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Bush and history

Disagreeable

Well-known member
Worst President Ever?
Read what the historians said 19 months ago.

http://hnn.us/articles/5019.html


And today: One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush in Rolling Stone Magazine. How does Georgie rate? Not well. Excerpts; link below; my emphasis.

George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.”

“Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties -- Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush -- have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.”

No previous president appears to have squandered the public's trust more than Bush has…”

“…In 1965, Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam travails gave birth to the phrase "credibility gap," meaning the distance between a president's professions and the public's perceptions of reality. It took more than two years for Johnson's disapproval rating in the Gallup Poll to reach fifty-two percent in March 1968 -- a figure Bush long ago surpassed, but that was sufficient to persuade the proud LBJ not to seek re-election. Yet recently, just short of three years after Bush buoyantly declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq, his disapproval ratings have been running considerably higher than Johnson's, at about sixty percent. More than half the country now considers Bush dishonest and untrustworthy, and a decisive plurality consider him less trustworthy than his predecessor, Bill Clinton -- a figure still attacked by conservative zealots as "Slick Willie."

No other president -- Lincoln in the Civil War, FDR in World War II, John F. Kennedy at critical moments of the Cold War -- faced with such a monumental set of military and political circumstances failed to embrace the opposing political party to help wage a truly national struggle. But Bush shut out and even demonized the Democrats. Top military advisers and even members of the president's own Cabinet who expressed any reservations or criticisms of his policies -- including retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill -- suffered either dismissal, smear attacks from the president's supporters or investigations into their alleged breaches of national security. The wise men who counseled Bush's father, including James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, found their entreaties brusquely ignored by his son. When asked if he ever sought advice from the elder Bush, the president responded, "There is a higher Father that I appeal to."


“All the while, Bush and the most powerful figures in the administration, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were planting the seeds for the crises to come by diverting the struggle against Al Qaeda toward an all-out effort to topple their pre-existing target, Saddam Hussein. In a deliberate political decision, the administration stampeded the Congress and a traumatized citizenry into the Iraq invasion on the basis of what has now been demonstrated to be tendentious and perhaps fabricated evidence of an imminent Iraqi threat to American security, one that the White House suggested included nuclear weapons. Instead of emphasizing any political, diplomatic or humanitarian aspects of a war on Iraq -- an appeal that would have sounded too "sensitive," as Cheney once sneered -- the administration built a "Bush Doctrine" of unprovoked, preventive warfare, based on speculative threats and embracing principles previously abjured by every previous generation of U.S. foreign policy-makers, even at the height of the Cold War. The president did so with premises founded, in the case of Iraq, on wishful thinking. He did so while proclaiming an expansive Wilsonian rhetoric of making the world safe for democracy -- yet discarding the multilateralism and systems of international law (including the Geneva Conventions) that emanated from Wilson's idealism. He did so while dismissing intelligence that an American invasion could spark a long and bloody civil war among Iraq's fierce religious and ethnic rivals, reports that have since proved true. And he did so after repeated warnings by military officials such as Gen. Eric Shinseki that pacifying postwar Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of American troops -- accurate estimates that Paul Wolfowitz and other Bush policy gurus ridiculed as "wildly off the mark."

When William F. Buckley, the man whom many credit as the founder of the modern conservative movement, writes categorically, as he did in February, that "one can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed," then something terrible has happened. Even as a brash young iconoclast, Buckley always took the long view. The Bush White House seems incapable of doing so, except insofar as a tiny trusted circle around the president constantly reassures him that he is a messianic liberator and profound freedom fighter, on a par with FDR and Lincoln, and that history will vindicate his every act and utterance.


There’s lots more from this Princeton professor at the link below. Oh, the cover is a worth a look, too. :lol:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/the_worst_president_in_history?rnd=1145540417609&has-player=false
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
Faster horses said:
Dis, do you realize you are obsessed with President Bush?

Are you stalking him as well?

You need help, girl, and baaaaad.

Do you realize that you're obsessed with me? Are you stalking me? You should seek mental health assistance as soon as possible. :D
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
Faster horses said:
Huh! You don't even have an original thought. All you do is cut and paste.

