-
George Bush legacy
The opening of the Bush Presidential library making people look back a W’s presidency.
I tend to agree with Eugene Robinson’s take:
[link=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/26/stains_on_a_legacy_118137.html]http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/26/stains_on_a_legacy_118137.html[/link]
In retrospect, George W. Bush’s legacy doesn’t look as bad as it did when he left office. It looks worse.
[A]nyone tempted to get sentimental should remember the actual record of the man who called himself The Decider. Begin with the indelible stain that one of his worst decisions left on our country’s honor: torture. It may be years before all the facts are known. But the decision to commit torture looks ever more shameful with the passage of time.
Bush’s decision to invade and conquer Iraq also looks, in hindsight, like an even bigger strategic error.
Saddam Hussein’s purported weapons of mass destruction have yet to be found, of course; nearly 5,000 Americans — and untold Iraqis — sacrificed their lives to eliminate a threat that did not exist. We knew this, of course, when Obama took office. It’s one of the main reasons he was elected.And it’s clear that the Bush administration did not foresee how the Iraq experience would constrain future presidents in their use of military force. Syria is a good example. Like Saddam, Bashar al-Assad is a ruthless dictator who does not hesitate to massacre his own people. But unlike Saddam, Assad does have weapons of mass destruction. And unlike Saddam, Assad has alliances with the terrorist group Hezbollah and the nuclear-mad mullahs in Iran.
Bush didn’t pay for his wars. The bills he racked up for military adventures, prescription-drug benefits, the bank bailout and other impulse purchases helped create the fiscal and financial crises he bequeathed to Obama. His profligacy also robbed the Republican Party establishment of small-government credibility, thus helping give birth to the tea party movement. Thanks a lot for that.
Or, as Jon Stewart put it: The Bush library is “The Hardrock Cafe of Catastrophic policy decisions.” -
44 Replies
-
There’s probably some positive things in there somewhere. No Child Left Behind, I belive was a Bush thing. That put some money into education but also set some standards for performance.
I’m not a Bush fan.-
Quote from DICOM_Dan
There’s probably some positive things in there somewhere. No Child Left Behind, I belive was a Bush thing.
Oh for sure. I engaged in selective editing of the Robinson piece. The second half does laud him for his HIV money to africa and some other things.
But overall I will say Bush will be in the bottom 50%ile of presidential performance as the historical rankings go on.
As John Oliver said on the Daily ShowIt’s an opening bid. The first salvo by the President in the negotiation over where he’ll rank among his predecessors. Obviously, he’s starting high. He knows he’s not going to GET Lincoln; it’s just part of the game. [i]Bush opens with Lincoln; America comes back with [link=http://www.auntminnie.com/wiki/Warren_G._Harding]Harding[/link].[/i] Bush says, “Harding? You’re killing me here! I’m at least [link=http://www.auntminnie.com/wiki/Eisenhower]Eisenhower[/link]!” America says, “I’m sorry, we can’t go any higher than [link=http://www.auntminnie.com/wiki/Herbert_Hoover]Hoover[/link].” And so on and so forth, until we all settle on something in the low “[link=http://www.auntminnie.com/wiki/Martin_Van_Buren]Van Buren[/link]” range.
-
Certainly a bottom fiver
Worse president since Hoover
-
Quote from kpack123
Certainly a bottom fiver
Worse president since Hoover
[link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States[/link]
It’s a wiki link, but as a nice chart of all the reviews of presidential rankings. Bush hasn’t had a lot of data yet, but overall ranks way low (34th). Hoover beats him by 5 at 29th.-
And an awesome pile-on by Ramesh Ponuro today:
[link=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-29/george-bush-s-true-legacy-a-republican-party-in-denial.html]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-29/george-bush-s-true-legacy-a-republican-party-in-denial.html[/link][b]George Bushs True Legacy? A Republican Party in Denial[/b]
Veterans of the [link=http://topics.bloomberg.com/bush-administration/]Bush administration[/link] shouldnt get carried away celebrating his recovery in the polls. The NBC/Wall Street Journal [link=http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/A_Politics/_Today_Stories_Teases/13061-FEBRUARY-NBC-WSJ.pdf]poll[/link] has been asking people for years which party they trust most to handle various issues. It shows that voters trust Republicans less on taxes, the economy, controlling spending and reducing the deficit than they did before Bush became the leader of the Republican Party. The only issue on which Republicans do better than they did in the late 1990s is health care, and that improvement is entirely the result of the post-Bush debate over President [link=http://topics.bloomberg.com/barack-obama/]Barack Obama[/link]s health-care plan.
