George Bush: Worst President in US History?

[boutons_]

As if we needed anymore daming evidence of dubya's incompetence and irrelevance.

Bush Just Makes It Worse

When it comes to the current financial crisis, it's become pretty clear that an appearance by President Bush doesn't calm nerves. It rubs them raw.

But today all Bush gave us was limp cheerleading, vaguely assuring us he's doing everything possible.

The president seems checked out. His approval ratings are in the toilet. His credibility is shot. He's arguably responsible for this mess in the first place. And his presence and his words have led to more fear and panic, not less.

Bush still seems to be operating in a fantasy world where people look to him for direction. His eight-minute speech in a sunny Rose Garden this morning consisted of a dry laundry list of previously announced government actions, punctuated by listless pla udes.

"Since Oct. 1, when the Senate gave final passage to the legislation, Bush has spoken publicly or issued statements about the rescue plan and the markets six times and the Dow has fallen 20.8 percent.

"Paulsen . . . said he believes attempts by President George W. Bush's administration to sell its $700 billion economic rescue plan may have sown the seeds of the current confidence crisis"

'It's difficult to be a credible part of the solution when many people think you are part of the problem.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...001785_pf.html

============

your'e doing a heckuva job, dubya

[baseline bum]

@ this thread. Hyperbole much?

Bush has reigned over eight years that has definitely had more downs than ups. But I'd imagine most would agree that 9/11 might have had just a little bit to do with that. He had to deal with one of the most difficult times in American history and while he definitely made a lot of mistakes along the way, it's much too early to be saying he's the worst president ever.

When history looks back on him, they'll remember him as the 9/11 president. Bush wasn't 100% guilt-free in the chaos before and after 9/11, but he didn't even come close to making the worst possible errors. In fact, he'll likely be commended by history for not allowing another 9/11 attack in the last ~7 years of his presidency.

It's going to take a while to judge how good or bad Bush was. If the next couple presidents "correct" some of Bush's policies and the result is more 9/11 type attacks, Bush won't be regarded as anything close to the worst president ever. If Iraq actually becomes a halfway decent country and a key American ally, Bush will win historical points. Basically, you can't start judging a president's historical placement when he hasn't even left office.

All told, Bush will be remembered by how he reacted directly after 9/11 and not by how much he hugged a tree or whether or not he could have lessened a cyclical downturn in the economy. He'll likely be remembered as a bottom 25% president but if you think the last eight years have gone as poorly as possibly, you are delusional. All things considered, the United States is in a fairly good position compared to the worse possible outcomes.

I'm on record as saying I would have liked Clinton or Obama more than Bush. But when the options were Bush or Gore and Bush or Kerry, I think the U.S. made the right choice both times.

Even someone who agreed with Bush's decision to go to war can't possibly think he's done well running it.

Major blunders in the first 3 years of this war:
1. Bush let Cheney and Rumsfeld have complete control of the war while telling Colin Powell and the State Department as well as Rice to off. Rumsfeld got complete control and went against all advice of the Army. It kills me when McCain pats himself with his kluby while discussing the surge, when he went with the administration's idea to send way too small of an invading force in the first place (did he call out Bush then?). Because of this, as soon as we liberated Baghdad we didn't have the forces necessary to establish order, and mass rioting happened. Baghdad has been in a state of chaos since.

2. Trusting Ahmed Chalabi. This guy was a crook who fed us bad intelligence, but he was loved by Cheney and Rumsfeld because he and the INC gave them the excuse to invade. Everyone outside of Rumsfeld's inner circle could see that Chalabi was a wolf in sheep's clothing who made big promises of a Democratic Iraq loyal to the US. This was never going to happen in a mostly Sunni nation that hates Shi'as (such as Chalabi) with a passion. It's like Rumsfeld's inner circle had never heard of the war that took place there 20 years before. Bush stood by and let it happen by trusting Cheney and Rumsfeld and disregarding Powell, Rice, and everyone else not at the Pentagon who told him constantly that Chalabi was at best a crook, and at worst an Iran sympathizer ready to sell Iraq out.

