George W. Bush - His legacy?

mumhaabu

I understand alot of people severely dislike President Bush but he also did alot of good for America. He introduced the Patriot act while controversial has helped increase Security in a nation activly engaged in war. He also Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act which helps pay for prescription drugs for the old, poor and less well off in society plus the no child left behind programme.

Then there was Iraq and Afghanistan,

Afghanistan and the Taliban harboured Terrorists and although it is 7 years since 9/11 we must remember the awful atrocities carried out against America that fateful day, Bush's rating was over 80% after that and even the most bleeding heart liberal agreed and back the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan.

Iraq was the follow up in the War on Terror and alot of politicians in Washington honestly believed there to be WMD in Iraq, The subsequent invasion ridded the country of the despot Saddam Huessein. Iraq was not the perfect situation for any country to be in and we must remember that the United Kingdom was also involved here. IMO it was better to shoot first and ask questions later in Iraq, President Bush was acting the interests of the United States by intervening and attempting to prevent a future attack on the Continental United States. Would you rather he have stayed out and see a Mushroom cloud over Manhattan had there been WMD's there???

He gets alot of Critisism but he was far from the worst president ever as is constantly claimed and I think he fared well overall considering everything that happened in the ensuing 8years.

I beleive History will not remember him until Obama is finished in office and he will be judged by how his succesor fared also. America is in a bad place economically now caused by the sub-prime crisis and I think history will judge this depression to have been caused by a number of factors including; wrong regulation certain areas were de-regulated while others were regulated too harshly most of this comes down to the Fed which is independent of the White House.

Secondly another major factor of this crash was caused by liberal policies implemented under the Clinton era and most recently since the Democrats took the house, affirmitive action within banking saw loans given out to poor whites and blacks who under normal circumstances would never qualify for a car loan not a mind a $250,000 mortgage, this liberal socialistic lending where everyone is equal has landed America in this Depression and although I am very suspect of Barack Obama I hope he can pull America out of it and I hope he succeeds for the good of America, the World and Democracy. I personally don't like his policies in particular his social and economic policies but it is now up to him to deliver on his promises and we will see will he be judged badly or can he be another FDR?

Democracy was in action yesterday and the people of America spoke loud and clear for change, change is good and it will revitalise both Party's, if Barack Obama does not do good I predict he will last only one term, I would like to see Ron Paul go for the Republicans and his no nonsense straight up politics would have seen him elected where McCain failed however I feel it will be too late for him as he will be 77 by 2012. The Republicans need a new face and they need to strategically position that candidate from either California or New York if they are to defeat the Electoral College system.

And now before the Obama brigade comes after me with pitchforks I will give you this link to review, I found it so insulting it prompted me to write this thread however you can enjoy it or loathe it!

jhegarty

His legacy will depend on the state of the middle east in 15/20 years time....

Mr.Nice Guy

He'll be judged as being worse than his father. In other words = failure.

Hobbes

mumhaabu wrote: »

He introduced the Patriot act while controversial has helped increase Security in a nation activly engaged in war.

How anyone can say the Patriot act was a good thing is beyond me.

Then there was Iraq and Afghanistan,

Oh please! Iraq is a mess. Afghanistan only the capital is anyway civil. Most of the rest of the country is still run by warlords who had criminal abuse records that made the Taliban look like girl scouts. Remember the Taliban got into power because people were sick of the warlords.

he was far from the worst president ever

He has the lowest appoval rating of any US president bar Nixon. If Fox News were correct last night then his rating is the same as Nixons (25% approval rating).

The country is horribly in debt that peoples great grand children will be paying off.

Bush has been a mitigated disaster for America.

You list two three things (most of which are questonable) but I can easily run off loads of things that Bush had a hand in that helped destroy America.

Dudess

mumhaabu, fair play for a relatively decent post instead of something outrageous, unfounded and unsupported, which has frankly characterised your posting pattern of late.

mumhaabu wrote: »

He introduced the Patriot act while controversial has helped increase Security in a nation activly engaged in war.

