Posted on 11/10/2008 11:09:34 AM PST by meandog
“1976— the first presidential election after Watergate. 1992— The election after 4 years of Bush 41. Not much of a recommmendation there, chief.”
Of course. We are in the doo doo, but my point is the doo doo is perhaps as deep and no deeper than in those other times.
The other point is that we need to prepare for the opportunity to bounce back.
“And to say that Obama will be worse than Bush, does not mean much. AIDS is worse than Herpes, too, but I’d as soon not have either one.”
I fully expect Obama to be the worst president in my lifetime, from a conservative perspective. The media bias will be more blatant, and he has a sheen of popularity that will take some time to wear off, and may not ever. But the list of horribles for us will be about his socialist engineering, his tax-and-spend-and-regulate bills, his takeover of industries, his globaloney cap-n-trade, his payoffs to liberal special interests, and his appointments of leftwing liberal activists to the courts and regulatory agencies.
The idea that GWB, the second best president in our lifetime, will be even close to that bad is absurd. Bush to Obama is more like going from a plate of soggy fries for dinner to a plate of botulism-laced maggot-infested rat poison for dinner.
“I agree with you. I see BHO taking all the credit for any good that comes of Bush’s actions. You know what the media will do. Makes me sick sometimes.”
True. On January 21st 2009 we will suddenly find that we have actually won in Iraq... we won months ago already, but the media are holding back the good news to give credit where its not due.
“Do these Bush faithful realize almost every Conservative opinion outlet, NEWSMAX, national Review, has writers trashing their hero? I mean TWO elections, 2006+2008! Do they want three? “
Name a conservative outlet - including FR - that has NOT bashed Bushed at some time or another? You cant.
We need to put Bush in proper perspective, give him credit where its due since he did many good things, and recognize that his mistakes were non-ideological ones.
Here’s a reply to a lib on the Bush legacy and related matters.
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/11/answering-couldbetrue-on-bush-legacy.html
When I was a kid I knew a very old woman who was born when Andrew Johnson was President--that is, when Lincoln would have still been President if he had not been assassinated. Never asked her her evaluation of Presidents during her lifetime.
The financial meltdown is partly the result of Clinton's policies.
The only area where Clinton excelled was in keeping his own poll numbers up. There's no way that GWB deserves to be ranked lower than Clinton.
You over rate the Democrats.
Kennedy was a mediocrity who screwed up in the bay of pigs, let the USSR build the berlin wall, almost got us into nuclear war, and got us started in vietnam. JFK was popping pills and doing mafioso girlfriends while wiretapping MLK. He puts the scandals of CLinton to shame, but never got caught because the press was easier to pay off back then and they didnt have drudge to blow the cover on it.
LBJ was the worst president both in terms of his failed 60s liberal agenda, his long-term destruction to the family and the econoy with welfare system, and his failures in vietnam, which outweigh the mistakes in Iraq by a factor of about 100 to 1. LBJ wiretapped Goldwater’s HQ in 1964 abusing the FBI illegally to do it; worse than watergate. He stole the 1948 election to become senator. LBJ was a callous vicious thug of a politician. LBJ also appointed one of the worst supreme court justices, who I believe had to resign for corruption.
Ranking LBJ above anyone but Carter is lunacy. He was truly horrible.
“He was good on defense, judges and taxes”
“That he was, but those are the low hanging fruit.”
If it was so easy to get right - how come we now have a president-elect who will be so drastically HORRIBLE on all 3? I mean this is the top 3 issues to worry about!
“most of all national leadership in presenting a vision of America to combat the dry rot of leftism, he sucked” - Uh, name 2 presidents in our lifetimes who have done better on that score ... You Cant!
We grade GWB against perfection and he passes, and we grade Democrats against “did they send us into depression and world war” and they pass. Why we are so biased against our own is beyond me.
Bush got many basics right, and was non-conservative on several items, which was unfortunate.
