News Is george w bush the worst president ever?

[russ_watters]

One thing different about the Bush Presidency is that it has been veiled in secrecy. Until the secret web is untangled, if ever, history scholars will be to a great great extent left in the dark.

This is an important point as well. I forgot one issue that may produce a serious, lasting stain (his penchant for rewriting/interpreting laws himself), but another, the events at Guantanamo Bay, will not be laid bare until after he leaves office and the next President has to clean up the mess.

 

[Adeimantus]

What, have you guys forgotten about http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6470450895164255089&q=clinton+chronicles&pr=goog-sl ?

"All information presented in this program is documented and true."

 

[mgb_phys]

One thing different about the Bush Presidency is that it has been veiled in secrecy. Until the secret web is untangled, if ever, history scholars will be to a great great extent left in the dark.

Unfortunately, presumably as part of it's commitment to green policies and saving money - the white house recycled all it's email backup tapes for 2001-2003.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011602202.html?hpid=topnews

 

[falc39]

it's a twofer on this one. Bush isn't intelligent enough to do this much damage alone, he needs his partner in crime, VP Cheney! Worst combo ever, you bet!

 

[wildman]

Well, I'm Canadian, so I suppose I have no right to comment, but it seems to me that if you agree with the founding fathers on much of anything, than Abraham Lincoln was the worst president.

Actually outside opinions are quite interesting and should be made.

 

[WheelsRCool]

IMO, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter were the worst Presidents. Bush IMO has been a fairly good President overall.

 

[binzing]

Well, the Founding Fathers were hypocrites who owned (and in the case of Jefferson, propogated with) slaves. Myths have a way of softening and distorting things.

 

[BadDog]

Herbie, and yes, Bush is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie_Husker

 

[Kurdt]

Depends which way you look at it. He was an absolutely excellent president for the international bankers he represents. He got them the oil and defense contracts they so desperately wanted while taking away the civil liberties of the ordinary US populace.

 

[DrClapeyron]

I don't see anything bad about Bush's presidency. He has done an outstanding job reacting to 9/11, I don't think there is much more anyone could do, he certainly has not left the country strongly divided on his actions.

But, Americans have an odd way of judging presidents. Nixon ended the gold standard, the most unpopular war in US history and started trade relations with China! Yet he is the most hated president ever because a party conection related him to a rather childish crime.

 

[pitot-tube]

I don't see anything bad about Bush's presidency. He has done an outstanding job reacting to 9/11, I don't think there is much more anyone could do, he certainly has not left the country strongly divided on his actions.

But, Americans have an odd way of judging presidents. Nixon ended the gold standard, the most unpopular war in US history and started trade relations with China! Yet he is the most hated president ever because a party conection related him to a rather childish crime.

In my opinion Bill Clinton and George Bush senior are the bad presidents the US has had in the last thirty years.Bush senior could have sorted saddam out 17 years ago and Clinton's sanctions made Iraqi's suffer to the extent that more of them were dying because of sanctions than because of the current war in Iraq.

 

[DeadWolfe]

Has the Bush administration really done much damage to civil liberties in any practical sense.? I mean, (as I understand it) the PATRIOT act widens the scope of allowable searches and wiretaps, but to what degree is this really being used? It seems that other causes are doing more damage to civil liberties: The War on Drugs, hate crime legislation, the death penalty, insane litigation rulings, etc...

In fact, what President in the past 50 years has shown any sign of respecting the notion that the government has no business legislating morality? Let's all admit it, the reason Bush gets a bad rap is because he is baffoonish, not because of any of his policies.

 

[turbo]

In fact, what President in the past 50 years has shown any sign of respecting the notion that the government has no business legislating morality? Let's all admit it, the reason Bush gets a bad rap is because he is baffoonish, not because of any of his policies.

