President Bush: Insane?...Or Just Nuts?...

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1. Katrina - Came right "off the top."

2. Gonzo (an attorney who can never seem to "remember" the truth).

3. Walter Reed - Hey, we support our troops! (as long as they are healhty enough to pose for all those great photo-ops with the prez).

4. Gitmo - Who needs a trial when we have a perfectly fine prison?

5. Energy Policy - Let's just raise the price of gas - NOW!

6. Cronyism - Any friend of Bush's - is a friend with a government job.

7. Plamegate - The b@tch was never in the CIA anyway - right, Libby? Just be glad you're not going to Gitmo, Scooter...

8. Global Warming - No point in doing anything because "China makes more hot air than America anyway," ya know.

9. Lost a "perfectly good" Republican Congress - Where DID I leave those good ole' boys anyway?

10. Denial, Denial, Denial - Start now....but have fun.

 

Since I have been around since FDR I add my

Taxes aside Bush, Jr is the worse president that we have had during my lifetime. To be fair though the blame needs to be shared by Congress both Republicans and Democrats and those who voted for him. I am not going to repeat information contained in prior posts.

Is Bush crazy? Does being a megalomanic qualify?

 

I don't think you read my quote..."worse than other Presidents have done"...I can provide a list for every President since Ford that is at least that long and bad. Anyone remember the hostages in Iran, or Iran/Contra scandal, and how could we forget lying under oath? That is just the first line of the list I could start for each of those Presidents. Plus half the stuff you put at his feet are really not his...I am sure that he has lots of time to go inspect and administer hospitals. And I am sure that the Republican legislators who lost their seats had nothing personal to do with it. Katrina was all Bush's fault even though prior to Katrina it was the responsibility of the States to request aid, set up the initial organization, and identify where aid was most needed (all failures of a Democratic Governor and Mayor by the way). Yep, Global warming is definitly Bush's fault...even though overall the EU's emmisions of greenhouse gasses is rising faster than the US's.

Further, 1/2 of your list are items that are irrelevent to most Americans...we just don't care. Bush's political problems are the result of one issue...the war, thats it.

Finally, some of your isssues are a little hypocritical...I thought that Libs were in favor of higher gas prices to slow its use and encourage alternatives? Somebody in France, Germany, or England please post the price you pay for gasoline, and then lets see how many Americans want to bitch about the price of gas here.

Lets all move past the talking points that the Democratic party faxes out to its mouthpieces everyday.

To borrow a phrase:

Booga, Booga, Booga!

Nakia, I am sorry, but I heard that same statement during the Carter and Bush 41 administrations. Current things always feel more extreme and past things alwasy seem less extream than they really are.

The fact of the matter is that Bush is going to be remembered negatively overall solely becuase of the war, but that will be softened by the fact that he kept the country and economy together despite the Clinton recession and the major impact of 9/11, just as Clinton is remember favorably overall due to the brisk economy, but hindered somewhat by Monicagate and the fact that 9/11 happened in part due to his administrations policies.

 

Darkwolf, Bush's follies, measured in dollars, are quite significant. The toilet for wealth that we call "The War on Terror" is a travesty. We all have less rewarding lives as a result. Those decrepit roads cause problems. The meat-grinder for souls that we call the public school system causes problems. Keeping our economy in an artificially stimulated state by sacrificing the well-being of our financial system causes problems.

Bush has been a very bad president. To say that all presidents make mistakes is to state a truth; but to conclude that therefore it is not acceptable to measure presidents against one another is a folly.

If Bush is not bad relative to his predecessors, then who is?

And I would also state that I think Bush has been worse than Nixon. Nixon did illegal things. Not all bad things fall under the category of 'illegal'. I think Bush's follies have been worse, but still legal.

I'm just happy that he is almost gone.

 

I am well aware of how I have felt about Presidents over my lifetime and never, ever have I been just plain down-right scared by a President as I am of Bush. I felt this way 4 years ago and nothing he has done has changed that feeling. To repeat myself, many people share the blame.

We should care and if we don't care then we too must share the blame.


Side note: Nixon was a good President in many ways especially in forgeign policy.

 

Well, the topic isn't really about taxes, but I'll put in my two cents worth. (If you really want to know the truth about inflation, I could point out that there is no longer a "cents" sign on the computer keyboard.) My position is basically a simple one: Soak the Rich.

