The legacy of President George W. Bush

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On "Fox News Sunday," former President George H. W. Bush defended his son's record. "His mother and father" are "very proud of him," Bush said. Host Chris Wallace pointed out that the former president had acknowledged some failures in his son's two terms and asked him to elaborate. "No! You can go back to your, what do you call it, your Google, and you figure out all that," Bush responded.

Poppy is right. I did check my Google device, and there is indeed some evidence of failures.

Why didn't Shrub listen to Pops? :doh:
 
If Bush is considered the most unpopular US President in recent history, how did he get elected in 2000 (in the first place) and then re-elected in 2004?:huh:
 
If Bush is considered the most unpopular US President in recent history, how did he get elected in 2000 (in the first place) and then re-elected in 2004?:huh:

his approval rating hasn't been above 50% since the 2004 election, and it hasn't been above 40% since Hurrican Katrina, and he's remain consistently lower than any other president in history. he's never rebounded in his second term, not even once. and the amount of Americans who say they "strongly disapprove" of the job he is doing is by far the highest in history.
 
Um, maybe they just forgot to take that out of the covenant...


The Raw Story | In racially exclusive neighborhood, residents worried Bush will make it a 'target'

"But the exclusive Dallas community the Bush family will soon join has a troubled history of its own.

Until 2000, the neighborhood association's covenant said only white people were allowed to live there, though an exception was made for servants.

Enacted in 1956, part of the original document reads: "Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons except those shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."
 
There would probably actually be enough for a 20 page thread

By Associated Press

President George W. Bush will leave behind a legacy of Bushisms, the label stamped on the commander in chief’s original speaking style. Some of the president’s more notable malaprops and mangled statements:

— “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” — September 2000, explaining his energy policies at an event in Michigan.

— “Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?” — January 2000, during a campaign event in South Carolina.

— “They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the will and determination of the commander in chief, too.” — Sept. 26, 2001, in Langley, Va. Bush was referring to the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.

— “There’s no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind, that we will fail.” — Oct. 4, 2001, in Washington. Bush was remarking on a back-to-work plan after the terrorist attacks.

— “It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber.” — April 10, 2002, at the White House, as Bush urged Senate passage of a broad ban on cloning.

— “I want to thank the dozens of welfare-to-work stories, the actual examples of people who made the firm and solemn commitment to work hard to embetter themselves.” — April 18, 2002, at the White House.

— “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” — Sept. 17, 2002, in Nashville, Tenn.

— “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” — Aug. 5, 2004, at the signing ceremony for a defense spending bill.

— “Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.” — Sept. 6, 2004, at a rally in Poplar Bluff, Mo.

— “Our most abundant energy source is coal. We have enough coal to last for 250 years, yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge.” — April 20, 2005, in Washington.

— “We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job.” — Sept. 20, 2005, in Gulfport, Miss.

— “I can’t wait to join you in the joy of welcoming neighbors back into neighborhoods, and small businesses up and running, and cutting those ribbons that somebody is creating new jobs.” — Sept. 5, 2005, when Bush met with residents of Poplarville, Miss., in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

— “It was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship. After all, 60 years we were at war 60 years ago we were at war.” — June 29, 2006, at the White House, where Bush met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

— “Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die.” — Dec. 7, 2006, in a joint appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

— “These are big achievements for this country, and the people of Bulgaria ought to be proud of the achievements that they have achieved.” — June 11, 2007, in Sofia, Bulgaria.

— “Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction. Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit.” — September 2007, in Sydney, Australia, where Bush was attending an APEC summit.

— “Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech.” April 16, 2008, at a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the White House.

— “The fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there’s jobs at the machine-making place.” — May 27, 2008, in Mesa, Ariz.

— “And they have no disregard for human life.” — July 15, 2008, at the White House. Bush was referring to enemy fighters in Afghanistan.

— “I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.” — June 26, 2008, during a Rose Garden news briefing.

— “Throughout our history, the words of the Declaration have inspired immigrants from around the world to set sail to our shores. These immigrants have helped transform 13 small colonies into a great and growing nation of more than 300 people.” — July 4, 2008 in Virginia.