Well, let's consider a few things:
-Lied about Iraqi WMDs - none found
-Lied about Iraqi nuclear weapons program, citing aluminum tubes for centrifuges and procurement of yellowcake from Niger - tubes unsuitable for that purpose, story about attempt to procure yellowcake was fabricated
-Lied about Iraqi involvement in 9/11 attacks - main participants hailed from Saudi Arabia, the leaders of which are close Bush family friends.
-Hustled Saudis (including Bin Laden family) out of US shortly after 9/11 so that they could not be questioned, while US citizens were forbidden to fly.
-Outed Valerie Plame, who was a CIA NOC tasked with preventing the proliferation of WMDs, specifically in Iran. Can you spell treason?
-Issued many hundreds of "signing statements" "exempting" his administration from complying with laws passed by Congress.
-Destroyed over a year's worth of public records (emails) in direct contravention of the law.
-Authorized kidnapping and torture of people (many of whom are demonstrably innocent) in violation of US law and the Geneva convention.
-Suspended Habeas Corpus for any person that the Administration labels "terrorist".

The list goes on and on, and due to the extraordinary secrecy with which this administration cloaks its activities, we may never know the extent of the damage that they have willfully inflicted on our country and the world. Bush is a tool of the neocons - a willing warmonger who smirks and giggles as he sends US service-people to their deaths to destabilize the ME and pump countless billions of dollars into the petro-giants and military contractors. None of this crap protects US citizens, nor does it help our economy, feed our populace, or help people improve their lives. Many of the Guard deployed to Iraq had (operative word!) their own businesses, homes, etc, and stand to lose everything. They should have been here at home to respond to disasters and emergencies, but instead they and their generators, water-trucks, medical equipment, etc, etc, are half-way around the world enriching neo-cons at our expense. The damage that Bushco has wreaked on our full-time and part-time military may not be measurable (in total) for many years.

 

[denverdoc]

I don'ot see anything bad about Bush's presidency. He has done an outstanding job reacting to 9/11, I don't think there is much more anyone could do, he certainly has not left the country strongly divided on his actions.

But, Americans have an odd way of judging presidents. Nixon ended the gold standard, the most unpopular war in US history and started trade relations with China! Yet he is the most hated president ever because a party conection related him to a rather childish crime.

Now that's about the most egregiously narrowminded remark I've even seen on PF for many moons. An outstanding job of reacting to 9/11? No terrorist, including OBL, could have dreamed of a better rxn. He has wasted more money, eroded civil liberties in a land we call free, and been a better recruit agent for terrorism than any misguided dozen individuals in power could have managed alone. He fell for it hook, line and sinker--course whem you're hovering at a 40 percent approval rating erm-i can see where he needed a shot in the arm. Too bad it has cost a trillion plus and created animosity everywhere. He needed that second term. Bush by far, not even a contest.

 

[pitot-tube]

whem you're hovering at a 40 percent approval rating erm-i van see where he needed a shot in tst teirarly in a the arm. Too bad it has cost a trillion plus and created animosity everywhere. He needed that second term. Bush by far, not even a contest.

I can't agree with this - I don't believe Bush went into Iraq because of poor opinion poll ratings - he wouldn't have received support from so many other people in the US government and senate - republican or otherwise for this.The question was always was saddam a nuclear or chemical threat - Bush may have lied about this or kidded himself saddam was a threat in this regard.Sanctions were killing lots of iraqis and something had to change - Bush tried to change the situation.You can call him naiive about how he tried to change the situation in iraq.I've no doubt that peole like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld thought they had a workable strategy for improving the sityuation in the middle east as a whole for the long term.The problem the Bush administration has had is that they didn't listen to iraqi exiles who were saying that invasion would lead to tribal chaos
and also they underestimated how bad European countries are at committing themselves
to war, which given how hard the mainland of europe suffered in world war 2 is not surprising. But guantanamo bay is undeniably a bad thing and if innocent people have been torured there ( using sleep deprivation loud noises and humiliation) then Bush should face charges.Even Colin Powell wants Guantanamo shut down so it must be awful.

 

[Kurdt]

It wasn't up to Bush to change the situation in the middle east. Thats up to the people in the middle east. The only reason he went to Iraq was for the huge profits it would generate for him and his friends.