:lol: When I came on this board, I was the only, the only, person against the Iraqi war. Most people posting then thought George's poop didn't stink. I got bashed, insulted, threatened, but I kept posting. Today there are several people that actually agree with my position on the war posting here. According to my PMs there are also more that don't post. You, on the other hand, are a sheep, baaaa, following the crowd, which is getting smaller. Your posts mostly consist of insults and rude cartoons. I doubt that any of those are original with you.
 

Southdakotahunter

Well-known member
Like i said before. Some are just praying and hoping that the pres drives this country into the dirt, and they wake up every morning hoping for the worst. Sad Sad Sad.

I am not saying some repubs are any better tho. I remember the clinton years and the repubs did the same. What this country really needs is more people that look at the sky as partly sunny, instead of mostly cloudy.
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
Southdakotahunter said:
Like i said before. Some are just praying and hoping that the pres drives this country into the dirt, and they wake up every morning hoping for the worst. Sad Sad Sad.

Sad is true. This president has driven this country into the dirt. I had no particular agenda for against Bush when he was elected. But no one who really looks at where he has led this country can defend his incompetence.

I am not saying some repubs are any better tho. I remember the clinton years and the repubs did the same. What this country really needs is more people that look at the sky as partly sunny, instead of mostly cloudy.

The bashing the Republicans and the press gave Bill Clinton has made many people reluctant to call for impeachement of Bush. That's wrong. This man is a danger to this country. He has used our military for his own selfish, personal vendetta, he's running up a debt that our grandchildren may be paying, he's provoked Muslims all over the world by calling for a crusade, he's divided our country more than I can ever remember. It's time Americans voted to get that rubber stamp Congress out and put in some people who aren't afraid to stand up to the president.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Disagreeable said:
:lol: When I came on this board, I was the only, the only, person against the Iraqi war. Most people posting then thought George's poop didn't stink. I got bashed, insulted, threatened, but I kept posting. Today there are several people that actually agree with my position on the war posting here. According to my PMs there are also more that don't post.
Must be a real big fan club you've got there, dis. Every time you post something about changing all the hearts and minds around here, I zip over to check out your website. Just positive that you would have added a political commentary page. Or maybe gathering e-signatures for an anti-war petition. Or maybe a link from there back to some of your anti-war, anti-Bush words of wisdom here. Nothing. :(

A person would almost think that you're ashamed of the positions you take on here. If you're really all that confident in yourself and your newfound following, why not be completely honest and open about it? :lol:
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
I thought about the same thing. If she is so proud of what she comes up with, why is she trying to keep her identity hidden?

What is the website, X. Please share it with us...
 

mp.freelance

Well-known member
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Dis loves being the center of attention, which is why he/she posts on this board. The best way to do that is by disagreeing with everyone. Dis isn't so stupid as to think he/she is actually making a difference in people's opinion - it's just a desperate cry for attention. Pretty pitiful, actually.
 

BBJ

Well-known member
mp.freelance said:
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Dis loves being the center of attention, which is why he/she posts on this board. The best way to do that is by disagreeing with everyone. Dis isn't so stupid as to think he/she is actually making a difference in people's opinion - it's just a desperate cry for attention. Pretty pitiful, actually.

I bet dis's response to this will be ROTFLMAO.


But your right mp.f :wink:
 

Cal

Well-known member
Faster horses said:
I thought about the same thing. If she is so proud of what she comes up with, why is she trying to keep her identity hidden?

What is the website, X. Please share it with us...
My geuss would be
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Faster horses said:
I thought about the same thing. If she is so proud of what she comes up with, why is she trying to keep her identity hidden?

What is the website, X. Please share it with us...
Sorry guys. I really would like to. You don't know how badly I want to. Especially when she ignores me so much. :( But I just can't do that. It wouldn't be right. She has the right to remain an anonymous coward if she so chooses. Just like I do. :lol:

But if she is so sure of herself and all of the 'support' that she claims to have, I just don't understand why she doesn't come out of the closet. In fact, I would even encourage her to do it.

Come on, dis. You know it will be a big relief for you. Tell us all who you are. I will be the first one to support your right to dissent from the mainstream American rancher. Not support YOU, just your right to have a different opinion than normal cattlemen.
 

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