Posted on 01/20/2009 2:50:44 AM PST by VU4G10
Newsmax.com Editorial
"This administration has had a good, solid record, and I'm very proud of it. I tell people I leave town with a great sense of accomplishment and my head held high.”
—George W. Bush, Jan. 13, 2009
As the 43rd president waves goodbye to Washington, relatively few Americans share his proud assessment of his own presidency.
George W. Bush leaves the White House with one of the lowest approval ratings in history. According to Gallup, only Richard Nixon and Harry Truman, who suffered the double whammy of a bad economy and the unpopular Korean War, had lower approval ratings when they left the White House.
Today, Bush’s legacy to his successor is two unresolved wars, a global image that is deeply tarnished, and the greatest economic crisis in modern times.
Conservatives who backed Bush in two successive elections have little to show for their efforts. Bush, in fact, has decimated the Republican brand.
Bush oversaw the greatest increase in discretionary social spending in history as the federal government usurped new powers in its war on terror. He placed the United States on a global interventionist path for the elusive goal of “democracy.” Ronald Reagan would not be able to recognize the party he knew, which espoused limited government, protection of personal liberty, and the idea that the U.S. should lead globally by example rather than by force.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
That’s becoming the legacy of the Republican party.
“And if a major terror attack were to take place under the new Obama administration, his supporters will be quick to pin the blame on the Bush regime.”
While I agree with thier general ideas, and this is probably true, it should be BS.
A major attack took place under a “new” Bush administration and all I heard was “Bush’s watch” blah blah blah.
Don’t think I wouldn’t say “Obama’s watch”, God forbid anything were to happen.
re: Bush, in fact, has decimated the Republican brand
The ‘Republican Brand’ could have withstood the Bush years if the Republican leadership and its minions had stood up for conservative principles.
Much listed as in the tank under Bush is little more than the problems eight plus years of constant haranguing by the MSM/Lefties cabal have led to. What a pile of steaming BS.
> Conservatives who backed Bush in two successive elections have little to show for their efforts. Bush, in fact, has decimated the Republican brand.
Well, let’s see. Bush described himself as a “Compassionate Conservative”, and to be fair he tended to tell things the way they were.
Guess what? He was precisely what he said he was. Some Conservatives now see that “Compassionate” doesn’t really mean “Hard-line”, it means something a little more soft than that.
People have no cause nor excuse for feeling “betrayed” by this: Truth in Advertizing — they got from Bush what he said he’d deliver. Compassionate Conservatism. More to the center than to the far right.
I'd go for "badly let down", "disserved", or "politically mismanaged", however.
Wonder how Karl Rove is supposed to have earned his keep under the Bush Administration? Readers will have noticed that he bailed out as soon as things got a little warm for him personally, and he didn't provide for a successor -- suggestive of narcissistic motives ("they can't do without me, and I'm going to prove it when I leave!").
Somebody needed to kneecap the BS pouring out of the WaPo/NYT/CBS/CNN propaganda axis, and Rove didn't get it done. Neither did he train up other talent to help him and President Bush get it done. The last 30 months have been a disaster politically.
True conservatives were disappointed in his presidency as were true liberals. That is quite an accomplishment!
The sad part is that after years of hard work to get Reagan in office, to get a Republican House, to get a Republican Senate. To finally have all three at once under Bush, it was a chance to show this country what could happen with conservatives in control.
Just to have him throw all our advantage away, just to “reach across the isle”.
No Bully pulpit
No Vetoes
No leadership
Even liberal, big government programs that will be with us forever, (No child left behind, Free drugs).
Bush’s legacy, - Conservatives were betrayed.
I feel like bush put Washington above many of his constituents during his presidency. The Harriet Myers issue comes to mind
Uhhh, "compassionate" turns out to have meant, "everybody in northern Mexico gets to immigrate free", and it means "let's bump off strong conservatives in local government and education" and "let's go ahead and succumb to Democratic budget blackmail".
People did not bargain for Open Borders -- Bush sprang that one on them after he won South Carolina and sewed up the nomination in 2000, remember? He announced after the fact that the GOP was going to take the OBL line.
With Karl Rove guiding his steps, he steadily walked away from conservatives from 2000 on, except when they dragged him kicking and screaming back to performing his constitutional duty to enforce immigration laws and to defending DOMA, which cost him the alliance with the Log Cabins that he and Rove had been working on for years.
Giving him credit where it's due, he did take a strong line against euthanasia (an insurance-industry project), human sacrifice for science and the creeping practice of infanticide-at-will.
How was he supposed to do that in a free country?
He did try to depoliticize Social Security, which was good, but the approach was politically inept and didn't account adequately for furious MSM opposition.
He also warned the public repeatedly about the dangerous games Clintonistas had been playing with Freddie and Fannie and got no respect -- again, that was a communication failure that Ronald Reagan would not have put up with nor succumbed to MSM distortion and opposition on.
Freddie and Fannie were a failure of leadership by congressional Republicans in 1999 -- led by House Speaker Denny Hastert and Sens. Trent Lott, Bill Frist, and the always-obstructive-and-unhelpful John McCain.
Have fun, haters--you don't have GWB to kick around anymore.
Still a few hours left to declare the Democratic party illegal and have all the congress and house thrown in jail.
Thank god... as I don't think the constitution or the country could take much more of his "leadership"...
Now I’m down with that struggle...
> Uhhh, “compassionate” turns out to have meant, “everybody in northern Mexico gets to immigrate free”, and it means “let’s bump off strong conservatives in local government and education” and “let’s go ahead and succumb to Democratic budget blackmail”.
In which case he can perhaps be fairly criticized for being “too compassionate”. I would have thought it sensible for Conservatives to scope what he believed “compassionate Conservative” to mean.
It’s like pizza. The time to specify the toppings on your pizza is when you place your order, and not after you finish eating it.
Getting too much of what you’ve ordered isn’t “betrayal”: if you order your pizza with anchovies and you get too many anchovies, well that’s partly your fault. But the pizza place didn’t “betray” you: you just weren’t clear. And if you wanted that changed, the time to do that is just after the pizza arrives, not after you finish off the last slice.
As with pizza, so with presidents.
With Obama, America seems to have ordered a free pizza with extra of all the toppings. He’s going to give a few extra toppings that they don’t know about, and skip out a few toppings that they’ve asked for, make it Halal and then find a way to make them pay extra for it and when they tell him it’s all wrong, it’s going to be “Bush’s fault.”
And some Conservatives are going to let them do that.
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