It’s not a question of only two positions, love Bush or hate him.
For instance, I fought the Miers nomination tooth and nail, not because I hated Bush but because I thought he was making a foolish mistake and that it would be better for him if he withdrew her before the Democrats gleefully confirmed her. I thought that if he admitted his mistake and moved on, then he could get back to doing good things.
Also the Iraq War. Just about all of us support it. Bush and Rummy had the good sense to go around the clintonoid hangers-on in the Pentagon and put Tommy Franks in charge, and in spite of Turkey’s sabotage the invasion was brilliantly conducted. But then the whole thing fell to pieces, largely because Bush had never bothered to clean out the State Department or the CIA or the other branches who were tasked with the occupation.
The CIA was totally incompetent, and the military had to build their own intelligence operation before they could even begin to capture Saddam and his leaders. The Rules of Engagement were stupid, the fight against the terrorists was half-hearted, the obvious next step of taking out Syria was neglected, giving the terrorists a base to work from.
There again, Bush had the right instincts, but his leadership was terrible, because he never took the trouble to put trusted and capable people in his various agencies. We had the lesson of LBJ’s half-hearted conduct of the Vietnam War and his unwillingness to do what needed to be done and let the generals do their job, yet Bush repeated LBJ’s mistakes.
Yes, Bush is a man of honor, but he seems not to understand how to run a country, hose out his enemies, or handle the press.
Now he is screwing up big time. Can he get back on track, as he did when he withdrew Miers and nominated Alito? Frankly, I don’t know. I was optimistic then, but much less optimistic now. He doesn’t seem to learn his lessons. This immigration fiasco is not just an insult to his base, it flies in the face of the rule of law, it violates the constitution, it is destructive of our country and its freedoms. If he keeps pushing it, as he seems determined to do, he will be remembered as a president who accomplished only a few good things—tax cuts, SCOTUS appointments, the defeat of the Taliban, and the defeat of Saddam.
So True. :^|
The thing that bothers me the most about his irrational push on the shamnesty bill is I think it’s mostly personal - Jeb’s wife is Mexican.
It’s irrational because open borders just make no sense with his stand on security. And if it’s irrational, all that’s left is that it is based on emotion.
GWB is willing to destroy this country in order to spare the feelings of family members. That’s just not good enough for a POTUS.