The poor, it seems to me, are already sufficiently soaked, what with sales taxes and the so-called "sin taxes" (cigarettes and alcohol), which, like the rain, fall equally on the rich and the poor. Except that the rich have less trouble paying them. State Legislatures, needing to raise money, find it easy, on spurious moral grounds, to increase the taxes on these products, but it is essentially a tax on the poor, since all classes use these products more or less equally, and there are many more poor people than rich people. Thus the $5 pack of cigarettes, rather than an increase in the income tax, or the corporation tax. (They might move to Indonesia!)

But to get back to the main topic, the Presidency of the now less-than-beloved Mr. Bush, I do have a few comments and replies.

Katrina was not Bush's "fault". Katrina was a hurricane, and I agree with Blackwolf that Bush, personally, cannot cause a hurricane to occur. It is the failure of the Federal governments' response that is the question. The fact that the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana were Democrats is irrelevent. (Would there have been less damage if they were Rosicrucians?) A disaster of this magnitude is, by its nature, a Federal responsibility, and it is the quality of the Federal response that is at issue here.

What other Presidents have or have not done is beside the point.

Global Warming is also not Bush's "fault". The question is what has he done about it. Did he even recognize that it existed as a problem, until hard facts gripped him by the throat? Having, at last, admitted it exists, what does he propose to do about it?

The Economy. Should we compare it to the "Clinton Recession"--Blackwolf--or to [Clinton's] "brisk economy"--also Blackwolf, in the same sentence, no less. The fact is that the Iraq war is being put onto a credit card, and the cost is trillions--yes, that's trillions--of dollars, which our children will be expected to repay. And the money, on this scale, will simply not be there. What economy?

"We just don't care." Well,Blackwolf, at least you got that part right.

[ April 06, 2007, 09:19: Message edited by: Cernak ]

 

Not sure who Blackwolf is...is that some sort of slam or did you just forget my name?

You are ignorant of exactly what the Constitution states the Federal government's role is. It has always been the states responsibility to coordinate this. If you want to look at this from a historical perspective please examine the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. It may not have been as destructive as Katrina, but there was no warning about it coming, and yet the state of California was able to coordinate with the Federal government effectively to get aid to people (funny thing is, Reagan was the executive at that time too, Governor of California!!). Had Blano and Nagan done what they were supposed to, and had Louisiana not wasted a lot of Federal $s sent to improve the levies around NO this wouldn't be an issue.

It is relevant when there is a statement made that he is the worst President ever...that is a comparative statement, and exactly how do you compare him if you don't consider what other Presidents have done?

Right...just like command of the military belongs only to the President, and yet Congress is writing timetables into funding bills. But you say "wait, the President can veto this!" EXACTLY!!!! He can veto any spending bill, including the entire budget. That is how a President in an out of power party gets his agenda past Congress. How do you think President Clinton was able to get tax increases pushed through Congress? Besides the fact that the out of control party still holds a lot of power in our form of Government through various rules of procedure (e.g. filibuster). Clinton's own projections showed the recession coming, and yet he made no demands of Congress to do anything to head it off. This is actually the correct action, and I applaud Clinton for doing it, but I will not abide with people blaming the 2000 recession on someone who doesn't deserve it. The fact is that the President is the leader of the country, and it is his job to lead Congress. There is a fault you can put on Bush...he has never lead Congress, and now that he has a Congress controlled by the Democrats his lack of leadership skills are being exposed. Clinton was a model for leadership in that he was able to get a Republican Congress to pass many of his initiatives...right up until Monicagate when he lost all credibility (rightly or wrongly).

Nakia, I am sorry, but the last couple years of the Carter administration was a much worse time for America...we have not lost any more face with the world under Bush 43 than we did with Carter, the economy is much better now than it was then (and Carter didn't have to deal with a war). Maybe we don't think of Carter as being worse because we got rid of him after one term. You have every right to think that Bush is worse than every other President, but IMO you are fooling yourself if you think he was worse than Carter. I would be happy to place him as the 2nd worst President in the last 50 years, but other than the screw up in Iraq and completely telling liberals to F off, he hasn't done anything that is worse than a lot of other Presidents, including the beloved of the left (Clinton) and the beloved of the right (Reagan).

Those who are political activists need to remember that most Americans aren't and don't care. To a lot of Americans, especially southerners and conservatives (which makes up a majority of the American populace) hyperbole like "Bush is an idiot", "Bush has no IQ", and "Bush is the worst President ever" comes off as lefty bitterness, and plays right into the hands of the Limbaugh/Hannity/Ingram bunch who attribute all complaints about Bush to sour grapes for Gore's loss in Florida (and yes he lost by the rules of the election and by every recount that looked at the entire state and included absentee Military ballots) in 2000.

