How will history judge President George W. Bush?

[blazes816]

I will say that I don't have time to watch tonight, however tomorrow I will.

 

[Loren Booda]

blazes816

A) Bush is stupid.
- Did he not graduate from both Yale and Harvard? I know a lot of extremely smart people that have a very hard time speaking to people and sound like idiots

Having attended Yale, I can attest that it matriculates its share of the unworthy.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Having attended Yale, I can attest that it matriculates its share of the unworthy.

And graduates them too I suppose. Bush compared himself to William F. Buckley with something like: "We were in school together, he wrote a book, I read one." (not a direct quote)

 

[Gokul43201]

A) Bush is stupid.
- Did he not graduate from both Yale and Harvard?

Even if Yale and Harvard were true meritocracies, that would still only demonstrate that Bush was not stupid 30 years ago. As is common knowledge, they are not.

B) He declared war without congress
- There hasn't been a declared war since WWII.

Yet, the signing statements that he tacked on to the two AUMFs (Authorization of Military Force - Afghanistan and Iraq) claim protections from the War Powers Resolution.

C) He lied about weapons of mass destruction
- But I've seen and heard people such as Gore, Kerry, and Clinton say that they too believed there were WMDs in Iraq.

It is one thing to "believe" Saddam had WMDs, another thing entirely to believe he had reconstituted a WMD program, and a whole different deal to know this with the certainty it takes to launch a military operation that costs half a trillion dollars and results in hundreds of thousands of dead people and millions of displaced refugees.

Gore, Kerry and Clinton didn't cook up stories about aluminum tubes, exports to Niger, chemical weapons trucks, and imminent nuclear destruction in the form of a mushroom cloud!

...all this after the CIA told him that Saddam did not have WMDs.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/04/60_minutes_bush.html

I'm not saying I like him, I'm saying I don't know why not too.

There are dozens of very good reasons, but going into them would be mostly reiterating things that have been said here many times before. In any case, it takes a lot more involvement in the political situation to appreciate many of these reasons.

 

[asd1249jf]

I am new to politics. I haven't read, or listened to anything political, pretty much ever. So I don't know what Bush has done that was wrong. I've heard a few different things that make no sense to me.

A) Bush is stupid.
- Did he not graduate from both Yale and Harvard? I know a lot of extremely smart people that have a very hard time speaking to people and sound like idiots

B) He declared war without congress
- There hasn't been a declared war since WWII.

C) He lied about weapons of mass destruction
- But I've seen and heard people such as Gore, Kerry, and Clinton say that they too believed there were WMDs in Iraq.

I'm not saying I like him, I'm saying I don't know why not too. I'd love to hear your responses.

A) Bush is stupid.
- Did he not graduate from both Yale and Harvard? I know a lot of extremely smart people that have a very hard time speaking to people and sound like idiots

Yes he entered Yale with C- average, around 2.0 GPA. How does someone enter such prestigious school with 2.0? Hmm.. I'll leave it up to your imagination

He declared war without congress
- There hasn't been a declared war since WWII.

Right, but does that still give him the right to go into the war without declaring it? What about the war power resolution?

He lied about weapons of mass destruction
- But I've seen and heard people such as Gore, Kerry, and Clinton say that they too believed there were WMDs in Iraq.

Bush didn't just believe it. He was certain that Iraq had WMDs yet upto this date, they found none and started coming up with excuses like IT'S IN SYRIA.

Just imagine why the world hates Bush.

 

[edward]

The Nexus Of Terrorism And Politics

I was looking for something else and came on this youtube video. Not exactly serendipity but could it be true?

The premise of the newscast is that in many cases where there was a down turn for Bush or his administration there was a corresponding terrorist threat or alert. The video lists ten. It is not a good way to leave a positive legacy.

 

[Astronuc]

How will history judge President George W. Bush?

Failure, and an unmitigated failure at that.

 

[J77]

Puppet?

 

[kach22i]

It will be finally validated that he stole not one, but two national elections and only posed as the president. Illegitimate and rogue his administration answered to no one and brought havoc to everything they touched making their friends very rich in the process.

 

[rewebster]

well, it hasn't been 'spoken' about much, or even written about such--and maybe for good reasons--but I think ' the supporters of the war' ---I mean the ones that are removed by 4 to 5 'degrees of freedom' ---are looking at Iraq more in the way of South Korea rather than Viet Nam 'NOW'. --And the reason they don't is to look at 'how long' it took for South Korea to develop an industrialized, economic, and socially integrated part of the 'world complex'---what?--say, 50 years?---no one, no one wants to think of the 'time' in those scales, but I think that may be one of the 'goals' (now). I haven't seen or heard this analogy, but I think it may be a possibility--I don't think (if this is 'one' possible reason (in the deep recesses of long term world stability) why we are there) its 'not' a impossibility---but bush may have 'unconsciously' initiated it ("he (Saddam) tried to kill my dad!")

 

[IMP]

Worst pres ever. We lost more freedom under his administration than all the presidents before him combined.
Vote Ron Paul.

 

[wildman]

Johnson was the worst. His foreign policy was far worse than Bush’s. Vietnam killed about 50,000 Americans and 3 million Viets. Bush will have to go a long way before equaling that number.

Johnson’s domestic policy looked good at the time but it really was a disaster also. The inflation under Nixon, Ford, Carter and the first term of Reagan was really caused by the wild out of control spending by Johnson.

Carter is not given the credit he deserves. He is well respected in Latin America and in the Middle East for what he did as a President. He was (and still is) very good at negotiating (Camp David has held until today). Really Iran was his only failure and that really wasn’t his doing. Domestically, he had the nerve to do what had to be done to end inflation. Reagan took the credit for that but really was largely Carter’s doing.