 

[Integral]

As already pointed out, the UN gave tacit approval and congress gave specific approval, but even assuming you are correct about his motives, what law, exactly, was broken?

Was Vietnam a less unnecessary war?

You seem to have forgotten, Vietnam was not a war, it was a police action. There was never a declaration of war, it built slowly. The blame for that "police action" needs to be spread from Eisenhower to Johnson, maybe even a bit of Nixon, thought he did finally end it. And for that I will never forgive him.

 

[Astronuc]

I can't agree with this - I don't believe Bush went into Iraq because of poor opinion poll ratings - he wouldn't have received support from so many other people in the US government and senate - republican or otherwise for this.The question was always was saddam a nuclear or chemical threat - Bush may have lied about this or kidded himself saddam was a threat in this regard.Sanctions were killing lots of iraqis and something had to change - Bush tried to change the situation.You can call him naiive about how he tried to change the situation in iraq.I've no doubt that peole like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld thought they had a workable strategy for improving the sityuation in the middle east as a whole for the long term.The problem the Bush administration has had is that they didn't listen to iraqi exiles who were saying that invasion would lead to tribal chaos
and also they underestimated how bad European countries are at committing themselves
to war, which given how hard the mainland of europe suffered in world war 2 is not surprising. But guantanamo bay is undeniably a bad thing and if innocent people have been torured there ( using sleep deprivation loud noises and humiliation) then Bush should face charges.Even Colin Powell wants Guantanamo shut down so it must be awful.

IIRC, Bush's public opinion ratings were up around 70% following 9/11.

On the other hand, Bush had mentioned using troops to deal with (oust) a dictator as early as 2000 during the debates with Gore. Former Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill indicated that Iraq and Hussein were key topics of discussion at the first cabinet meeting! And subsequent events would indicate that the Bush administration was looking for anything that would justify the invasion of Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein. So there was intent to wage war even before 9/11 attacks.

Sanctions were killing lots of iraqis and something had to change - Bush tried to change the situation.

By killing even more Iraqis?! Bombing the infrastructure such that the Iraqis had no electricity, no running water, while unprocessed sewage was flowing into the only available water ways is not the way to help them. And that was on top of the fact that Iraqis had limited food and very little medication because of the sanctions. There was no effective plan to aid the Iraqis, who have been grossly violated by the Bush administration.

 

[turbo]

I've no doubt that peole like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld thought they had a workable strategy for improving the sityuation in the middle east as a whole for the long term.The problem the Bush administration has had is that they didn't listen to iraqi exiles who were saying that invasion would lead to tribal chaos
and also they underestimated how bad European countries are at committing themselves
to war, which given how hard the mainland of europe suffered in world war 2 is not surprising.

Apparently you haven't seen this C-Span video of Dick Cheney explaining why Bush I's administration did not go after Saddam. They knew that toppling Iraq's government would result in chaos, factional conflict, and a quagmire for US troops. This time around, with military support functions increasingly farmed out to his company (Halliburton/KBR), Cheney figured the trade-off was worth it. There was only one reason to invade Iraq - money for big businesses and their neo-con enablers.

 

[DrClapeyron]

Honestly, how many people felt the reason for sending troops to Iraq had anything to with WMDs at the time? Quite right, it was part of Bush's road map towards stablity in the region and Saddam simply was still his cranky self. Don't forget this man attacked Quwait and planned an attack against Saudi Arabia to avoid paying his war debts, this was a man who did not want to play by the rules and get along with others, why should the US not have sent troops?
Bush stood up and did what was right, whether anyone else agrees they would have done the same they are comparing apples and oranges. The security of the greater good was the issue at hand and still is such. Saddam was mad man and a very irrate, greedy murderer. It's funny that no one mentions the support Bush and his administration received from Iraq's neighboring countries such as Quwait, UAE, Bharain and Saudi Arabia.