To the detriment of civil liberties though.

we must remember the awful atrocities carried out against America that fateful day

... along with all the other atrocities around the world.

we must remember that the United Kingdom was also involved here.

Aw come on! You make it seem like it was an autonomous decision by Blair to go to war in Iraq!

Other than that, you make some fair points (in general).

axer

mumhaabu wrote: »

I understand alot of people severely dislike President Bush but he also did alot of good for America. He introduced the Patriot act while controversial has helped increase Security in a nation activly engaged in war. He also Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act which helps pay for prescription drugs for the old, poor and less well off in society plus the no child left behind programme.

The patriot act? A serious privacy violation, a good thing?

Medicare is the wrong way to go. Universal healthcare is the way it should have went and is the way Obama wants to bring it. The no child left behind program is a failure.

mumhaabu wrote: »

Then there was Iraq and Afghanistan,

Afghanistan and the Taliban harboured Terrorists and although it is 7 years since 9/11 we must remember the awful atrocities carried out against America that fateful day, Bush's rating was over 80% after that and even the most bleeding heart liberal agreed and back the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan.

I think the USA were right to invade Afghanistan.

mumhaabu wrote: »

Iraq was the follow up in the War on Terror and alot of politicians in Washington honestly believed there to be WMD in Iraq, The subsequent invasion ridded the country of the despot Saddam Huessein. Iraq was not the perfect situation for any country to be in and we must remember that the United Kingdom was also involved here. IMO it was better to shoot first and ask questions later in Iraq, President Bush was acting the interests of the United States by intervening and attempting to prevent a future attack on the Continental United States. Would you rather he have stayed out and see a Mushroom cloud over Manhattan had there been WMD's there???

Invading Iraq was a terrible decision and really is why they are struggling so bad in the region now. The politicians in washington were going off of the flawed information they were being fed by Bush. I don't know why the UK got involved.

mumhaabu wrote: »

He gets alot of Critisism but he was far from the worst president ever as is constantly claimed and I think he fared well overall considering everything that happened in the ensuing 8years.

He was definitely one of the worst if not the actual worst.

mumhaabu wrote: »

I beleive History will not remember him until Obama is finished in office and he will be judged by how his succesor fared also.

I don't think Obama is expected to be able to achieve as much as he wants due to the bad situation the USA is now in. I really don't think he could ever do a bad a job as Bush.

mumhaabu wrote: »

America is in a bad place economically now caused by the sub-prime crisis and I think history will judge this depression to have been caused by a number of factors including; wrong regulation certain areas were de-regulated while others were regulated too harshly most of this comes down to the Fed which is independent of the White House.

Deregulation was to blame - not regulation.

mumhaabu wrote: »

Secondly another major factor of this crash was caused by liberal policies implemented under the Clinton era and most recently since the Democrats took the house, affirmitive action within banking saw loans given out to poor whites and blacks who under normal circumstances would never qualify for a car loan not a mind a $250,000 mortgage, this liberal socialistic lending where everyone is equal has landed America in this Depression and although I am very suspect of Barack Obama I hope he can pull America out of it and I hope he succeeds for the good of America, the World and Democracy. I personally don't like his policies in particular his social and economic policies but it is now up to him to deliver on his promises and we will see will he be judged badly or can he be another FDR?

The industry was basically left to regulate itself but that cannot work since they are greedy f'uckers out to make as much money as possible using credit. If you think liberal socialistic lending caused this problem then what the hell were the republicans doing since they took full power until 2007?

brianthebard

Afghanistan and the Taliban harboured Terrorists and although it is 7 years since 9/11 we must remember the awful atrocities carried out against America that fateful day, Bush's rating was over 80% after that and even the most bleeding heart liberal agreed and back the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan.