— “The people in Louisiana must know that all across our country there’s a lot of prayer — prayer for those whose lives have been turned upside down. And I’m one of them. It’s good to come down here.” — Sept. 3, 2008, at an emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, La., after Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast.

— “This thaw — took a while to thaw, it’s going to take a while to unthaw.” Oct. 20, 2008, in Alexandria, La., as he discussed the economy and frozen credit markets.
 
Um, maybe they just forgot to take that out of the covenant...


The Raw Story | In racially exclusive neighborhood, residents worried Bush will make it a 'target'

"But the exclusive Dallas community the Bush family will soon join has a troubled history of its own.

Until 2000, the neighborhood association's covenant said only white people were allowed to live there, though an exception was made for servants.

Enacted in 1956, part of the original document reads: "Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons except those shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."

There's actually quite a few uppity neighborhoods in Dallas that still have or had(until recently) these laws leftover on their books. Many of the homes in these neighborhoods are renovated turn of the century homes that still have servant quarters etc... I remember when I was living in Dallas one of these neighborhoods made the news because no one "noticed" the law until the first black family(one of the Mavericks) was moving in.
 
“I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
Given the planets ever dwindling fish stocks, and the environmental impact of energy production, this is a noble goal.
 
Joe Klein weighs in:


The Bush Administration's Most Despicable Act
By Joe Klein

"This is not the America I know," President George W. Bush said after the first, horrifying pictures of U.S. troops torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq surfaced in April 2004. The President was not telling the truth. "This" was the America he had authorized on Feb. 7, 2002, when he signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention — the one regarding the treatment of enemy prisoners taken in wartime — did not apply to members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban. That signature led directly to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. It was his single most callous and despicable act. It stands at the heart of the national embarrassment that was his presidency.

The details of the torture that Bush authorized have been dribbling out over the years in books like Jane Mayer's excellent The Dark Side. But the most definitive official account was released by the Senate Armed Services Committee just before Christmas. Much of the committee's report remains secret, but a 19-page executive summary was published, and it is infuriating. The story begins with an obscure military training program called Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE), in which various forms of torture are simulated to prepare U.S. special-ops personnel for the sorts of treatment they might receive if they're taken prisoner. Incredibly, the Bush Administration decided to have SERE trainers instruct its interrogation teams on how to torture prisoners.

It should be noted that there was, and is, no evidence that these techniques actually work. Experienced military and FBI interrogators believe that torture leads, more often than not, to fabricated confessions. Patient, persistent questioning using subtle psychological carrots and sticks is the surest way to get actionable information. But prisoners held by the U.S. were tortured — first at Guantánamo Bay and later in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Armed Services Committee report details the techniques used on one prisoner: "Military working dogs had been used against [Mohammed al-] Khatani. He had also been deprived of adequate sleep for weeks on end, stripped naked, subjected to loud music, and made to wear a leash and perform dog tricks."

Since we live in an advanced Western civilization, there needs to be legal justification when we torture people, and the Bush Administration proudly produced it. Memos authorizing the use of "enhanced" techniques were written in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Council. Vice President Dick Cheney and his nefarious aide, David Addington, had a hand in the process. The memos were approved by Bush's legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales. A memo listing specific interrogation techniques that could be used to torture prisoners like Mohammed al-Khatani was passed to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He signed it on Dec. 2, 2002, although he seemed a bit disappointed by the lack of rigor when it came to stress positions: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day," he noted. "Why is standing limited to four hours?"

It would be interesting, just for the fun and justice of it, to subject Rumsfeld to four hours in a stress position — standing stock still with his arms extended, naked, in a cold room after maybe two hours' sleep. But that's not going to happen. Indeed, it seems probable that nothing much is going to happen to the Bush Administration officials who perpetrated what many legal scholars consider to be war crimes. "I would say that there's some theoretical exposure here" to a war-crimes indictment in U.S. federal court, says Gene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School. "But I don't think there's much public appetite for that sort of action." There is, I'm told, absolutely no interest on the part of the incoming Obama Administration to pursue indictments against its predecessors. "We're focused on the future," said one of the President-elect's legal advisers. Fidell and others say it is possible, though highly unlikely, that Bush et al. could be arrested overseas — one imagines the Vice President pinched midstream on a fly-fishing trip to Norway — just as Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, was indicted in Spain and arrested in London for his crimes.

