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Posted on 04/15/2013 10:49:04 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
George W Bush: was he really that bad?
More than four years after George W Bush left the White House, his record is being reassessed and throws up similarities with Barack Obama, writes Alex Spillius
By Alex Spillius
1:10PM BST 15 Apr 2013
It is George W Bush’s particular achievement to be disliked by both sides in American politics.
Democrats of course excoriate the damage done to the budget by waging two wars while cutting taxes, his conduct after Hurricane Katrina and his shoot from the hip style, not to mention that fact that he presided over the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
His own Republican party utterly rejected him during the 2012 campaign. Tea Party types saw him as a big-spender guilty of extending federal government, while few who once stood with him were prepared to defend his military achievements.
But presidents tend to look better, or at least different, from a distance, and with the opening of his presidential centre in Texas, there are suggestions that Bush the younger may be more fondly remembered than was thought possible when he left the White House in January 2009 as the most unpopular president in living memory.
He was certainly more socially liberal than his critics give him credit for. No Child Left Behind, whatever its faults and funding, was a centralised attempt to raise educational standards across the board.
A new prescription drug benefit scheme may have been expensive (though Bush himself argues its cost has been exaggerated) but its aim was to make medicines more affordable for the elderly.
Bush failed in his most ambitious social reform of immigration law, but he was defeated primarily by the Right of his party, not the Democrats.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
GWB will be considered the greatest president in my life time... including reagan. GWB dealt with much greater threats, islamifascists and insane muzzies. the wars were necessary and costly due to concerns over political correctness.
i believe he was hoodwinked by the candidates to take the fall for the bailout so the new administration would not be burdened by it...at both parties incistance, he did what he thought best for his country.
i miss him.
t
True, but the subject at hand is Bush, not the current President.
Compared to Obama he was a choir boy.
Agreed. But there were so many failures without a conservative defense, that the only option for the GOP was to try to pass off McCain as something new. They couldn’t and didn’t run on ‘lets keep this great conservative estabishment going’ . Even if a conservative started using ‘the failed obama administration’ he would have people on the other side falling all over themselves to point to ‘successes’. As a president you can either succeed or stick to party principals. (The great ones do both). If you fail your party, and fail the country you have no where else to go. Id take Sr. and Bill over another bout of W. Maybe I’m still angry and the wound is still too fresh to see this clearly, and I can believe that with time my prospective may change.
My reason:
“his record is being reassessed and throws up similarities with Barack Obama”
Bush had enough sense to reject the war party’s craving for a war with Iran.
Bush I begat Clinton.
Bush II begat Obama.
Enough said.
If you want to give Bush credit for loving the country, go ahead - I think he does - but I think that’s more of a minimalist verification and not something that is credit worthy.
I think Bush gets a bum rap on a lot of things but with perspective that comes from the passage of time, I more and more see the damage he caused. At the end of the Clinton presidency, the deficit was going down and the population was committed to deficit reduction by cutting spending. Bush completely undermined fiscal Conservatism. Quite frankly, he didn’t believe in it. On economic issues, he wasn’t a conservative or even a moderate — he was a liberal Republican in the mold of his father and Rockefeller. We are now living with that result. The country has made a giant leap toward Socialism. Bush laid the groundwork for it.
He is a good man, he loves his country. Yes, when he crossed to work with the left on the education bill, I was so crushed as well. He is not as unpatriotic as Obama though like all presidents they will do as the shadower of that side tells to do to move us all in a direction of a global community.
I didn't like when he implemented a directive that our military could not use military force on the mosques that were hiding terrorists. I didn't like that our military was using political correctness to prosecute troops who were involved in incidents of war.
Reagan didn't allow the media to make his legacy, GW did so explains why there's this today. Getting in office while allowing your convictions to be guided by a media that hates you anyway is the aftermath legacy. I am thankful he and our troops got Saddam Hussein by doing so, we saved many people's lives and the solders were very brave. Laura Bush seems to love her country.
Laura Bush actually took up women's causes vs. running behind the scene with a radical type agenda.
Hopefully, when if ever, we elect another republican commander in chief, that person will learn from these previous mistakes and do the opposite of allowing your trust of the people to be lost.
It's the same thing most of us know. Be more like Reagan vs this compassionate thing which got us in deep trouble leading to where we have radical Obama. Yes, I'd take GW over Obama. I still would worry about the direction but not like this. I cannot buy into the 9-11 inside scenarios. I am also tired of some on our side as in radio personalities fighting back n forth/making threats as some have good causes tho, all of a sudden go nutty..
“Totally PO’d with Roberts.....TOTALLY.....disgusted. But I had no problem with most of his rulings when GWB was in office.”
If GW had his way, Harriet Myers would be on the Supreme Court today, not Alito. Likely the Obamacare decision would have been 6-3 if Myers was on the Court.
People forget that when we first went into Iraq a large segment of the American people, including congressional Rats, were for it. It only took a few months for those same Democrats that voted to go into Iraq to turn around and reject what they voted for-in fact many Democrats in congress secretly (and some not so secretly) hoped we would lose in Iraq so Bush would get a bloody nose.
Consider that the man spent eight years being literally hated by the media who gleefully played pocket-pool with their ethics and lied constantly about Bush and our troops exactly like their traitorous butt-buddys in the Democrat party.
That pretty much sums it up. I don’t see anything changing for the time-being.
I didn’t agree with EVERYTHING GWB did. I don’t expect 100% perfection from politicians. But......compared to what we’re saddled with now.....GWB is a SAINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Foisting McCain on us was an even bigger mistake than Romney, at least Romney was a successful business man.
Because people (including those on the right) now feel secure today most have forgotten the peril we were in.
In addition, Bush brought prosperity to a country which was in real danger of losing it. He had the deficit down to $200B at one point until Pelosi and her liars began to attack him on all fronts.
We were blessed to have Dubya at a time of peril. Mightily blessed.
How the Presidents Stack Up-Approval ratingd from Truman tthrough Obama
Of course not.
The problem is that disgruntled conservatives needed a whipping boy. Any politico that is not Christlike conservatively pure is subject to catching hell .
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