Bush sucks, all but 23% of us get it, but making statements like "worst", idiot", "stupid", "insane", "usurper" and "evil" doesn't get us anywhere...they are divisive statements and only further the contention. If someone wants to debate the merits of his actions then we can have a meaningful discussion. However it is meaningless if no one is going to complain when you have people like Pelosi and Reid out there who think that they are going to counter Bush but in reality are just creating 2 wrongs.

Here is an issue you can pin on Bush, and I said it here first...the next President, Republican or Democrat, is going to have to deal with a nasty recession that is cyclically due, and will be further intensified by Congress's insistence that we raise taxes, and this is going to lay at the feet of W as the cost of the war is going to be a prime contributing factor to the severity of the recession. You can also pin the fact that the European stock markets are worth more than the US stock markets on Bush for not doing more to incent businesses to move/stay in America...of course the Democratic idea of going after corporate income isn't going to improve it.

If it still makes you happy to rant that Bush is insane go for it...I am all about personal happiness.

 

Darkie,
you make an interesting point on Clinton's ability and willingness (albeit born of necessity) to reach out and cooperate with Republicans.

You also rightly point out lefty bitterness. Considering the GOP reign in DC under Bush and Rove it shouldn't really come as a surprise. It's about more than lost elections. Sure, Dems have been in the past and probably are still corrupt too, but under Bush 43 the GOP set a new standard for a new brand of brazen corruption that has not been seen before. Never before the rotating door was spinning so fast. The Democrats are not only sore losers. What Bush and Rove, and the GOP with their goons like deLay did to the political system is inexcusable. They played dirty tricks, no matter that they got way with it so long.

Bush and Rove are in that respect much more radical and ideological than Clinton in that they say 50,1 percent is a majority and give a f*ck about the rest. They do not want to reach out. They alone are right anyway. As a unitary executive branch they exercise their powers unilaterally, and with their GOP in lockstep and with majority they acted unilateral in legislature for five years. Bush's unilateralism it's not only limited to foreign policy.

Dunno, maybe that's the style of Texan policies under Bush and Rove brought to the national and international arenas. I don't like it because I think it's scorched earth politics that will poison the respective fields where it was applied for years to come (even though the analogy would suggest to say 'barren the fields', but to say 'poisoning' is really a better expression of what I want to say).

 

It is true that Carter was not a good president but IMO that was primarily because he was a good man. He didn't play or understand the political game. And we did get rid of him after one term. But we can argue this back and forth and get no where.

Darkwolf, since you have been on the boards longer than I have you are probably aware that I have been an anti-Bush, Jr. person from the start so it rather puts us at an impasse in any discussion. I do not like the fact that Bush has ignored the UN rather than working to try and make it an effective international instrument. The United States of American cannot and should not try to exist isolated from the rest of the world. We may be 'the big kid on the block' but we are not invulnerable and we need to learn how to live with the rest of the world. I do not believe that we have the right as a nation to tell other nations how they should be governed anymore than I believe that I have the right to tell my neighbor how he should run his household.

Prehaps we, as a nation, are too young, too naive but we don't seem to learn from our mistakes. I am thinking of the Korean and Vietnamese 'wars' here.

Bush is certainly not to blame for Katrina. As I stated before there is plenty of blame to go around but to quote Harry Truman "the buck stops here". The President is the CEO of the USA and when she messes up he has to take the heat. And he does have a lot of power.

 

Yeah... as far as Katina is concerned both the local gov't and the federal gov't dropped the ball. it's the responsibility of the local gov't for 3days, then it goes to the federal level. That's what FEMA is there for. It is Bush's fault because he appointed a crony that got fired from running equestrian shows.
I could go on and on, and I did vote for him in 2000, and after four years, the majority spent kicking myself I sat hoping that the Dems would give us a nice alternative to Bush. Yeah, we all saw how well that went (how the heck could the dems be so stupid as to nominate Kerry? Probably the only man on the planet that would be worse than Bush. Also the only candidate that couldn't beat Bush.) Needless to say I found a candidate I liked, watched the dems not nominate him (Gen. Wesley Clark), then found one I could tolerate and voted for a third party.

 

What Bush is responsible for in regard to Katrina is this: He allowed FEMA to get disorganised after the introduction of the Department of Homeland Security that they botched the relief effort. He installed a political hack instead of an expert. He cut funding for FEMA. And so on.