If Barack Obama really wanted to be cagey, he could pardon Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for the possible commission of war crimes. Then they'd have to live with official acknowledgment of their ignominy in perpetuity. More likely, Obama will simply make sure — through his excellent team of legal appointees — that no such behavior happens again. Still, there should be some official acknowledgment by the U.S. government that the Bush Administration's policies were reprehensible, and quite possibly illegal, and that the U.S. is no longer in the torture business. If Obama doesn't want to make that statement, perhaps we could do it in the form of a Bush Memorial in Washington: a statue of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner in cruciform stress position — the real Bush legacy.



abu-ghraib.jpg
 
his approval rating hasn't been above 50% since the 2004 election, and it hasn't been above 40% since Hurrican Katrina, and he's remain consistently lower than any other president in history. he's never rebounded in his second term, not even once. and the amount of Americans who say they "strongly disapprove" of the job he is doing is by far the highest in history.

Sorry. I was referring to the time before Bush's major decline in popularity. I mean- What compelled people to vote for Bush in 2000 and 2004?

It seems that now those very same people are regretting their vote.
 
Sorry. I was referring to the time before Bush's major decline in popularity. I mean- What compelled people to vote for Bush in 2000 and 2004?



fear. homophobia. Kerry was a bad candidate. various Democrat failures. Bush's North Korean-like campaign.

but mostly fear.
 
I am a proud Republican,and I know you guys are going, "Oh fuck,stupid is here.."
But Bush did kinda suck,he didn`t do anything worth getting noted for IMO,the only reason he was elected was cause of his dad. I wish he had been like Reagan,but he wasn`t,he gave republicans a bad name. Rep`s,we don`t have to like everyone that is or was a Republican candidate :shrug:
 
his approval rating hasn't been above 50% since the 2004 election

Thats incorrect, its been above 50% multiple times since the 2004 election including on the days February 4-6, 2005 when it was 57%.



and it hasn't been above 40% since Hurrican Katrina

Wrong again. It was 44% September 15-17, 2006 over a year after Hurrican Katrina.

Presidential Job Approval in Depth

and he's remain consistently lower than any other president in history.

This is wildly inaccurate. Take a look at the following:


Gallup Approval Averages for Presidents During Entire Presidency 1945-Present

Kennedy 70.1%
Eisenhower 65.0%
G.H.W. Bush 60.1%
Clinton 55.1%
Johnson 55.1%
Reagan 52.8%
G.W. Bush 49.4%
Nixon 49.1%
Ford 47.2%
Carter 45.5%
Truman 45.4%




Gallup Approval Averages For Presidents During First Term, 1945-present

Johnson 74.2%
Kennedy 70.1%
Eisenhower 69.6%
G.W. Bush 62.2%
G.H.W. Bush 60.9%
Nixon 55.8%
Truman 55.6%
Reagan 50.3%
Clinton 49.6%
Ford 47.2%
Carter 45.5%



Gallup Approval Averages For Presidents During Second Term, 1945-present

Clinton 60.6%
Eisenhower 60.5%
Reagan 55.3%
Johnson 50.3%
G.W. Bush 36.5%
Truman 36.5%
Nixon 34.4%



Bush's overall average approval rating during his entire Presidency ranks roughly in the middle when compared with other Presidents. Only 3 Presidents have a higher average approval rating in their first term than Bush. If you only count Presidents who served out an entire first term, only 1, Eisenhower has a higher average approval rating in the first term than Bush. In the second term, Bush's average approval rating went down, but its still higher than Nixon, and tied with Truman who is considered one of the greatest Presidents of all time by historians.

Despite Recent Lows, Bush Approval Average Is Midrange
 
the big difference between the two approval ratings was term one, was sept 11th and people were all revengeful and it clouded their judgement on things like the war in iraq and afghanistan. Term two people went 'ooops shit, we've elected a dickhead again' and realised Bush and the whole adminstration is pretty much a liability.

GWB legacy is basically a fucked up war, acceptance and approval of torture of innocent people, the rape of another race, the death of thousands of Americans through things like wars/hurricane Katrina/shit medical system making most of the world hate the US more, running the country into the ground, letting psychological unsound people dictate laws and legislation and the death of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of other nationalities in your bid for "FREEDOM"

i fucking hate him and his administration. What a pathetic human being he is.
 