To be competitive in 2000, Bush had to distance himself from the Gingrich image. He adopted a softer tone than other Republicans, made clear that he was no enemy of the government programs that voters like, and broadened the partys agenda to include revitalizing charity rather than just railing against federal spending.
So it isnt surprising that the federal government expanded on Bushs watch. Bush clearly hoped, though, that his presidency would turn the country more conservative. The people would reward Republicans for governing successfully, he thought. Americans would become more free-market-oriented as a restructured Social Security made them more self-reliant. An influx of Hispanics would join the conservative coalition after he reformed immigration. And so on.
By midway through Bushs second term, it was clear that this strategy was a dead end. The U.S. military was losing in [link=http://topics.bloomberg.com/iraq/]Iraq[/link], and Republicans werent willing to admit it, let alone change policy.The economy wasnt delivering rising wages for most people. The government wasnt demonstrating competence in responding to disasters such as [link=http://topics.bloomberg.com/hurricane-katrina/]Hurricane Katrina[/link]. [link=http://topics.bloomberg.com/congressional-republicans/]Congressional Republicans[/link] were more concerned with staying in power — and covering up their colleagues scandals — than in reforms to address any of these issues. No wonder they got the boot in the 2006 elections. When a recession and then a financial crisis hit before the 2008 elections, voters punished the Republicans a second time.
The failure of the Bush project led many conservatives to think that what Republicans needed, above all, was to purify their resistance to big government. The events of 2008-2010 — bailouts, huge deficits, Obamas health-care overhaul — reinforced this idea. In the 2010 elections, the new tack seemed to work: The public reacted against unchecked Democratic power in [link=http://topics.bloomberg.com/washington/]Washington[/link] by giving the House back to Republicans.
Yet the political circumstances that moved Bush to adopt his strategy hadnt fundamentally changed. Voters were willing to give Republicans the ability to act as a check on big government in 2010 as they had been in 1994. But in 2012, as in 1996, voters wanted Republicans to stand for more than hostility to government before they would trust the party with a governing majority.
They were especially suspicious of granting such power to Republicans, given their dismal record in office under Bush. The public doesnt primarily see Bushs failure the way conservatives do: as a matter of overspending. Republicans turned on Bushs spending but never reckoned with the Iraq debacle or the middle-class stagnation of the past decade. They didnt even do much to offer an alternative to the Democratic narrative about the origin of the economic crisis.
Conservatives rejected Bushism without demonstrating any understanding of why it was adopted in the first place, or why it was rejected. Thats George W. Bushs political legacy: a weakened [link=http://topics.bloomberg.com/republican-party/]Republican Party[/link] unable to face its flaws.-
[link=http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/04/george-w-bushs-legacy]http://www.economist.com/…/george-w-bushs-legacy[/link]
-
economist article sums it up – a shameful and enduring legacy.
-
Sad part is that Dubya would never have gotten the keys to the Oval Office except for
1. Ralph Nader
2. 90000 Florida liberals who voted for Nader and made a terrible mistake
3. the butterfly ballot – a total disgrace. Many seniors who were Holocaust survivors accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan when they meant to vote for Al Gore.
I remember being on call the night after election night. It was a terrible call night – it was not the call which bothered me. It was that Bush won. I knew that day in Nov 2000 that he would go after Saddam.-
Re: Nader
I remember being at an Ani DiFranco show in early 2001, just after the election. She was on stage doing some political monologue and started talking about how Ralph Nader was the only one worth voting for.
The crowd (and this was a very liberal crowd) was still so angry at Nader for ruining the election that they booed her.
Shouldda been Gore. Country would be safer, greener, and fairer.-
And country would have been richer too.
