Posted on 10/29/2007 12:48:01 AM PDT by neverdem
This article appears in the "Geopolitics" section of the recent issue of The American.
By October, 15 months before his presidency would end, George Bushs approval ratings still hovered around 30 percent.
His administration will go down, say historians such as Columbias Eric Foner and Princetons Sean Wilentz, as a disaster. As Wilentz put it, Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.
A new genre in American popular culture has arisen comparing Bush to Hitler on the Internet, and in fiction, stand-up comedy, and drama. To the novelist Garrison Keillor, Bushs Republicans are brownshirts in pinstripes echoing Al Gores similar slur of digital brownshirts.
Even Bushs supporters seem resigned to such abuse. They now talk not of a restoration in public esteem before the president leaves office, but rather of a Trumanesque turnaround: a once-despised president only years later becomes appreciated for his unpopular but necessary decisions.
But for now, Bush seems to have an orphaned presidency defended by very few. From the left, he is criticized for his tax cuts for the rich, his lack of concern for African-American victims of Katrina, his illiberal homeland-security measures and always for Iraq, with shrill persistent choruses of preemption and unilateralism. Much of this anger against Bush is Pavlovian and superficial, deeply embedded within the presidents caricatured dead-or-alive, smoke-em-out lingo.
As a result, the left gives the president no credit for policies that have irked his conservative base. In his first term, he increased federal spending at a faster rate than Bill Clinton. He extended the reach of federal education policy with his No Child Left Behind legislation, and he did not veto a single spending bill, instead sponsoring a major new prescription entitlement...
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
With the GOP you get 70% of what you want and a seat at the table when the other 30% is discussed. With any Democrat, you get 100% of what you loath imposed on you. That is factual reality. All this gabbing about “Conservative Democrats” is just mental self abuse to gratify the pseudo intellectual's mistaken notion that by being against everything the poser is some how demonstrating “intellectual sophisticated”
Adult minds understand the fact that not everything can be ordered exactly the way they want it the second they decide they want it.
Better than a Carter or a Clinton, but nowhere close to a Reagan....
70% would be a 100% improvement over what we are getting...
“With any Democrat, you get 100% of what you loath imposed on you. That is factual reality.”
Then you must just LOVE being in Minnesota.
If it weren't for 9/11, he would have been toast for a second term.
The LSM won't give him credit for the tax cuts that helped the economy, and other than an initial firm response to terrorism, (my mind is slipping on the dates of his SCOTUS appointments), what did he really do to help the country?
He certainly won't protect the populace from criminal and diseased aliens, he signed the bill infringing on our First Amendment Rights, kowtows to Mexico every chance he gets, won't prosecute lawbreaking Dems to any extent, won't protect our sovereignty from the UN, won't stand up for his own appointees that besides the incompetent ones, did nothing more than have perfectly legal policy differences with Dems, ....
He'll be remembered as a tad better than mediocre.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced a $163 billion deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007. But the U.S. nation debt has grown by more than $500 billion over roughly that same period of time, which tells me the deficit figures posted by the U.S. Treasury are a pile of nonsense.
“Bush The Big Spender? Check Again”
Bush being within spitting distance from Clinton, is NOT an argument in favor of his policies. Spending, and immigration will be his two biggest mistakes looking back. Iraq could go either way. Supreme court appointments are by far his greatest accomplishment. I don’t dislike him as much as some, but he has not been a great president. He isn’t even in the same ballpark as Reagan.
That right just ignore all factual data coming out of Iraq. Ignore the fact that this is the last year of the Coalition Authority, at the request of the Iraqis! Ignore the fact that violence and casualties are down by more then 80%. Just ignore all facts from the ground in Iraq to cling to the Dincon “Realists” dogmas.
So much easier for the Dincons to simply keep screaming the same old lies then any of them ever having to admit they all have been totally wrong about Iraq from the start.
Try actually looking at some sources that don’t pander to your preconceived feelings one time.
Actually I wish more Presidents would accomplish nothing, keeps the amount of government spending down.
Cannot decide to be amused or appalled by your arrogant refusal to learn even a single fact about GW Bush’s Presidency. At some point even you are going to have to admit you have been rabidly wrong about Iraq from the start.
The William Harrison is your guy!
In 2003 (tax cut year) the federal revenue was $1.7 trillion and in 2007 (fiscal year) the federal revenue is $2.5 trillion. That's impressive...
That's not even funny.
The post you cite only measures discretionary spending. Thus, it ignores total spending and fails to include programs such as his Medicare drug benefit. Try again.
I am not talking about my thoughts. As important as I think they are, they are not sufficient to create a legacy. I am talking a majority of Americans, and although Iraq may eventually be considered a success story, it isn’t there yet, and may never get there. To you, Bush is a great president. You are a loyal Bush fan. Your opinion, like mine, cannot create a legacy on its own.
A change in public opinion is going to require more than you continuing to tell of great success over and over again. A majority of the public isn’t listening.
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