Not to mention that you can't take a statement about ratings being "consistently lower," and refute them by showing average ratings over time. Apples and oranges.

Irvine said the following:

and he's remain consistently lower than any other president in history.

What evidence do you have that Bush's approval ratings have been consistently lower than ANY OTHER PRESIDENT IN HISTORY?

I'd say the above statistics easily refutes the statement that Bush's approval rating has been been consistently lower than any other president in history.
 
the big difference between the two approval ratings was term one, was sept 11th and people were all revengeful and it clouded their judgement on things like the war in iraq and afghanistan. Term two people went 'ooops shit, we've elected a dickhead again' and realised Bush and the whole adminstration is pretty much a liability.

Most Presidents see their poll numbers drop in their second term. Most people had all the information they needed in the fall of 2004 in order to determine whether they wanted to have another full term of Bush or not and the people chose Bush. That was the last chance the Democrats had to beat Bush and they lost. The opinion polls are certainly indicators, but they are not as meaningful or descriptive of how the country feels as a national presidentional election. When it comes to those, Bush is undefeated.

Harry Truman also had a rough second term, but is now regarded as one of the greatest Presidents in US history.

Bush successfully removed two major threats to the United States and the world by removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and Saddam's regime from power in Iraq. In the future, few people will be wishing or trying to make the claim that the world and the middle east would be safer and more stable if Saddam's regime had been left in power in Iraq or if the Taliban had been left in power in Afghanistan. These actions were necessary especially when you consider the consequences in terms of human lives and the health of the global economy if these regimes had been allowed to stay in power.
 
Irvine said the following:



What evidence do you have that Bush's approval ratings have been consistently lower than ANY OTHER PRESIDENT IN HISTORY?

I'd say the above statistics easily refutes the statement that Bush's approval rating has been been consistently lower than any other president in history.

It's very basic math. The word "consistently" implies ratings over time. By averaging things together, you're not only including his low trends, but his high ones also, and we all know that a few very high trends, as he had in the days post-9/11, can skew the overall numbers so that averages don't reflect the lows so much, and they turn out not looking as bad as they really are.

Irvine didn't prove it with his statement, but you didn't disprove it, either.
 
It's very basic math. The word "consistently" implies ratings over time. By averaging things together, you're not only including his low trends, but his high ones also, and we all know that a few very high trends, as he had in the days post-9/11, can skew the overall numbers so that averages don't reflect the lows so much, and they turn out not looking as bad as they really are.

Irvine didn't prove it with his statement, but you didn't disprove it, either.

Well, the averages above come from "ratings over time". Both high, low, and mid-range numbers impact "ratings over time". If Bush had been consistently lower than ANY other President in history, it would show up in the averages. Bush's lowest approval rating ever was 25%, not as low as Nixons at 24% or Trumans at 22%.

The links to the gallup website have all of Bush's approval numbers for the entire 8 year period. Gallup put the averages together to show that when looking at ratings over time, Bush was not at the bottom but in the middle when compared to other Presidents.
 
Well, the averages above come from "ratings over time". Both high, low, and mid-range numbers impact "ratings over time". If Bush had been consistently lower than ANY other President in history, it would show up in the averages. Bush's lowest approval rating ever was 25%, not as low as Nixons at 24% or Trumans at 22%.

The links to the gallup website have all of Bush's approval numbers for the entire 8 year period. Gallup put the averages together to show that when looking at ratings over time, Bush was not at the bottom but in the middle when compared to other Presidents.

Wow. Do you not get basic statistics? It's really quite simple. For example, take temperatures over two weeks. Say week one looks like this:

97 - 95 - 62 - 64 - 61 - 58 - 60 = 497/7 - Avg = 71

And week two looks like this:

67 - 70 - 68 - 70 - 72 - 71 - 65 = 483/7 - Avg = 69

So, even though week one's total and average is higher, it was driven up by the first two days, but it still has the consistently longest stretch of low numbers, and as such, looking solely at the averages is deceptive.

