coalition to address the fiscal problems of the modern state… generational conflict, taxes and social services. This, I think, was easier to do in 2001 than in 2011. I don’t blame him for the recession of 2008, as in my view the influence of the president on the national economy is relatively weak. But Bush presided over a time of rising economic instabilities – instabilities that were exacerbated under Bush’s watch. With Bush, as with Obama, I see an administration rife with wasted opportunities and squandered good-will. And just like Obama, Bush failed to connect with congress on pivotal issue such as immigration.
Overall, I don’t regard the Bush years as a disaster or a repudiation of American pluralism. But Bush the candidate in 2000 was a better man than Bush the president.
I still think he was doing the best he could in really dire straits. Did he make some poor decisions? Yes, all presidents do though. I think he really did his best, and caught a lot of negative publicity from his speech slip ups.
"... From now on, the job of the presidency is to keep the people from panicking."
From what?
Corporate greed that pulls the puppet strings of corrupt politicians?
Let's face it... this country hasn't been a true Democracy since they killed Kennedy. It's not even a Republic. Professors at M.I.T. have clearly illustrated that we now live in a "Polyarchy."
Every four years they give us a choice of which member of the ruling elite we want to look at and blame for our unhappiness ... because they know we're too cowardly to get off our butts and think an original thought.
Conservative Vs. Liberal
Really? Is that really a question?
If there's going to be a balanced country, what happened to the "Left"? (Liberals are the center...not Left.)
Here's the best definition of the war between our own psyche:
Conservatives typically are people who acquiesce to power and have a strong desire to be a part of the group.
Liberals are typically people who view the world through the lenses of fairness and racism.
The greatest redistribution of wealth in the history of the United States has occurred since 1980 to the present. Last week the Governor of Vermont ... bucolic Vermont... declared that his state was in a heroin epidemic. Officials from the CDC and other agencies followed and said the entire the country is currently being flooded with cheap heroin. Huh? I thought our troops were guarding all those poppy fields in Afghanistan .... wait ... this sounds a lot like what the CIA did with Crack Cocaine doesn't it?
Another report says that Americans use 80% of the world's Oxycontin, Heroin, and other pain killers. What the heck are we medicating?
When you have a poster looking back asking if our opinions have changed on George Bush since he's left office and others chiming in saying what a great guy he was, it makes me ponder just how deep are the effects of Generational Family Trauma and toxic shame within the U.S.A.
Sad.
Very sad because looking backwards is a hallmark of toxic shame. (Remember Texan John Bradshaw's consciousness movement in the 80s on, "Healing The Shame That Binds"? ... it's all there.)
I think we use so many prescribed and illegal "pain killers" and psyche meds because of the way we treat ourselves and each other. Mean-spirited voting and sociopathic, bigoted attitudes are bench marks of dysfunction-- not health. Narcissism, Anti-social behavior (i.e. criminality), depression and Borderline ... "me-me-me-me-ism" are Personality Disorders that have "toxic shame" at their root.
Most won't heal because most won't look in the mirror and be honest about what drives them. I look at Bush like I do most politicians ... as symptoms ... not as solutions.
Prediction: The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer and everyone will get sicker.
He was an idiot, and the country was run by Cheney not him. Iraq what a clusterf*ck that has ruined so many Americans that became vets, now have arms and legs missing, PTSD. Bush is a real POS .
The thought of Al Gore being president on September 11, 2001 makes my skin crawl.
Bush didn't have a vision and he let things get away from him, but he was the right person for the job on that day.
As for Iraq, that had to happen eventually. It should have been handled better, but I have always agreed with the goal.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
that said he did take us into a no win war in Iraq for lousy reasons.
Bush said it
From what?
Huh? I thought our troops were guarding all those poppy fields in Afghanistan .... wait ... this sounds a lot like what the CIA did with Crack Cocaine doesn't it?
What the heck are we medicating? 