 

[Smurf]

You seem to have forgotten, Vietnam was not a war, it was a police action. There was never a declaration of war, it built slowly. The blame for that "police action" needs to be spread from Eisenhower to Johnson, maybe even a bit of Nixon, thought he did finally end it. And for that I will never forgive him.

Isn't congress supposed to be supreme in the united states? Shouldn't blame be spread to them as well?

 

[turbo]

Isn't congress supposed to be supreme in the united states? Shouldn't blame be spread to them as well?

Congress is certainly complicit when an administration is allowed to start wars, overthrow governments, etc. This also reflects badly on the media, who should be investigating and digging and instead print press releases verbatim as if they were news. It's really easy to quote somebody and fluff it into a "story" - the real work comes in when you dig for background, biases, motivations, etc.

In Washington, the first rule should be "follow the money" because that's where the political connections rule, and the motivations become clear. When Bush says he wants to spread democracy and freedom, but it's going to cost us many billions of dollars (perhaps trillions), one should ask "Wouldn't it have been cheaper to bribe Saddam to play nice instead of destroying Iraq and occupying it for the foreseeable future?" Saddam already presided over the most secular Arab nation, with rights for women, etc. The reasonable answer is that the French, Russians, etc were engaging in commerce with Iraq and were making money and that US oil companies and contractors wanted in. Iraq posed no threat to the US. The real threats to the US interests in that region are Islaamic fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, etc. If Bush wanted to make us safer from terrorism, he should have urged his Saudi friends to crack down on the fundamentalists in their society, since most of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis. Instead, he attacked Iraq and hollered 9/11 as often as he could when he tried to justify it.

 

[denverdoc]

I can't agree with this - I don't believe Bush went into Iraq because of poor opinion poll ratings - he wouldn't have received support from so many other people in the US government and senate - republican or otherwise for this.The question was always was saddam a nuclear or chemical threat - Bush may have lied about this or kidded himself saddam was a threat in this regard.Sanctions were killing lots of iraqis and something had to change - Bush tried to change the situation.You can call him naiive about how he tried to change the situation in iraq.I've no doubt that peole like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld thought they had a workable strategy for improving the sityuation in the middle east as a whole for the long term.The problem the Bush administration has had is that they didn't listen to iraqi exiles who were saying that invasion would lead to tribal chaos
and also they underestimated how bad European countries are at committing themselves
to war, which given how hard the mainland of europe suffered in world war 2 is not surprising. But guantanamo bay is undeniably a bad thing and if innocent people have been torured there ( using sleep deprivation loud noises and humiliation) then Bush should face charges.Even Colin Powell wants Guantanamo shut down so it must be awful.

This implies that the fix wasn't on. There is much evidence, most of it publicly available prior to the invasion, that Sadam had no WMD and that many fell for it either suggests they were too busy to check the facts or had their own political agendae.

 

[BobG]

Now that's about the most egregiously narrowminded remark I've even seen on PF for many moons. An outstanding job of reacting to 9/11? No terrorist, including OBL, could have dreamed of a better rxn. He has wasted more money, eroded civil liberties in a land we call free, and been a better recruit agent for terrorism than any misguided dozen individuals in power could have managed alone. He fell for it hook, line and sinker--course whem you're hovering at a 40 percent approval rating erm-i can see where he needed a shot in the arm. Too bad it has cost a trillion plus and created animosity everywhere. He needed that second term. Bush by far, not even a contest.

Bush's approval ratings were in the high 60's the week that Congress debated and voted on the Iraq authorization for force (this was a drop of 20% from immediately after 9/11).

Honestly, how many people felt the reason for sending troops to Iraq had anything to with WMDs at the time? Quite right, it was part of Bush's road map towards stablity in the region and Saddam simply was still his cranky self. Don't forget this man attacked Quwait and planned an attack against Saudi Arabia to avoid paying his war debts, this was a man who did not want to play by the rules and get along with others, why should the US not have sent troops?
Bush stood up and did what was right, whether anyone else agrees they would have done the same they are comparing apples and oranges. The security of the greater good was the issue at hand and still is such. Saddam was mad man and a very irrate, greedy murderer. It's funny that no one mentions the support Bush and his administration received from Iraq's neighboring countries such as Quwait, UAE, Bharain and Saudi Arabia.