“Not sad, just expected. Karl Rove is overrated. He doesn’t understand the psyche of the American people looking for freebies from “their gubment”.”
He fell into the trap of thinking a little bit of pandering could win votes.
Real lesson: You can NEVER out pander the Democrats. They are the pros (and they are about to spend us into bankruptcy doing it).
The big media push will be the push to blame everything bad on Bush, even under the Obama / Democrat watch.
HERE IS THE PUSH BACK SOLUTION - PAY ATTENTION THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR THE NEXT 2-4 YEARS: We have to make people realize that the Democrat Congress started in January 2007 and the policies of spending, bailouts, tax increases and re-regulations, all started back then. Using that as the baseline, you can begin to see that the economic weakness and stock market and other things all were started DUE TO DEMOCRAT POLICIES.
The Democrat Congress is not popular and for good reason. They are too far left, incompetent and doing the wrong things. That unpopularity can translate to Obama in due course unless the economy turns around. But it wont turn around because in reality their economic program is a program for economic stagnation.
Liberals claim Bush did absolutely nothing for new Orleans because that is conservative philosophy. Facts dont get in the way for them. Here’s a take on that:
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/11/answering-couldbetrue-on-bush-legacy.html
These sites now blame Bush as does Palin. My list is below at link. Katrina was not on it but I think that many problems that resonatied with the public, like gas prices and Katrina, would not have hurt him so bad if Iraq was not such a problem (again see my list.) My complains are conservative. He grew a huge government without a way of running it or controlling it.
I talk to many different people at work and on travel and watch MSNBC (I cant since the election) to see what sticks and what can be defended. Many who keep faith in GWB seem to be in a vaccum, the media alone could NOT have caused 2006+2008. Thinking like that will cause 2010.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2128551/posts?page=93#93
You're right - a feeling of sadness rushes over me... yes, of course - they do write the history books.
I rate legacy in terms of something a president can call his accomplishment, i.e.:
Reagan—Total defeat of monolithic communism and winning of the Cold War.
Eisenhower—The Interstate Highway System, beginning of nuclear power, especially the nuclear Navy, school integration.
Kennedy—Space exploration, man to the moon, creation of Spec. Ops in armed forces.
Truman—Ending of WWII, dropping A-Bomb; integretion of Armed Forces.
Ford—Holding nation together after Watergate.
LBJ—Civil Rights legislation.
GHWB—Gulf War I (incomplete)
Clinton—Bosnia (overshadowed by failings on Somalia, failure to capture OBL).
GW Bush—9/11 aftermath but incomplete on Gulf War 2; (he will rise with stable Iraq and Afghanistan; stay where he’s at on my list if they aren’t stable because of Katrina, economy).
Nixon—Opened China, but overshadowed by Watergate.
Carter—Egypt and Israeli peace accord but seriously flawed by rise and humiliation of Irani capture of Americans, Desert rescue flop, economy, and Islamic fundamentalism fomented by Ayatollah Khomeni).
Kennedy's main achievement was giving inspiring speeches, like the "I am a jelly doughnut" speech at the Berlin Wall. The space program began under Eisenhower and the first moon landing was in the Nixon administration.
Abe Fortas was one of LBJ's Supreme Court picks, and the one who resigned under fire, after LBJ's attempt to elevate him to Chief Justice had failed. Nixon gave us 2 good justices and 2 terrible ones. Eisenhower gave us Earl Warren, which seemed like a good idea at the time but which he later regarded as one of his worst mistakes, I believe.
Truman's most important accomplishment was crafting a strategy for the Cold War--and he had a harder time than Eisenhower since he was dealing with Stalin, and Eisenhower was dealing with Stalin's successors. I don't know if Truman could have done anything to prevent mainland China from falling to Mao. He might have prevented the Korean War if he had not agreed to partition Korea in 1945, but that was an afterthought at the time, I think.
To find that 'rats are wrong on the issues goes without saying.
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