So would we have been
Dubya blessed us with his DRA
There have been 6 billion in Medicare cuts in payments to radiologists since 2006.
3 trillion spent on an idiotic war in Iraq that has left scores killed and maimed.
Meanwhile, they keep squeezing us radiologists for a measly billion dollars a year.
Bush was the worst president in the history of America.
-
And the Supremes. Let’s not forget the Supremes wanted to ensure the winner was George & then made it so.
-
It was the 2004 re-election where he won the popular vote that troubled me so much.
I went to bed with Pennsylvania wrapped up for Kerry feeling good about the world and woke up disgusted. We emigrated a year later.
-
A lot of what I see here is sour grapes. Didn’t Perot throw the election to Clinton? And quit trying to blame the supremes. Bush won by every objective analysis. And now we see that Obama lied to get elected and re-elected. On and on it goes.
-
PLease present facts for your statement: [b]And now we see that Obama lied to get elected and re-elected. On and on it goes. [/style]
Quote from radmike
A lot of what I see here is sour grapes. Didn’t Perot throw the election to Clinton? And quit trying to blame the supremes. Bush won by every objective analysis. And now we see that Obama lied to get elected and re-elected. On and on it goes.
[/b]
-
Noah, if you can’t see the lies after the past four years then you are beyond hope and change.
-
Like a secret handshake. Only the initiated can see it. If you have to explain it it loses its mystery & doesn’t seem real anymore.
-
Quote from Frumious
Like a secret handshake. Only the initiated can see it. If you have to explain it it loses its mystery & doesn’t seem real anymore.
Love this.
-
Pathetic. Can’t spoon feed the babies that won’t eat.
-
But you never provide nourishment, only spoonfuls of empty air.
Perhaps empty is good enough for conservatives, but everyone else requires substance and sustenance.
-
The food has been in front of you on your plate for 4 years but you can’t seem to find it. Just like a two-year old. Leave them in their high-chair crying until they eat. Otherwise they never learn.
-
And just like a two-year old, you whine and complain that you don’t like it. But you need to take your medicine.
-
Gee mike sounds like you have a big case of the sour grapes….
-
well Obama got Osama so can’t paint a picture like Carter imho was wrongfully portrayed as and unsuccessful with Bill’s impeachment second term
learn to get along I say to mike and stop with the namecallingQuote from Thor
Gee mike sounds like you have a big case of the sour grapes….
-
yawn
nada for facts
ok because in 2008 Obama was not a john edwardsQuote from radmike
Noah, if you can’t see the lies after the past four years then you are beyond hope and change.
-
Quote from dergon
Shouldda been Gore. Country would be safer, greener, and fairer.
There also wouldn’t have been an Obama. Gore would have lost 2004 to some random whitebread republican and Obama would have been kept in IL in 2008 by the now recently deposed ex-Gore crowd. -
I know Bush gave us Obama in a way….people were open to try anything
those docs need to be investigated..the whole thing IMHO seems amateurish like this is the CIA I am sure they have more effective/advance ways to get intellQuote from fw
Quote from dergon
Shouldda been Gore. Country would be safer, greener, and fairer.
There also wouldn’t have been an Obama. Gore would have lost 2004 to some random whitebread republican and Obama would have been kept in IL in 2008 by the now recently deposed ex-Gore crowd.
-
I fault Cheney…Bush wised up when he got the call your VP just shot someone
-
Quote from fw
Quote from dergon
Shouldda been Gore. Country would be safer, greener, and fairer.
There also wouldn’t have been an Obama. Gore would have lost 2004 to some random whitebread republican and Obama would have been kept in IL in 2008 by the now recently deposed ex-Gore crowd.
But no Iraq, no torture, less unstable Middle East, less war, Osama dead sooner instead of waiting 10 years to do the job. Overall probably better.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Quote from dergon
Quote from DICOM_Dan
There’s probably some positive things in there somewhere. No Child Left Behind, I believe was a Bush thing.
Oh for sure. I engaged in selective editing of the Robinson piece. The second half does laud him for his HIV money to africa and some other things.
But overall I will say Bush will be in the bottom 50%ile of presidential performance as the historical rankings go on.