As far as the flashback to the attitudes of 2002, 90% of Americans believed Iraq had an active WMD program, mainly because of the speeches and appearances by Bush, Rice, Powell, etc. Of course, 72% also felt that Bush hadn't proved his case sufficiently for the US to go to war. About 70% also felt the US shouldn't invade Iraq unless the UN approved the invasion. Most Americans prefer some sort of international rule of law or else an act of self defense. The American public are not in a rush to go to war and they want hard evidence before supporting any military action.

The US went through the United Nations in an attempt to get stiffer penalties against Iraq (stiffer penalties being military force) for failing to reveal the details of their WMD program. The US withdrew its resolutions when it became clear the rest of the world didn't agree with the penalties the US wanted inflicted. That way, it could be argued the US wasn't technically disregarding international law. It was enforcing UN resolutions that had been approved years ago, but on its own without the rest of the UN.

This train of thought is the equivalent of the prosecutor in a trial realizing he's going to lose his case for the death penalty in sentencing ... so he shoot's the defendant! He's enforcing the laws the jury could have imposed if just had more courage to enforce, right?

 

[Astronuc]

935 false statements on Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/misinformation_study
A study finds Bush and officials made hundreds of untrue statements about Iraq after September 11th.

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

. . . .

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possesses any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

. . . .

 

[Art]

935 false statements on Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/misinformation_study
A study finds Bush and officials made hundreds of untrue statements about Iraq after September 11th.

I've been trying to access the database referenced all day http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/ but can't get through. Either it's very busy or the victim of a DOS attack.

 

[edward]

The Bush/Cheney gang just keeps on taking.

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was paid $100,000 to endorse a veterans charity that watchdog groups say is ripping off donors and wounded veterans by using only a small portion of the money raised for veterans services, according to testimony in Congress today.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4149437

 

[edward]

I've been trying to access the database referenced all day http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/ but can't get through. Either it's very busy or the victim of a DOS attack.

It didn't work for me until late afternoon. The link is working now. It is the same information as in the yahoo link.

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

 

[Art]

It didn't work for me until late afternoon. The link is working now. It is the same information as in the yahoo link.

Thanks Edward, it was the searchable database at that url I wanted to access and I have it now. Really interesting results if you search on 'Al Qaeda'. Right from the start Rumsfeld and co were falling over themselves to use this as an excuse to attack Iraq. Some of it is incredible. One would like to think there is some modicum of sanity in one's leaders but some of Rumsfeld's ideas are positively phychopathic such as

Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Targeting Iraq and Changing the Government

By the afternoon on Wednesday [September 12], Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld was talking about broadening the objectives of our response and "getting Iraq." Secretary [Colin] Powell pushed back, urging a focus on Al Qaeda. Relieved to have some support, I thanked Colin Powell and his deputy, Rich Armitage. "I thought I was missing something here," I vented. "Having been attacked by Al Qaeda, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor." Powell shook his head. "It's not over yet."

[text omitted]

Indeed, it was not. Later in the day, Secretary Rumsfeld complained that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. At first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was serious and the president did not reject out of hand the idea of attacking Iraq. Instead, he noted that what we needed to do with Iraq was to change the government, not just hit it with more cruise missiles, as Rumsfeld has implied.

SOURCE: Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), pages 30–31.

 

[Gokul43201]

In my opinion Bill Clinton and George Bush senior are the bad presidents the US has had in the last thirty years.Bush senior could have sorted saddam out 17 years ago and Clinton's sanctions made Iraqi's suffer to the extent that more of them were dying because of sanctions than because of the current war in Iraq.

Not true!

http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/oct2006/apiis0140673606694919.gr2.lrg.gif

Death rates have gone up, life expectancy has gone down, non-violent death rate hasn't changed much.