Maybe the September 11 attacks were awful atrocities. But do you honestly believe the 3000 or so people who died that day wanted the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocents in retaliation? The destruction wrought by the US on Afghanistan and Iraq is indefensible.

Secondly another major factor of this crash was caused by liberal policies implemented under the Clinton era and most recently since the Democrats took the house, affirmitive action within banking saw loans given out to poor whites and blacks who under normal circumstances would never qualify for a car loan not a mind a $250,000 mortgage, this liberal socialistic lending where everyone is equal has landed America in this Depression and although I am very suspect of Barack Obama I hope he can pull America out of it and I hope he succeeds for the good of America, the World and Democracy. I personally don't like his policies in particular his social and economic policies but it is now up to him to deliver on his promises and we will see will he be judged badly or can he be another FDR?

I love how you feel the Democrats can be blamed for the credit crisis. The 11 cuts by the fed after 2001 didn't affect it at all?

oscarBravo

mumhaabu wrote: »

...the Patriot act ... has helped increase Security...

Has it?

jhegarty

brianthebard wrote: »

I love how you feel the Democrats can be blamed for the credit crisis. The 11 cuts by the fed after 2001 didn't affect it at all?

the problems are completely down to the Clinton era laws that forced banks to give mortgages to people who couldn't afford them

amacachi

brianthebard wrote: »

Maybe the September 11 attacks were awful atrocities. But do you honestly believe the 3000 or so people who died that day wanted the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocents in retaliation? The destruction wrought by the US on Afghanistan and Iraq is indefensible.

Those people weren't people living in the West, everyone knows they don't matter.

brianthebard

jhegarty wrote: »

the problems are completely down to the Clinton era laws that forced banks to give mortgages to people who couldn't afford them

link please?

RedPlanet

I think he's talking about the "Community Reinvestment Act" which is actually a Carter-era creation. If it was so bad, i wonder why 8 years of Reagan, 4 years of Bush Snr, 8 years of Clinton and now 8 years of Bush Jnr didn't bother to correct it?
Regardless, it's propaganda drivel from rightwingnuts whom would try to blame the poor for these huge financial institutions failings.
Can read some about it here: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/24-5

I was trying to find a link, which said that only about 2% of loans made by these banks were CRA ones anyway.

is_that_so

I think his legacy will be very poor. Unlikely to be the worst, that has to be James Buchanan, who oversaw the descent into the Civil War. It will reflect ineptitude, divisiveness and how he used any means to justify an end. The only positives I think will come out of it is that it has killed the NeoCons as a power bloc and one positive; the tripling of US aid to Africa.

Biggins

Don't forget about the Kyoto agreement - refusing to sign it.
Denying for years that there was even an enviroment problem conviently so that his oil buddies and industry buddies could skirt around enviromental laws, etc.

brianthebard

is_that_so wrote: »

I think his legacy will be very poor. Unlikely to be the worst, that has to be James Buchanan, who oversaw the descent into the Civil War. It will reflect how ineptitude, divisiveness and how he used any means to justify an end. The only positives I think will come out of it is that it has killed the NeoCons as a power bloc and one positive; the tripling of US aid to Africa.

Aid isn't necessarily a good thing-in fact it is usually a barrier to progress for the people given the aid and makes the price of products grown at home more expensive. In addition aid is usually tied to trade deals. African scholars such as Kwame Nkrumah have written on this subject and have shown it does more harm than good.

projectmayhem

While I think his legacy can only be determined 5-10 years from now (when we see what happens in the middle east), right now things aren't good. His family ties to firms that benefited from the war won't help his image, and the fact that his tenure ends marred by war and economic crisis means people simply can't be expected to bask in his glory.

He focused too much on foreign policy and pretending it was his job to police the world rather then looking after America itself.

Black Swan

mumhaabu wrote: »

He introduced the Patriot act while controversial has helped increase Security in a nation activly engaged in war.