Bush is a lot like Johnson. Not as bad, but in the same league. The World economy is going to suffer the next few years for what Bush has done.

 

[Astronuc]

Bush Asks for $46 Billion More for Wars

(AP, Oct 22) - President Bush asked Congress on Monday for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and finance other national security needs. "We must provide our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done," Bush said.

The figure brings to $196.4 billion the total requested by the administration for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for the budget year that started Oct. 1. It includes $189.3 billion for the Defense Department, $6.9 billion for the State Department and $200 million for other agencies.

To date, Congress has already provided more than $455 billion for the Iraq war, with stepped-up military operations running about $10 billion a month. The war has claimed the lives of more than 3,830 members of the U.S. military and more than 73,000 Iraqi civilians.

Well - $1 billion for GW and $1 billion for Dick, . . . .

 

[rewebster]

Bush is planning on getting rid of his secret service. He said as long as Blackwater has 'immunity' , he may be able to get some of his own bills passed in Congress again.

 

[mormonator_rm]

I will not say where my personal stance falls on this, but I will say this:

If even half (or less) of the negative things said about George W. Bush were, or are, in fact, true, then the following steps should be taken, as they ought to be the duty of the government's checks and balances, in theory;

1) George W. Bush should be independently investigated, impeached, and convicted of crimes against this nation and against humanity, and subsequently removed from office.

2) George W. Bush should have any rights or "immunity" revoked, and should be further turned over to an international tribunal... and I don't care how "embarrassing" that would be to America; if you believe in honesty and truth, and these things said of him were, or are, indeed true, then "embarrassment" is the least of our worries... where he would be further convicted of war crimes and other depravity against humanity and the world.

3) George W. Bush should either; a) be summarily executed in accordance with any national or international law that may be brought to bear in his case, or b) spend the rest of his natural life in prison, preferably in solitary confinement.

The abuse of power is something that must be avoided (and punished, if it comes to that point) at all costs. If the Democrats and Republicans, or the people of America or any people who may claim to be genuinely oppressed by George W. Bush's decisions, would take real corrective action to remove George W. Bush from power and hold him accountable for the alleged abuses of power, then I would be more inclined to listen to their arguements. Instead, everyone just talks about how he loves "sending our troops to have their heads blown off", when they could be bringing real investigations and a real impeachment hearing to the attention of the public. I worry that this could just be a PR game to try to make the Bush Administration "irrelevant", rather than fighting the alleged "evil" of Bush directly, the way it should be done if he has actually committed a criminal abuse of power. And abuse of power is a criminal act. If you are going to tell me that we should be playing PR games because "Bush must go, but we will not hold him accountable for anything; we just want him out of power", then you are not being honest with me, with yourself, or with the world community at large. Until somebody actually does something to remove him from office, whether by the rule of law or by an act of force, I will have no choice but to refrain from finding true merit in these allegations. Although many of the theories and allegations may be plausible, I have not yet seen a backed effort to act on those allegations in the proper channels.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The problem is not that Bush is innocent. The problem is that the system has failed and we have lowered the bar as far as it will go.

 

[Astronuc]

A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency (Hardcover)
by Glenn Greenwald (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307354199/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Well he got the part right about Bush's evil mentality.

Bush's rise and fall are most evident in the 2002 election, which brought him control of both houses of Congress, and the 2006 election, which reversed that triumph. The president's chosen Manichean worldview and his rigid refusal to consider other viewpoints have resulted in a disastrous administration and damage the nation will be living with for generations, according to Greenwald (How Would a Patriot Act? 2006). Greenwald begins by documenting Bush's political collapse and then explores the core beliefs that have driven Bush's decision making, as well as the broader philosophical and political dangers of such strong convictions. He details how the president's absolutist moralistic worldview, the simple identification of good and evil, overshadowed decisions that required more nuanced views in the lead-up to the war in Iraq. Advisors with other points of view were ignored as Bush's strong ends-justify-the-means approach resulted in such decidedly un-American practices as indefinite detentions, use of torture, and preemptive war. This is a compelling examination of how moral beliefs can drive political decisions, with disastrous consequences.

not to mention kidnapping.


It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush (Hardcover)
by Joe Conason (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312356056/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Key Phrases: unitary presidency, religious rightists, torture memo, . . .

From Publishers Weekly

Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here envisaged a right-wing populist president, advised by a cunning political strategist and backed by a cynical alliance of religious fundamentalists and corporations, who uses security threats to consolidate dictatorial powers, destroy civil liberties and establish folksy fascism. This is a virtual blueprint for the current Bush administration, a "corrupt and authoritarian ruling clique" that accords the president "the prerogatives of a king," argues political columnist Conason (Big Lies) in this lively, if overwrought, j'accuse.

He surveys a long list of what he sees as Bush administration affronts to freedom and democracy: military tribunals, torture, warrantless wiretapping, politically motivated terrorism alerts, a war based on fraudulent pretexts, the Abramoff scandals, the handover of policy making to business interests and Christian zealots, tight secrecy coupled with a dissemination of propaganda through the right-wing media and a lawless contempt for constitutional constraints on the presidency. . . . (Mar. 1)

The all volunteer army was supposed to save money. At over $150 billion/yr now, that doesn't seem like saving money.

And then there is the matter of hiring an army of mercenaries. Where does one put 10's of thousands of mercenaries after the war. Or is the plan to continue war indefinitely?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The title should be changed to "It Did Happen Here".

 

[mormonator_rm]

The problem is not that Bush is innocent. The problem is that the system has failed and we have lowered the bar as far as it will go.

The first line is debateable, the second is absolutely true.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

The all volunteer army was supposed to save money.

I thought it was a reaction to the unfair way conscription was carried out during the Vietnam war.