I'm sure parsing Bush's numbers in this manner would be interesting, but honestly, I don't care enough to take the time to do it. I already objectively know that he is, if not the worst, than one of the worst presidents in US history. I think at this point, you, AchtungBono, and maybe three other people in the entire world are clinging to the delusion that he isn't.
 
it's funny how people want to debate the fact that 24% is really not as bad as 22%, while Abu Ghraib isn't even acknowledged. but, besides the fact that the smokescreen belies an admission of being 100% wrong on absolutely everything, there's this article:

The Enigma in Chief
We still don't know how or why Bush made the key decisions of his administration.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009, at 7:08 AM ET

As George W. Bush once noted, "You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone." What I think he was trying to say is that, over time, historians may evolve toward a more positive view of his presidency than the one held by most of his contemporaries.

At the moment, this seems a vain hope. Bush's three most obvious legacies are his decision to invade Iraq, his framing of a global war on terror after Sept. 11, and the massive financial crisis. Each of these constitutes a separate epic in presidential misjudgment and mismanagement. It remains a brainteaser to come up with ways, however minor, in which Bush changed government, politics, or the world for the better. Among presidential historians, it is hardly an eccentric view that 43 ranks as America's worst president ever. On the other hand, he has nowhere to go but up.

In a different sense, however, Bush's comment has some validity to it. We do not know how people will one day view this presidency because we, Bush's contemporaries, don't yet understand it ourselves. The Bush administration has had startling success in one area—namely keeping its inner workings secret. Intensely loyal, contemptuous of the press, and overwhelmingly hostile to any form of public disclosure, the Bushies did a remarkable job at keeping their doings hidden for eight years.

Probably the biggest question Bush leaves behind is about the most consequential choice of his presidency: his decision to invade Iraq. When did the president make up his mind to go to war against Saddam Hussein? What were his real reasons? What roles did various figures around him—Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice—play in the actual decision? Was the selling of the war on the basis of WMD evidence a matter of conscious deception or of self-deception on their part?

Bob Woodward, Ron Suskind, and I recently debated in Slate the issue of how much we really know about Bush's biggest decision. Woodward, the author of four inside accounts of the Bush administration, believes that we do know the most important facts. He argues that Bush decided to invade Iraq in January 2003, that the reason was 9/11, and that Bush himself was the real decision-maker. Suskind and I argued that we don't know really how, when, or why the decision was made—though we suspect it was much earlier. By the summer of 2002, administration officials and foreign diplomats were hearing that Bush's course was already set.

The disputed dates and details go to the most interesting larger issues about what went wrong during the Bush years. Did Bush's own innocence and incompetence drive his missteps? Or was it the people around him, most importantly his vice president, who manipulated him into his major bad choices? On so many issues—the framing of the war on terrorism, the use of torture, the expansion of executive power—it was Cheney's views that prevailed. Yet at some point, perhaps around the 2006 election, Bush seems to have lost confidence in his vice president and stopped taking his advice.

To reckon with the Bush years, we need to understand what went on between these two men behind closed doors. Yet despite some superb spadework by journalist Barton Gellman and others, we know very little about Cheney's true role. We have seen few of the pertinent documents and heard little relevant testimony. Congressional investigations and litigation have shed only the faintest light on Cheney's role in Bush's biggest blunders.

The same is generally true of Bush's most important political relationship, with Karl Rove, and his most important personal one, with his father. Only with greater insight into these connections are we likely to be able to answer some of the other pressing historical questions. To what extent was Bush himself really the driver of his central decisions? How engaged or disengaged was he? Why, after governing as a successful moderate in Texas, did he adopt such an ideological and polarizing style as president? Why did he politicize the fight against terrorism? Why did he choose to permit the torture of American detainees? Why did he wait so long to revise a failing strategy in Iraq?

It seems unlikely that the memoirs in the works from Rove and Rumsfeld will challenge Bush's repeated assertions that he was not only in charge but in control. As for the president himself, we're unlikely to get much: Bush has a poor memory and is too unreflective to have kept the kind of diary that would elucidate matters. In time, however, other accounts are sure to emerge. Congressional investigations will shed new light. Declassified documents and e-mails may paint a clearer picture.

Once the country is rid of Bush, perhaps we can start developing a more nuanced understanding of how his presidency went astray. His was no ordinary failure, and he leaves not just an unholy mess but also some genuine mysteries.
 
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