3. Treating the Ba'ath like we did the Nazis. Good luck preserving order in a Sunni nation when the Sunnis have no voice and you give power to their mortal enemies instead. We should have let the people of Iraq go and kill the crooked Hussein loyalists who persecuted them for years.

4. Disbanding the Iraqi army. This was a colossal mistake that really screwed over the Army strategists who assumed they were going to be able to use these soldiers to help make up for their too-small invading forces. Not only that, but that ensured there were thousands of unemployed people angry about losing their jobs, with assault rifles in their possession. In response to Rumsfeld's decision, the Army loses all its top generals in the middle of war. Strike 4, Bush.

We don't need to wait to say that Bush is a failure. The execution of the war is enough to brand Bush as completely incompetent. We've had 5 years to evaluate this war already, and it stinks no matter how you look at it. Anyone who writes about him as anything less than an unacceptably bad president in tomorrow's books will be doing nothing more than writing a revisionist history. Without hyperbole, it is easy to justifiably declare Bush the worst president this country has ever had. I cannot wait until we have someone intelligent leading us again, whether it's Obama or McCain. W is a disgrace to the legacy of the great leaders we've had like Washinton, Jefferson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan.

[ElNono]

Everybody is en led to their opinion, including timvp. I can definitely vouch for him giving whottt a smack down (not that you can do anything else with whottt) on more than one occasion. He stated he thought Bush made a better president than Gore or Kerry, and that's opinion. It can't be factually proven, no matter what amount of screw ups dubya did, because they were not president, so it's impossible to know how they would have fared.

What I do disagree with timvp about is that he's mostly going to be remembered as the 9/11 president. I also think he'll be remembered for all the periphery of stuff around 9/11, like the Iraq war president, the Patriot Act president, the Guantanamo Bay president, the Bush Doctrine president, etc. But then again, like I said earlier, and I think timvp agreed, only time will tell.

[TheMadHatter]

Link? timvp has attacked whottt more than anyone on the forum.

Try again.

Asking for links of your accusations is changing the subject? JeffDrums22 can't own someone by giving his opinions. You're the same guy who got so owned in your other screen names that you have to continuously create new names.

Go read it again. Keywords being "I think".

If you want to try to concretely prove otherwise, be my guest. This time, avoid the ten year old emo rant.

Thanks.

Nice deflection, not nearly as good as whottt but you're getting there.

I'm on record as saying I would have liked Clinton or Obama more than Bush. But when the options were Bush or Gore and Bush or Kerry, I think the U.S. made the right choice both times.

These are your words. Stop hiding. You flat out said Bush made a better President than Gore or Kerry would have. I"m not sure how any rational human being can defend that statement. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard on this forum.

Dazed and Confused isn't Spurs Dynasty/Jeff Drumms/Whatever.

[ElNono]

These are your words. Stop hiding. You flat out said Bush made a better President than Gore or Kerry would have. I"m not sure how any rational human being can defend that statement. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard on this forum.

Can you factually prove that Gore and/or Kerry would have been better presidents? Very simple question. Yes or No?

[Shastafarian]

Can you factually prove that Gore and/or Kerry would have been better presidents? Very simple question. Yes or No?

I guess his point is that no one could have been worse than Bush. The answer is no but it's hard to think of a president handling the crises worse than Bush has handled them.

[Nbadan]

It's going to take a while to judge how good or bad Bush was.

TimVP, like other closet wing-nuts, forget that Dubya's administration, especially the State Department, came in with nothing but cronies and completely lost track of 2 of the 9/11 terrorists that could have revealed the plot to fly passenger airliners into buildings. 9/11 could have been prevented.........so saying that Dubya has prevented terrorists attacks since 9/11 should have a big asterisk for failing to stop the most catastrophic terror attack ever on the American civilian population...

[ElNono]

I guess his point is that no one could have been worse than Bush. The answer is no but it's hard to think of a president handling the crises worse than Bush has handled them.

I respect his opinion on the matter. My point is, why can't he respect other person opinion?

[Nbadan]

Can you factually prove that Gore and/or Kerry would have been better presidents? Very simple question. Yes or No?