As John Oliver said on the Daily Show
It’s an opening bid. The first salvo by the President in the negotiation over where he’ll rank among his predecessors. Obviously, he’s starting high. He knows he’s not going to GET Lincoln; it’s just part of the game. [i]Bush opens with Lincoln; America comes back with [link=http://www.auntminnie.com/wiki/Warren_G._Harding]Harding[/link].[/i] Bush says, “Harding? You’re killing me here! I’m at least [link=http://www.auntminnie.com/wiki/Eisenhower]Eisenhower[/link]!” America says, “I’m sorry, we can’t go any higher than [link=http://www.auntminnie.com/wiki/Herbert_Hoover]Hoover[/link].” And so on and so forth, until we all settle on something in the low “[link=http://www.auntminnie.com/wiki/Martin_Van_Buren]Van Buren[/link]” range.
Don’t know Robinson but I did here some political about him on the radio. I listen to some POTUS and Pete Domenic on SiriusMX. In regard to no child left behind, I also think it made some teachers mad because they were held to a standard which I like. I don’t know what the positive part of him funneling money into Africa for AIDS is. I wasn’t really a Bush fan and I’ve seen/heard instances where someone will say he’s the worst president ever. He wasn’t good but there have been some pretty bad ones. I bought into the Obama hopey changey thing the first time around too and he sucked the wind out the sails for me.
-
-
Quote from DICOM_Dan
There’s probably some positive things in there somewhere. No Child Left Behind, I belive was a Bush thing. That put some money into education but also set some standards for performance.
I’m not a Bush fan.
One of the key problems with No Child was that it didn’t come with money to to fund all of its mandates. Schools and states were forced to spend money on standardized testing rather than classroom services. Good intentions gone bad. So even that one isn’t much of a credit to GWB.
-
Leaving out funding is deliberate. If funding were included it would acknowledge costs and would require raising revenue and that is anathema.
-
I think in general, people want to pay less taxes. One thing that needs to be addressed is how inefficient and wasteful governmental spending can be. Anyone who knows someone who works for government ALWAYS complains about this. If there was more accountability, transparency and checks and balances on spendingI dont think anyone could deny that would be a good thing. Of course the regulation in and of itself would cost time and money, but it would be well spent.
-
Can be are the key words, but is often left out. As if private businesses are always never inefficient or wasteful. CEO salaries anyone? C-suite?
Then again, are failed attempts always only wasteful & inefficient?
Consider PEPFAR. Or Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid. Medical spending is very inefficient & wasteful yet we all made a living from it. What would efficient & never wasteful medicine look like? Efficient & never wasteful clinical trials?
No one likes paying for anything, including taxes. I dont. I try to pay cash for things so i feel the pain as opposed to free money using plastic. But taxes need to be raised to address deficits & what we all agree is necessary government spending.
-
-
-
-
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/us/politics/bush-and-cia-ex-officials-rebut-torture-report.html]http://www.nytimes.com/20…ut-torture-report.html[/link]
The full post-9/11 CIA torture report is on its way. And team Bush is gearing up to rebut it –
The report is said to assert that the C.I.A. misled Mr. Bush and his White House about the nature, extent and results of brutal techniques like waterboarding, and some of his former administration officials privately suggested seizing on that to distance themselves from the controversial program, according to people involved in the discussion. But Mr. Bush and his closest advisers decided that were going to want to stand behind these guys, as one former official put it.
Mr. Bush and his advisers have been largely quiet about the Senate report until now, and former intelligence officials worried whether the Bush team would defend them. Some former administration officials privately encouraged the president and his top advisers to use the report to disclaim responsibility for the interrogation program on the grounds that they were not kept fully informed.
But Mr. Bush and his inner circle rejected that suggestion. Even if some officials privately believe they were not given all the facts, they feel it would be immoral and disloyal to throw the C.I.A. to the wolves at this point, said one former official, who like others did not want to be identified speaking about the report before its release.
The committee voted this year to release a declassified executive summary, and after months of negotiations over redactions, the committees chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, had planned to finally make it public this week.