Certainly many of FEMA's problems stem from changes in FEMA's organization in the two years before Katrina, related to the agency's absorption into the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to this change, state and federal officials would meet, plan and react to disasters together. FEMA was praised for its response to disasters like the Oklahoma City bombing and the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake. The Bush administration has worked to shift responsibility for disaster management from federal agencies to state and local agencies, and so abolished the coordination meetings. Unless a 'major diaster' is declared by the president FEMA is not involved at all anymore. They're out of the loop by design. The government has drastically cut funding for FEMA as well. In Louisiana, funding for studies and flood prevention efforts in the Lake Pontchartrain area was cut by more than $40 million and the Army Corps of Engineers had its budget cut by $71 million.

Katrina was a disaster waiting to be happen to reveal these flaws. The disorganisation and change of mission after the introduction of the DHS and the incompetence of the top managers alone would have been enough to aggravate every serious emergency into a disaster. And in part it was intentional and ideological, as the boldened (my emphasis) passages underline.

Outsourcing of government activities to the private sector is good business. It's rather a question of disaster relief or other vital government functions should be conducted under a profit-oriented premise. Because if that is so, the question inevitably arises if rescuing civilians in an emergency is profitable. But then, without adequate plans on the side of the government, a no bid contract to a private contractor, justified by the urgency of the emergency, will reliably adress the and indeed guarantee the profitability of the rescue effort.

 

You are quite right, DARKwolf. I'm embarrassed to admit that I did forget your name, and was too lazy to refer back to your post and get it right. My apologies. I also enjoyed the last three paragraphs of your last post, although I don't agree with all of it.

A couple of years ago, when we first went into Iraq, I posted a quote from one of Bush's White House flacks that went something like, "We create our own reality, and by the time you've caught up with that, we'll have created a new reality." In this view, reality is not the external world we all live in; it is something created in the mind, more true, more real, than that external world. Global Warming does not exist because I do not believe it exists. The Iraqis will greet us as liberators because I wish them to greet us as liberators. This attitude has not changed. It is the simple attitude of a fanatic, a True Believer: "I am right; therefore you are wrong, and I don't want to hear any more about it."

The current struggle with an unfriendly Congress reflects this attitude precisely, and the Administration's total intransigence is not only astoundiing--flying in the face of known facts and also the clear wishes of the country--it is also rather frightening. Just how far will they go in pursuit of their agenda? You speak of "meaningful discussion", Darkwolf, but it takes two to have a discussion, and Bush doesn't appear to want to discuss anything; just give us our marching orders. I do question the man's sanity, or at least his grasp of reality. And I expect him to make an attempt, whatever the cost, to master the situaton that now confronts him.

 

No, not really. I didn't bother reading it. I just cut and pasted it with my eyes closed (a neat trick I learned from the Bush apologists).

I don't recall Jimmy taking any hostages. Kinda like: "Does anyone recall all those nukes that were made in Iran while Bush was prez?" I did not go there because Bush really has no control over what happens inside the Iranian borders - He's not their prez, he is ours. But what I do know is that all of them came back to America alive.

But rather than an attempt to refute what everyone else seems to know as reality (that Bush is not a very good prez), let's play a new game: List all of the Bush successes on one side, and I'll list all his failures on the other. And I'll take the inverse with some other dismal president, and you can slam him as hard as you can - say Richard Nixon (how's that for a disadvantage? Imagine me, defending Tricky?). I was tempted to take Reagan, but he is considered to be one of the most successful presidents of all-time (which I don't agree with). It would be more fair to see how Nixon and Bush II stack up, even though Nixon left office in disgrace. Besides Nakia brought Nixon up in an interesting context. But you will have to come up with several successful achievments which prove that Bush II is a better prez than Nixon. Here's my rant:

George Bush started a unpopular war, which he has almost no control over: Iraq - and Richard Nixon ended an unpopular war which the other American prez before him had no control over: Vietnam. Of course, being tricky, his strategy left the South standing long enough for him to depart office, and then ultimately be over-run by the North, sticking Jerry with the blame. They don't call him "Tricky" for nothing.

Note: Being a literate and intelligent man, Nixon wrote an interesting book on his take on what went right, and also wrong, with the Vietnam War. "No More Vietnams" is out of print now, and many may not agree with his conclusions, but it's worth a read, if you can find a copy.