You don't mind being spied upon? The Patriot Act has been used by Bush to violate the Constitutionally guaranteed privacy rights of millions of innocent US citizens by spying on their telephone and email communications (AT&T, etc.) without a court order. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against the Bush Administration for these actions. And don't give me that excuse so often used by the extreme right that "If you don't have something to hide, you shouldn't mind being spied upon." That's Big Brother 1984 Orwellian logic. I don't like some bureaucrat reviewing sweet nothings that I may say to a beau online! And if you still agree with this kind of Orwellian logic, let's take it to the next step, and put cams in your bedroom, because "If you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn't mind."

The Patriot Act also demands that libraries in the US track the checkout of certain books on a list generated by the Bush Administration. So if I am curious about a Middle Eastern religion and I check out a book at the university library that is on this list, these Bush Administration Patriot Act Orwellian powers will create a file on me. And just maybe if I apply for a government job or run for political office someday, some idiot in an opposing party will leak the fact that I read such books, and all of a sudden I am being branded by a future Sarah Palin as a terrorist sympathizer having read a book they read. This is censorship, which causes many students to avoid certain publications that they might innocently read for fear of having a file created on them that might haunt them in the future. This is no joke, and students at the University of Texas Austin protested it when they found out about some of the books on the Bush Administration list, but that didn't stop this Bush Administration Orwellian practice.

The Patriot Act is unpatriotic! Osama bin Laden has won, by allowing the paranoid, Orwellian Bush Administration to spy on its own innocent citizens by the millions. This reminds me of what I had read about the McCarthy Era and how fear ruled the USA until they woke up and tossed the Orwellian jerks out of office. And soon the bloody Orwellian Bush Administration jerks will be swept out of office by a landslide Obama victory in both popular vote and electoral college vote.

Liam Byrne

Bush's legacy ? Hundreds of thousands dead for no reason, based on lies and deceit.

Hobbes

Biggins wrote: »

Don't forget about the Kyoto agreement - refusing to sign it..

- And the ICC. Didn't sign that up either.

- "Heck of a Job Brownie"

- Harriet Miers

- etc.

I mean you can argue others were involved but the simple fact is the buck should of stopped at the president. I am pretty sure the republicans are going to claim it does now that Obama is in Office.

toiletduck

Biggins wrote: »

Don't forget about the Kyoto agreement - refusing to sign it.

Yeah, what an ass. I mean not signing it when he knew it would never ever pass in congress. We're much better here in Ireland i.e. signing Kyoto and breaking all the emissions limits...


I think it's to early to call his legacy in the ME just yet. Other things of note which will be remembered
- his dealing (or lack thereof sometimes) with North Korea
- Guantanomo, and the extraordinary rendition
- providing the "loony left" (i.e. guys that would have marched against the Kosovo action in '98) with popular public backing. Those lads will miss Bush the most :P

Nodin

mumhaabu wrote: »

Iraq was the follow up in the War on Terror and alot of politicians in Washington honestly believed there to be WMD in Iraq,

As Iraq had no links to Al Qaeda, any linkage is spurious.

As regards to belief in WMD, given the mood of the US at the time, its far more likely that most feared they'd be lynched if they appeared "unpatriotic"

mumhaabu wrote: »

The subsequent invasion ridded the country of the despot Saddam Huessein. Iraq was not the perfect situation for any country to be in and we must remember that the United Kingdom was also involved here.,

Good point. What did they think?

"IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY" (2002)

"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

mumhaabu wrote: »

IMO it was better to shoot first and ask questions later in Iraq,.,

As thats not generally considered acceptable behaviour with regards to peoples lives in the West, I fail to see why that should change in regard to elsehere.

mumhaabu wrote: »

President Bush was acting the interests of the United States by intervening and attempting to prevent a future attack on the Continental United States. Would you rather he have stayed out and see a Mushroom cloud over Manhattan had there been WMD's there???