Critics of the program said the Senate should not postpone any longer. Delaying release of the Senate report because of possible negative repercussions for national security is a red herring, said Sarah Margon, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch. Maintaining secrecy around a defunct torture program is the real liability as doing so denies us the right to debate what happened and make sure it is never repeated.
-
Bush had Cheney…that explains it all
-
At least one Bush administration official comes out looking OK.
Colin Powell.[url]http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/cia-torture-report-set-release-article-1.2038874[/url]
The report cites a CIA memo that relayed instructions from the White House to hide the program from then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell could blow his stack if he were to be briefed on whats going on, the memo said.
-
In the wrong business & wrong side for making $$$. 2 psychologists paid $81 million to push the envelope on torture. Morality & Ethics vs $$$.
$$$ wins.-
Micahel Hayden on FOX thinks Diane Feinstein is too emotional about torture.
But Hayden didn’t know not to OVER-react.
I was in government for ten years after 9/11, and let me tell ya, a phrase I never heard from anybody in any position of authority: ‘Whatever you guys do about this terrorism threat, please, please don’t overreact.’ Never heard it, Brian.
-
Two words:
Term Limits. You get one 4 year term in each office; rep, sen, VP, and Prez. If you don’t get elected to the next office you are done.
Unimpressed with any elected official at this point.
-
-
this little peach on Fox The Five says she doesn’t want sunlight at the CIA…well I want to know if 2 dudes are getting 81 mill of our tax dollars
Quote from Frumious
In the wrong business & wrong side for making $$$. 2 psychologists paid $81 million to push the envelope on torture. Morality & Ethics vs $$$.
$$$ wins.
-
Cheney IMHO is throwing Bush under the bus on Bret Baier today on fox…like u shot a guy as vice president so we really do have to question what u say
-
[link=https://youtu.be/lpkRFHSpvGI]https://youtu.be/lpkRFHSpvGI[/link]
Will Farrell returns to host SNL … so Bush returns to the cold open. .. highlights his approval ratings relative to Trump. 🙂
Thats right. Donny Q. Trump came in, and suddenly Im looking pretty sweet by comparison. At this rate, I might even end up on Mount Rushmore, right next to Washington, Lincoln and I want to say, uh, Kensington?
“I just wanted to address my fellow Americans tonight and remind you guys that I was really bad like, historically not good.
(I also like the [i]Archie Bunker[/i] theme duet of “Those were the days” with Condi 🙂 )
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Quote from ysolde;34957347
Yes, PEPFAR. The administration as a whole was, at best, one which had poor to mixed results (if one is being generous). But PEPFAR is a great legacy, and all Americans can be proud of it.[/QUOTE]
[link=https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/7/28/23809119/republicans-hiv-aids-pepfar-george-w-bush]https://www.vox.com/futur…s-pepfar-george-w-bush[/link]
[h1][b]Republicans are threatening to sabotage George W. Bushs greatest accomplishment[/b][/h1] A program thats saved 25 million lives is at risk of losing its congressional authorization for the first time.…
Many of the arguments in his anti-PEPFAR paper are of similar quality. He argues that HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and in developing countries is primarily a lifestyle disease (like those caused by tobacco) and as such should be suppressed though [sic] education, moral suasion, and legal sanctions. Moreover, Meisburger writes, PEPFAR has become a means for Democrats to promote their own social priorities like abortion. The Biden administration, in his view, has used PEPFAR to fund pro-abortion groups internationally.
…
PEPFAR, however, has always been prohibited from funding abortion. The program steers clear of many controversial social issues related to HIV/AIDS by design, a legacy of its bipartisan creation back in 2003. PEPFAR-supported groups that also support abortion services do not use any federal dollars for this purpose.
…
All of a sudden, a vote to reauthorize PEPFAR looks like a potential problem for Republicans worried about a primary challenge helping create the conditions for actual legislative movement. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee and longtime PEPFAR supporter who sponsored the 2018 reauthorization, has turned on the program writing a letter in June criticizing a five-year reauthorization on grounds that the program supports groups who support abortion.
[/QUOTE]
-
Helping anyone except the affluent is antithesis for Conservatives. If they have to lift a finger &/or it costs them a dime, they are opposed.
-