Would you say Gore would have invaded Iraq? Let's be honest, that was the beginning of the end of American military and financial supremacy...

[ElNono]

Would you say Gore would have invaded Iraq? Let's be honest, that was the beginning of the end of American military and financial supremacy...

Can you factually prove he wouldn't have? Can you factually prove he wouldn't have destroyed the economy in other ways? Can you factually prove he wouldn't have gotten in a recession earlier?

We can go on with this forever...

[Nbadan]

...straw-man arguments....we can't compare theoretical with actual....and let me tell you, Gore could not have ass- ed America any worse than the Bush Administration has....

[ElNono]

...straw-man arguments....we can't compare theoretical with actual....and let me tell you, Gore could not have ass- ed America any worse than the Bush Administration has....

opinion

[Shastafarian]

I respect his opinion on the matter. My point is, why can't he respect other person opinion?

Respect it what sense? I think he acknowledged that what timvp was saying was his opinion. It was his opinion that timvp's opinion is idiotic.

[Nbadan]

...it's ALWAYS opinion, that's what a forum is for, but even you would find it difficult to argue that there is a single policy that the Bush administration supported that almost everyone can agree with confidence - you know, he did a pretty decent job there - at least Clinton left a surplus....

[byrontx]

Why give Bush a pass on 9/11? That, too, is debatable. BTW, thanks Shasta, for the historical post about Bush. There was a lot that could be added, from attempting to gut the clean-air act to just acting like such a dufus (remember him trying to massage Merkel's neck?). Damn, I felt so embarrassed that we had such an idiot representing the US.

But back to Bush and 9/11:

" The White House said tonight that President Bush had been warned by American intelligence agencies in early August that Osama bin Laden was seeking to hijack aircraft but that the warnings did not contemplate the possibility that the hijackers would turn the planes into guided missiles for a terrorist attack.

''It is widely known that we had information that bin Laden wanted to attack the United States or United States interests abroad,'' Ari Fleischer, the president's press secretary, said this evening. ''The president was also provided information about bin Laden wanting to engage in hijacking in the traditional pre-9/11 sense, not for the use of suicide bombing, not for the use of an airplane as a missile.''

and from the 9/11 report (recapped in historycommons.com, a long read but interesting):

# In late 2000, British investigators teamed up with their counterparts in the Cayman Islands and began a yearlong probe of three Afghan men who had entered the Cayman Islands illegally. [Miami Herald, 9/20/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01] In June 2001, the Afghan men were overheard discussing hijacking attacks in New York City, and were promptly taken into custody. This information was forwarded to US intelligence [Fox News, 5/17/02]. In late August 2001, shortly before the attacks, an anonymous letter to a Cayman radio station alleged these same men were al-Qaeda agents “organizing a major terrorist act against the US via an airline or airlines.” [Miami Herald, 9/20/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01, MSNBC, 9/23/01]

1. In late July 2001, Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil learned that Osama bin Laden was planning a “huge attack” on targets inside America. The attack was imminent, and would kill thousands, he learned from the leader of the rebel Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which was closely allied with al-Qaeda at the time. Muttawakil sent an emissary to pass this information on to the US Consul General, and another US official, “possibly from the intelligence services.” Sources confirmed that this message was received, but supposedly not taken very seriously, because of “warning fatigue” arising from too many terror warnings. [Independent, 9/7/02, Reuters, 9/7/02]
2. Also in late July 2001, the US was given a “concrete warning” from Argentina’s Jewish community. “An attack of major proportions” was planned against either the US, Argentina, or France. The information came from an unidentified intelligence agency. [Forward, 5/31/02]
3. An undercover agent from Morocco successfully penetrated al-Qaeda. He learned that bin Laden was “very disappointed” that the 1993 bombing had not toppled the World Trade Center, and was planning “large scale operations in New York in the summer or fall of 2001.” He provided this information to the US in August 2001. [Agence France Presse, 11/22/01, International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, London Times, 6/12/02]
4. Hasni Mubarak, President of Egypt, maintains that in the beginning of September 2001 Egyptian intelligence warned American officials that al-Qaeda was in the advanced stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, probably within the US. [AP, 12/7/01, New York Times, 6/4/02] He learned this information from an agent working inside al-Qaeda. [ABC News, 6/4/02]

Warnings the Attack Will Come from the Air

Many warnings specifically mentioned a threat coming from the air.