Nixon did not start the Vietnam war - the war was already a monster once he came to power, unlike Bush who is the maker of his own problems (and ours). Also, Nixon did comment that if the North resumed hostilities that he would continue to bomb the North, and use American airpower to help the South Vietnamese Army to drive the North back. Something which never happened because of Congress. So, the ending may have been different without Watergate. Nevertheless, I would still rate Nixon's handling of the war a minimal success, and Bush's handling of Iraq, a dismal failure. This one goes to Nixon.

You turn, DW....

 

Thanks anyway Chandos...but I don't think I will play the game by your rules...especially when you are AGAIN making statements of my position that aren't true.

Chandos:

When I had already said:

It is really hard to have a discussion with someone who isn't listening to what is being said.

By the way, defending Carter on the Hostage crisis...uh kettle pot black. No he didn't take the hostages, his administration just completely screwed up the plan that the military had written up to rescue them. Hmmm, seems ingoring military advisors is nothing new and occurs on both sides of the isle.

 

DW - Well, your rules seemed a bit slippery to me, since you had claimed that Bush was not "any worse" than most recent presidents and that "historians would not be that rough on him." I was looking for a list of Bush accomplishments you could point to over the last 6 years. The tax cuts were one that had already been mentioned. I admit it is always more difficult to speak on the positive accomplishments than it is to criticize - and that's true of any president. But it seems, Bush is a special case, because no one seems to comment on his achievements as prez.

 

Chandos, about two years ago I asked Bush supporters to explain why they voted for him. The only answers were from non-USA people.

This is very true. 'The evil (stupidity) that people do live in the minds of others'. History will judge Bush and I hope I'm around long enough to know what that judgement is. Meanwhile I too would like to hear the positives.

 

I think that of the most recent presidents, Nixon is the most like Bush in most ways - but not all. For instance, I have read that when gas prices rose in the 1970's Nixon placed price controls on the economy. Bush has done nothing. Also, Nixon created the EPA, something I don't think Bush would have ever done.

But I do think that of all the recent presidents Nixon would have appauled the War in Iraq. The use of military power as a means to promote American foreign policy objectives was always one of Nixon's main mantras. And I think he would have used much the same strategy in claimng that "those who opposed the war in America were one of the best weapons the enemy has." This type of Nixonian rhetoric is one of the reasons why Nixon is despised by liberals. The ironic twist is that Nixon ended the war in Vietnam. It's interesting to compare the two regimes.

[ April 08, 2007, 18:38: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Again you misquote me and put me in a position I never stated. If you aren't going to bother understanding my position please stop speaking to it, the taste of you hand in my mouth trying to puppet me is getting pretty nasty.

Just so every one is clear...IMO Bush hasn't done anything any worse than any other President has...perhaps he has done more of them, but due to the war he us under a larger microscope than any previous President has ever faced. I can promise you that JFK's Presidency would not have ever happened with today's press, and if it would have happened he would not have had a high approval rating. His father had connections to the Mob, his campaign funding was funky at best, the late abortion of the invasion of Cuba (yes we were on shore and we were killing people, I have a 1st hand source), his womanizing, and even the funding and awarding of contracts for the space program (talk about cronyism!!). The lies FDR told to Congress and the American people about WWII would have had him impeached and procecuted, and the if you want to learn a lesson in cronyism all you have to do is look at LBJ's Administraion (co-incidence that he was from Texas??? Can't trust those Texans ). How much more do you want me to go on???

Look as I said Bush sucks(and if you look back you would see that I actually did say it), 75% of us get it. It would have been really nice if the Dems would have put forward a moderate and electable condidate. Would we have been better off with Kerry...not really sure, he really isn't in touch with reality either.

Now look at he wonderful choices we are getting for '08! McCain, the great defender of the War? Obama, sorry, he doesn't have the experience to try to mend the international fences. Hillary, which one? The one with the southern accent when she speaks in southern churches, or the yankee carpetbagger. The raving lib when she is on the west coast or the moderate that shows up in the Midwest claiming to share their views? Giuliani...I don't even want to go there. Al Gore... screaming "HE LIED TO US, HE PLAYED ON OUR FEARS"...that didn't work out so well for Howie D, and that mockumentory is going to be an anchor chained to him.

Unless someone steps up Mit Romney is going to walk into the White House just like Bush did in '04. Maybe he is a good choice, who knows yet, but I would at least like to have someone legitimate to challenge him.

 

I dunno. I don't find this argument about Carter convincing. Yes, he was a good man. No, he didn't play the political game as much or as well as other presidents. He still played it.

There's no other explanation for, to take but one example, Carter visiting the Shah and praising his, ah, just and human-rights-respecting government (let's all point and laugh now, children).