Posted on 05/28/2006 1:37:09 PM PDT by ncountylee
Through his presidency, George W. Bush has worked hard to avoid repeating the mistakes of his father. He has done almost everything differently, yet now finds himself in the same hole despite trumping his dad by winning a second term.
He is roughly at the same place in the polls where the elder Bush was at the low point of his presidency, with only about three of every 10 Americans registering approval. Like his father before him, this president faces a rebellion among conservatives, an uncertain economic outlook and the prospect of Republican losses in November.
The first President Bush liked to quote Yogi Berra, his favorite pop philosopher, and his curious take on a baseball loss: "We made too many wrong mistakes."
What were the biggest mistakes of George W. Bush's presidency? When asked that at an April 2004 news conference, he said he could not think of any. A far more subdued Bush now acknowledges some major ones _ and not the ones his father made.
They include "kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people," Bush said at a Thursday news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He said the inhumane treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison was one of the darkest marks on his watch.
"Now I think he wishes he had not taken a blanket view that everything his father did was wrong," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas professor who has closely studied the Bush family. "Staying out of Baghdad looks like a brilliant move at this point." During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the first President Bush did not send U.S. troops into Baghdad to oust President Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi arm from Kuwait.
(Excerpt) Read more at kfmb.com ...
Yeah we need to elect a Republican House and Senate. That'll fix it.
Can't agree. George (or more appropriately Jorge) is in "lock step" with the Senate on amnesty.
You Sir, appear to be reading the United States Contitution the way you want it to be. The Founding Fathers did not ever intend for the President whoever he is to be in equal status with the elected legistlature.
"Yeah" I'm sure. What I've seen in all of this is that no one seems to know that "We the People" are the ones really in charge. Call the legistlaturers and send them letters and emails. More people need to get out and vote and get involved. More people need to start understanding that "We the People" are the ones that are really in charge and stop letting this "inside the beltway crowd" keep telling all of us that the President is the problem, when they are the real problem and like the President "We the People" put them there.
I guess what I was trying to say is that the Senate is to blame for giving the President the amnesty. Remember that meeting Bush had with the leftists and RINOS about illegal immigration? I imagine he told them to do exactly what they did - not only provide for amnesty, but make it an all expense paid trip for anyone who can get across and load it up with so much nonesense that even after the House toughens it up, it's still amnesty.
I don't understand why W and the rest of the amnesty crowd refuse to get on board with a secue the border first approach, then provide for amnesty, then guest worker. Why they are so adamant about leaving the flood gates open remains to be seen. Here is what President KerryUsama04 would do
I agree with you on the amnesty and that right now things look really really bad. Like everyone else, I am at a loss why he borders weren't secured 9/12/01. I am more than cool with killing as many jihadis as possible wherever they are, but to not secue the border, let alone while fighting a terrorist type war, is unconscionable.
I just don't agree with you that President Bush's Presidency has been anything short of success for conservatism in general so far.
LOL! Oh man, you are a riot. How, pray tell did you end up with "Apparently you just do not like President Bush?" I NEVER said I didn't like Bush!! He was NOT the one marching in the street! He was NOT the one telling us that America was his land and he was NOT the one telling Americans to go back to Europe! I don't like ILLEGALS!! NOT Hispanics or Mexicans who have assimilated into our culture and who became AMERICANS through LEGAL IMMIGRATION!! I don't like CRIMINALS!!
What do you mean "90% latinos already have terrorists?" Do you ever read what you're posting before you post? "Anyway, it is a matter of principles, either you are for amnesty or not whether it is before 9/11 or before 9/11". Did you stutter, or did you mean to say before 9/11 or AFTER 9/11? You should know by now that I'm 100% AGAINST amnesty. Period!
Btw, it has NOTHING to do with "principles." It has to do with intelligence and common sense! ANYONE who isn't afraid of what illegals are doing, or will do to America/Americans is NOT very intelligent. Common sense dictates the danger to intelligent people!!
In regards to 90% of Latinos, I meant that 90% of illegal immigrants are Latinos i.e. no way to have islamic terrorists from this group, but in your posts you are making it sounds that terrorists are already here and they came here illegally from the Southern borders. By the way the 9/11 terrorists cam here legally in case you are not aware of this
Anyway, you argument is weak. Your silly attempt to defend President Reagan who gave amnesty to 3 millions illegal immigrants and attack President Bush who did not give amnesty to anyone shows that you do not like President Bush.
In regards to intelligence, I am not going to argue with you there, you seems extremely smart and I advise that you wear a helmet all the time because your brain is a national treasure that needs to be preserved.
While most everything said in the article is wrong, in an odd way the central point is correct.
I think what has hurt GWB the most is the 'vision thing'. Conservatives backed Reagan even when we disagreed on details because we believed in the vision of the future that Reagan was heading towards.
But GWB has been weak on vision. He has been solid on Iraq and terror, but inarticulate in explaining it to an American people awash in media nonsense. And he has badly shaken his conservative supporters with missteps like Harriet, and his stance on immigration - which, to give credit where due, is entirely consistent with his weak stance on immigration forever.
There is no sense that GWB, or his father, share in a conservative vision of where America ought to be heading. So while the economy is strong, and the war in Iraq going well, and progress made in multiple areas - conservatives still feel a need to double check everything GWB does.
It is hard to trust him - as it was hard to trust his father, who in my humble opinion was one of the most underrated of American Presidents.
MAJOR? Using a few strong words and an incident that he had nothing to do with? His biggest mistake was in thinking that he would get fair reporting from the old media.
That assumes avoiding low approvals is the goal of a Presidency. But it's not. A President had to lead us into a confrontation with the screwed up Middle East. Whoever did it, it was not going to make him popular.
Me too.
The least of GWB's 'problems' was his tough 'dead or alive' talk.
It was his failure to stand up to the bogus JoeWilson-supporting media during the Bush lied blitz.
The nation, not to mention conservatives, would have been thrilled to see someone at the White House, ANYONE, stand up and point out the Wilson-wife-CIA conspiracy to manufacture bogus claims against the Administration.
WHAT FREAKIN CIA operative is allowed to hire her President-hating husband to perform a critical task, and then afterwards publish total seditionist lies in the NY TIMES, as did Wilson.
If GWB had any balls, he would have had Plame fired and/or arrested for insubordination.
And then there's Katrina. If Bush would have just abandoned this "new tone" bullcrap, and come out and said the truth: that FEMA has never ever responsible for the first 48 hours after a catastrophe. It's always been local and state, followed by FEMA money and assistance.
Every single federal helicopter was SAVING LIVES and plucking people from trees and rooftops the first 36 hours. Food and water got there in due course, after workers chopped their way through 150 miles of downed trees on roadways.
BUT Bush was too wimpy to shout that truth from the rooftops.
Then he pulled a Harriet Miers, followed by a Dubai/UAE brain fart, topped off by this suicidal illegal immigration amnesty.
To top it off. As a member of the media myself, I know how debilitating a three-year long media barrage is on an organization, and this lamestream media came out with slanted anti-Bush stories non-stop.
I thought GWB would be tougher than his dad. But it turned out the apple does not fall far from the tree, to coin a cliche.
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