1. In 1999, British intelligence gave a secret report to the US embassy. The report stated that al-Qaeda had plans to use “commercial aircraft” in “unconventional ways,”“possibly as flying bombs.” [Sunday Times, 6/9/02] On July 16, 2001, British intelligence passed a message to the US that al-Qaeda was in “the final stages” of preparing a terrorist attack in Western countries. [London Times, 6/14/02] In early August, the British gave another warning, telling the US to expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda. This warning was included in Bush’s briefing on August 6, 2001. [Sunday Herald, 5/19/02]
2. In June 2001, German intelligence warned the US, Britain, and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out.” Within the American intelligence community, “the warnings were taken seriously and surveillance intensified” but “there was disagreement on how such terrorist attacks could be prevented.” This warning came from Echelon, a spy satellite network that is partly based in Germany. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01, Washington Post, 9/14/01]
3. In late July 2001, Egyptian intelligence received a report from an undercover agent in Afghanistan that “20 al-Qaeda members had slipped into the US and four of them had received flight training on Cessnas.” To the Egyptians, pilots of small planes didn’t sound terribly alarming, but they passed on the message to the CIA anyway, fully expecting Washington to request information. “The request never came.” [CBS, 10/9/02] Given that there were 19 hijackers and four pilots (who trained on Cessnas) in the 9/11 plot, one might think this would now be a big news item. But in fact, the information has only appeared as an aside in a CBS “60 Minutes” show about a different topic.
4. In late summer 2001, Jordan intelligence intercepted a message stating that a major attack was being planned inside the US and that aircraft would be used. The code name of the operation was Big Wedding, which did in fact turn out to be the codename of the 9/11 plot. The message was passed to US intelligence through several channels. [International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]
5. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the US in the summer of 2001 that suicide pilots were training for attacks on US targets. [Fox News, 5/17/02] The head of Russian intelligence also stated, “We had clearly warned them” on several occasions, but they “did not pay the necessary attention.” [Agence France-Presse, 9/16/01] The Russian newspaper Izvestia claimed that Russian intelligence agents knew the participants in the attacks, and: “More than that, Moscow warned Washington about preparation for these actions a couple of weeks before they happened.” [Izvestia, 9/12/02]
6. Five days before 9/11, the priest Jean-Marie Benjamin was told by a Muslim at an Italian wedding of a plot to attack the US and Britain using hijacked airplanes as weapons. He wasn’t told time or place specifics. He immediately passed what he knew on to a judge and several politicians in Italy. Presumably this Muslim confided in him because Benjamin has done considerable charity work in Muslim countries and is considered “one of the West’s most knowledgeable experts on the Muslim world.” [Zenit, 9/16/01] Benjamin has not revealed who told him this information, but it could have come from a member of the al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy. This cell supplied forged do ents for other al-Qaeda operations, and wiretaps show members of the cell were aware of the 9/11 plot. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02, Guardian, 5/30/02, Boston Globe, 8/4/02] For instance, in August 2000, one terrorist in Milan was recorded saying to another: “I’m studying airplanes. I hope, God willing, that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see each other.” The comment was followed by laughter [Washington Post, 5/31/02]. In another case in January 2001, a terrorist asked if certain forged do ents were for “the brothers going to the United States,” and was angrily rebuked by another who told him not to talk about that “very, very secret” plan. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02] In March 2001, the Italian government gave the US a warning based on these wiretaps. [Fox News, 5/17/02]

[Shastafarian]

Why give Bush a pass on 9/11? That, too, is debatable. BTW, thanks Shasta, for the historical post about Bush. There was a lot that could be added, from attempting to gut the clean-air act to just acting like such a dufus (remember him trying to massage Merkel's neck?). Damn, I felt so embarrassed that we had such an idiot representing the US.