Again, a bizarre claim. They had human intelligence that the nuclear and other programs had been shut down.

On February 24, [/FONT]Newsweek[/FONT] broke what may be the biggest story of the [/FONT]Iraq[/FONT] crisis. In a revelation that "raises questions about whether the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist," the magazine's issue dated March 3 reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims.[/FONT]

[/FONT]
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1845

Added to this we have the fact that Weapons programs, particularily nuclear ones, require facilities and factories which can be located, either roughly or specifically, by satellite and reconnassance plane.

mumhaabu wrote: »

Secondly another major factor of this crash was caused by liberal policies implemented under the Clinton era and most recently since the Democrats took the house, affirmitive action within banking saw loans given out to poor whites and blacks who under normal circumstances would never qualify for a car loan not a mind a $250,000 mortgage, this liberal socialistic lending where everyone is equal has landed America in this Depression !

Debatable.

A study, by a legal firm which counsels financial services entities on Community Reinvestment Act compliance, found that CRA-covered institutions were less likely to make subprime loans(only 20-25% of all subprime loans), and when they did the interest rates were lower. The banks were half as likely to resell the loans to other parties.[23]

link

Biggins

toiletduck wrote: »

Yeah, what an ass. I mean not signing it when he knew it would never ever pass in congress. We're much better here in Ireland i.e. signing Kyoto and breaking all the emissions limits...

Valid point and I can see where your coming from.
However I'd have to point out that at least we signed it, acknowledged that there is a problem and are at least trying to stay as low as possible within the environmental limits laid out. We might be failing at doing so but we are at least trying with every month, to lower our emissions.

America's government thanks to Bush (until the last few months when they were forced by the sheer weight of evidence) basically has given two fingers up to the rest of the world as regarding helping the planet and even saying that there is a planet environment problem!

Hobbes

Biggins wrote: »

Valid point and I can see where your coming from.
However I'd have to point out that at least we signed it, acknowledged that there is a problem and are at least trying to stay as low as possible within the environmental limits laid out. We might be failing at doing so but we are at least trying with every month, to lower our emissions.

It also used a credit system that if you were reaching or going over the limit you could buy credits from the countries that are not polluting at all.

It wasn't meant to lock you in fixed pollution but to control pollution across the world.

OS119

Bush's legacy will be mixed, like that of most of us.

personally i think its likely to be charactorized not by indivdiual actions - good or bad - but by his administrations utter incompetence in attempting to carry them out. pretty much everything he's tried to acheive has failed first, second and third time - until finally a radical change of 'how to' Policy and personnel has brought about results.

he was overly-loyal to those he appointed, and he was never a 'detail' man - so he could never challenge the working plans when they failed to acheive.

in Iraq he may actually have what appears to be a saving grace rather than his greatest (foreign) catastrophe - Iraq in 15 years is likely to be reasonably democratic and reasonably peaceful. he will be able to point to Iraq and say "i did that" - however the real story of his Iraq policy will be not what happened in the end, but how long it took to ditch obviously and repeatedly failed policies and personel before finally heading the professional advice he had been given since day one.

Bush's legacy will not be 'X' number of good things vs 'Y' number of bad things, but how long he spent f#cking up each policy before it produced the result he wanted.

he did however produce one great legacy, both for the US and the RoW - he showed in graphic form how important the US is.

toiletduck

Biggins wrote: »

Valid point and I can see where your coming from.
However I'd have to point out that at least we signed it, acknowledged that there is a problem and are at least trying to stay as low as possible within the environmental limits laid out. We might be failing at doing so but we are at least trying with every month, to lower our emissions.

America's government thanks to Bush (until the last few months when they were forced by the sheer weight of evidence) basically has given two fingers up to the rest of the world as regarding helping the planet and even saying that there is a planet environment problem!

Fair enough, I see your point.


Jeez it's weird to think that his 8 years are nearly up.

