Does anyone else have the balls to say anything positive?
Rating 1-10
9/11
After first term
After second term
Legacy
I will start:
(10) Perfect man for the job
(8) Lead the nation at thru one of the toughest terms ever. Country could have easily gone into a depression after 9/11. Re elected easily.
(4) Tried too much to cross the isle and please the left, which is never respected. Turned from the conservative section of his party.
(7) Had the balls to try to bring democracy to the middle east. Didnt view this part of the the world as a lost cause. Didn’t waiver in his leadership.
I am just giving my opinion. I am sure we will hear yours…
History will show if he was right to put so much into the “War on Terror”. Whether you or I agree with him or not; Bush decided that this was what he needed to do, so he compromised on a lot of things to get what he needed to execute the war.
9/11 Maybe a 3, because perhaps no one could have prevented it - but he consciously ignored all warnings. As far as standing on the rubble with a bullhorn and talking tough - that is not difficult.
2-3 Pretty much went down hill from 9/11 Invaded wrong country even if one believed all the hype - then screwed up the post-invasion. Katrina . . . don’t get me started.
If America lasts thru June - then we can talk about his legacy.
As you can tell - I don’t think he did a good job as President.
But as far as something positive - - He is kinda cute and all.
Too soon. My instinct is that he was the worst ever. I’m glad he is gone, I wish him a long life with his family and I intend to be around the another 20 years to watch it all play out. Did I mention I am thrilled he is out of office.
"Does anyone else have the balls to say anything positive? "
He did agree to protect the Great Lakes from being drained dry by southern desert states. This made the states bordering the lakes and Canada happy by doing so. His HIV initiative in Africa was not bad despite the abstinance clause. Some of his inner city education projects were good. He did one or two other minor things right but I can’t think of them at the moment.
He’ll mostly be remembered for an unnecessary war in Iraq (never did find those WMD’s) and doubling the deficit. He also dramatically lowered the image of the USA throughout the rest of the world. Picked the worst vice president ever.
This stuff about “keeping us safe from terror attacks” after 9/11 is pure b.s.
He was not regarded highly at home or abroad. He left with a 24% approval rating, the lowest in American history. He will not be remembered as one of the great presidents. Get over it.
Too soon to make any calls at this point. He put all his eggs into the Iraq deal in year 2, spending the next 6-7 dealing with that and was basically unable to do much else (except some tax cuts). His entire legacy hinges on Iraq and whether that ends up being the turning point towards democracy for the middle east or a complete clusterf*ck. EVERYONE should be hoping Iraq is extremely successful and Bush is viewed positively. It just may take a long time before we have an answer.
I don’t know about that. Many historians put Polk, Harding, Hoover, Andrew Johnson and Buchanan at the top of the lists.
In his defense, Bush did a lot to help fight Aids in Africa. It is also true that we haven’t been attacked again since 9/11, which has to at least be in part to the actions we took right after. Even with all the other issues over the last 8 years and not considering the economy for a second, had he not gone into Iraq, his legacy would be viewed differently.
This Rolling Stone Article discusses Bush and many other presidents.
This is from the article:
**“**Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties – Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush – have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures – an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.”
Pre 9/11, set up his administration to be the worst ever. Pretty much went on vacation and did very little. Ignored warnings of terrorist attacks. - (2)
9/11 despite early lack of communcation with the country (not his fault) he did a fantastic job leading the nation in the months following 9/11 - (10)
Aganistan - The right call and the right amount of effort. - (8)
After 1st term. The ass hole invaded the wrong fucking country. His administration manipulated the public to get support for this. Set up a democracy in the Middle East? 1st of all, the war had nothing to do with a democracy. It was to go after weapons of mass destruction, which they only guessed they’d find. There was no inteligence stating that they had any. He ignored his generals warning him that we didn’t have enough troops to overthrow the country. He went in without international support which not only hurt us diplomaticaly, but meant that we, the US tax payers, have to foot the entire bill for this mess. Democracy? We already have a democracy in the Middle East. Its called Israel. Hmmmm…its kind of interesting how having a US supported democracy in the Middle East hasn’t helped anything over there. Also funny that the incentive for the attack on 9/11 was US military bases in Saudi Arabia. So…we try to set up another US backed democracy (against the will of the sovereign nation)and build more military bases…and this is supposed to make the world a better place? Oh…and remember Afganistan, which I gave an (8)? Well it has dropped to a (2). Just think if we put the kind of effort into Afganistan, a winable war, that we put into Iraq.
Can we give negative ratings?
As for positives, AIDS work in Africa is an (8) or a (9).
No Child Left Behind I give a (7). There were a lot of problems with it and a lot of teachers don’t like it, but it was the first time that someone actually decided to hold schools to some standard.
Oh, I’d also like to add, you said he won the election easily. Were you on drugs that day? He won by a single state. That was the second closest election that we’d had in…the last 50-100 years?
I actually rate his second term better than his first. Katrina I saw as a positive, because it was that moment that people found out what an incompetent idiot he was. His response was exactly what I’d expect from him. When his aproval ratings plummeted I had to think, “where were you guys before? He hasn’t changed.”
I give him a (3).
Legacy - One of the worst in history. Arrogance, stuborness, and incompetence are not a good combination. He set the country on the complete wrong path in 8 years.
irish, good summary. My ratings would not be far from yours.
What will help his legacy is time. Considering he will be sandwiched between impeached Clinton and Socialist Obama, it will turn out that history will treat him quite nicely. Considering at some point the repubs will win back the white house and probably congress (although further out), people will be talking about getting things like security, health care, taxes and other social policies back to the Bush standard. As the folks running the circus now will swing the pendulum too far and overreach what is perceived to be acceptable.
He managed to turn me from a staunch Republican to an Independent who now wishes he lived in Canada. And I hate the cold.
well then pack mittens and don’t let the door hit you in the ass…
He managed to turn me from a staunch Republican to an Independent who now wishes he lived in Canada. And I hate the cold.
Ha! I never thought of it that way. During that 8 years I went from voting Republican or Independent about 95% of the time to voting Democratic about 75% of the time. The current Congress may swing me back. I have a thing for the minority party because they are the ones who have to fight for fiscal sanity and keep the government from over-reaching.
He managed to turn me from a staunch Republican to an Independent who now wishes he lived in Canada. And I hate the cold.
well then pack mittens and don’t let the door hit you in the ass…
You are a fantastic example of why a lot of the world thinks US citizens are idiots.
During that 8 years I went from voting Republican or Independent about 95% of the time to voting Democratic about 75% of the time. The current Congress may swing me back. I have a thing for the minority party because they are the ones who have to fight for fiscal sanity and keep the government from over-reaching.
Exactly the way I feel. I don’t have a lot of hope for either of the parties fighting for fiscal sanity though.
hey douchebag, the guy wants to live in Canada, let him go. Now if the rest of the world thinks the US citizens are idiots, then perhaps they should stop taking our foreign aid, living under our umbrella of defense and benefitting from our advancements in science and technology. And last i checked the US still the one country that people are lining up in droves to immigrate to. so pay attention, you may learn something.