You're welcome. But haven't you heard? They're merely talking points.

[ElNono]

Respect it what sense? I think he acknowledged that what timvp was saying was his opinion. It was his opinion that timvp's opinion is idiotic.

Claiming that somebody's opinion is idiotic when the opinion given is for a theoretical matter is re ed. And that's not an opinion, that's a fact. Why? Because of what I explained earlier: It's a theory, and it's good as anybody else's theory. If you don't think it's good, you need to prove it, and you can't do so with a theoretical topic.

[Shastafarian]

Claiming that somebody's opinion is idiotic when the opinion given is for a theoretical matter is re ed. And that's not an opinion, that's a fact. Why? Because of what I explained earlier: It's a theory, and it's good as anybody else's theory. If you don't think it's good, you need to prove it, and you can't do so with a theoretical topic.

You're dealing in absolute terms. While I agree that it's impossible to prove Kerry or Gore would have been better presidents, claiming that you can't question people's opinions on hypothetical situations is not totally accurate. Would you think I was an idiot if I claimed some 12 year old could have done a better job than Bush? It's my opinion on a hypothetical situation but it's a very stupid opinion.





That may have been a bad example

[ElNono]

Would you think I was an idiot if I claimed some 12 year old could have done a better job than Bush? It's my opinion on a hypothetical situation but it's a very stupid opinion.

It's your opinion. You go girl.

[TheMadHatter]

Gravity is also a theory btw. If you're going to argue that we can't discuss the merits of a situation that is in anyway theoretical then this forum might as well not exist.

I can say definitively that Al Gore would never have taken us into Iraq. That alone makes him a better "theoretical" president than GWB. I understand this timVP guy is a moderator and you all feel the need to suck up and kiss his ass, but when someone says something THAT absurd I have to call them out on it.

In my lifetime I can't think of a worse President. Of course not all of the disasters are his fault, but a lot of them can be attributed to his decisions and policies that were carried out with a Republican Congress who had complete control for nearly 7 years. The buck has to stop somewhere.

[ElNono]

Gravity is also a theory btw. If you're going to argue that we can't discuss the merits of a situation that is in anyway theoretical then this forum might as well not exist.

I can say definitively that Al Gore would never have taken us into Iraq. That alone makes him a better "theoretical" president than GWB. I understand this timVP guy is a moderator and you all feel the need to suck up and kiss his ass, but when someone says something THAT absurd I have to call them out on it.

In my lifetime I can't think of a worse President. Of course not all of the disasters are his fault, but a lot of them can be attributed to his decisions and policies that were carried out with a Republican Congress who had complete control for nearly 7 years. The buck has to stop somewhere.

You can have an opinion. Berating somebody else's because you don't agree, but you have no proof otherwise, is re ed.
Nobody is claiming that Bush didn't screw up. And that Al Gore would have not taken us to Iraq is irrelevant. Al Gore could have taken us somewhere else, or nowhere. Al Gore could have sit on his ass and allowed more terrorist attacks. Al Gore could have taken the stumbling economy after the tech bubble popped, and tanked it.

What he said was not absurd. Unlikely? Maybe. But there's no way to prove it. And you jumping on him for that is RE ED.

[TheMadHatter]

You know what what the scientists say. Gravity is a theory. I don't buy that BS.

I'm going to teach my kids that gravity doesn't exist and that the reason we are fixed on the ground is because of a giant flying spaghetti monster in the sky is controlling us. Nobody has any right to call me or my kids an idiot for believing in this since gravity is a theory. You can't disprove that my flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist, therefore you can't dispute or berate me for anything I say.

[BushDynasty]

I may be the worst president in history but this Shasta arian fella might be the worst poster in Spurstalk history ... and there are a lot more posters than presidents.

[Wild Cobra]

So not only does this guy argue about a debate he didn't even watch, he argues about a post he didn't even read.

I've pretty much given up on him.

[Shastafarian]

I've pretty much given up on him.

Says he who defends Joseph McCarthy. And please oh please don't give up on me!!! I yearn for approval from people who post on the internets...