Ludo

OS119 wrote: »

in Iraq he may actually have what appears to be a saving grace rather than his greatest (foreign) catastrophe - Iraq in 15 years is likely to be reasonably democratic and reasonably peaceful. he will be able to point to Iraq and say "i did that" - however the real story of his Iraq policy will be not what happened in the end, but how long it took to ditch obviously and repeatedly failed policies and personel before finally heading the professional advice he had been given since day one.

Bush's legacy will not be 'X' number of good things vs 'Y' number of bad things, but how long he spent f#cking up each policy before it produced the result he wanted.

But equally in 50 years it will be forgotten (by the majority) how many f#cked up attempts it took to get the desired result.
All that will matter is the end result.

So, if in 50 years Iraq is a shining example of democracy in the middle east which others are following, then Bush will have left an incredible legacy and be regarded as one of the greatest US presidents.

Those of us who know how it was all based on f#cked up policies, crap implementation, illegal acts, bare faced lies, torture, etc, etc, will be OAPs or dead. The history books will simply say Bush achieved this result.

OS119

Ludo wrote: »

But equally in 50 years it will be forgotten (by the majority) how many f#cked up attempts it took to get the desired result.
All that will matter is the end result.

So, if in 50 years Iraq is a shining example of democracy in the middle east which others are following, then Bush will have left an incredible legacy and be regarded as one of the greatest US presidents.

Those of us who know how it was all based on f#cked up policies, crap implementation, illegal acts, bare faced lies, torture, etc, etc, will be OAPs or dead. The history books will simply say Bush achieved this result.

this is true, but only if we don't get our children to read books.

if we don't educate our children then whether Bush was great or not is going to be the least of their problems.

FatherTed

Let's see... oh the littany of disaster the Bush Administration has done...

- Failing to act on August 2001 CIA memo entitled "Bin laden Determined to Attack in U.S."
- Slow/non response after Hurricane Katrina
- Terry Schivo
- Ahmed Chalabi
- Failing to give UN weapons inspectors enough time to certify if weapons existed in Iraq
- Cheney: Americans "will, in fact, be greeted as liberators"
- Deriding "nation-building" during the 2000 debates, then engaging American troops in one of the most explicit instances of nation building in American history
- Ignoring the advice Gen. Eric Shinseki regarding the need for more troops in Iraq
- Underestimating the cost of the Iraq war
- Nigerian Yellow Cake intelligence
- "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended" and "Mission Accomplished"
- Initially opposing the creation of the 9/11 commission
- Awarding no-bid contracts to Halliburton
- Lying about a Saddam-9/11 link
- Reducing resources and troop levels in Afghanistan and out before it was fully secure.
- Passing successive tax cuts largely responsible for turning a projected surplus of $5 trillion into a projected deficit of $4.3 trillion
- Not enforcing corporate tax laws
- Under-funding No Child Left Behind
- Breaking his campaign pledge to increase the size of Pell grants.
- Freezing funding for after school programs, potentially eliminating 50,000 children from after-school programs
- Abandoning the Kyoto Treaty
- Gutting clean air standards for aging power plants
- Pushed an energy bill containing $23.5 billion in corporate tax breaks, much of which would have benefited major campaign contributors.
- Patriot Act
- Guantanamo

Biggins

If you want a list of things he has done bad, here is 388 genuine recorded ones!

http://www.netrootsmass.net/hughs-bush-scandals-list/

If you haven't time to read them all, here is the summery: http://www.netrootsmass.net/category/hughs-bush-scandals-list/

Hobbes

Actually says 388. Still it is a good list. Thanks for the link.

Biggins

Hobbes wrote: »

Actually says 388. Still it is a good list. Thanks for the link.

Your welcome. I corrected the number.

At least his many antics are not going unrecorded, for example:

http://bushcrimes.net
&
http://pearly-abraham.tripod.com/htmls/bushlies1.html

...and he has 74 days to go still! :rolleyes: