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Topic: Bush. Worst President. Ever. (Read 1437 times) |
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Blunderov
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Bush. Worst President. Ever.
« on: 2008-08-29 15:59:43 » |
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[Blunderov] Is it my imagination or has Bush resigned himself to his rightful historical ignominy? He seems to have gone really quiet lately. Already it feels better that way. 
http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article17285
August Thursday 28 2008 (15h02) :
Worst. President. Ever.
“It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush,” concluded one respondent. “His domestic policies,” another noted, “have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation’s economic base.”
America’s historians, it seems, don’t think much of George W. Bush.
Now in all fairness, historians should wait a while before passing judgment on a president’s who served recently, much less one still in office. But the current incumbent is a special case. After all, 81 percent of Americans, according to a recent New York Times poll, believe he’s taken the country on the wrong track. That’s the highest number ever registered. The same poll also says 28 percent have a favorable view of his performance in office, which is also in Nixon-in-the-darkest-days-of-Watergate territory.
But, as George Mason University’s History News Network reports, the historians have a different measure. They want to stack him up against his forty-two predecessors as the nation’s chief executive. Among historians, there is no doubt into which echelon he falls–his competitors are Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Franklin Pierce, the worst of the presidential worst. But does Bush actually come in dead last?
Yes. History News Network’s poll of 109 historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents. Bush’s key competition comes from Buchanan, apparently, and a further 2 percent of the sample puts Bush right behind Buchanan as runner-up for “worst ever.” 96 percent of the respondents place the Bush presidency in the bottom tier of American presidencies. And was his presidency (it’s a bit wishful to speak of his presidency in the past tense–after all there are several more months left to go) a success or failure? On that score the numbers are still more resounding: 98 percent label it a “failure.”
http://www.harpers.org/media/image/...
Historians Rate George W. Bush a “Failure” This marks a dramatic deterioration for Bush. Previously he wasn’t viewed in the most positive terms, but there was a consensus that he wasn’t the “worst of the worst” either. That was in the spring of 2004. In the meantime, Bush has established himself as the torture president, the basis for his invasion of Iraq has been exposed as a fraud, the Iraq War itself has gone disastrously, the nation’s network of alliances has faded, and the economy has gone into a tailspin–not to mention the bungled handling of relief for victims of hurricane Katrina. In 2004, only 12 percent of historians were ready to place Bush dead last.
Here are some of the comments that the historians furnished:
“No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every hen house, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”
“With his unprovoked and disastrous war of aggression in Iraq and his monstrous deficits, Bush has set this country on a course that will take decades to correct,” said another historian. “When future historians look back to identify the moment at which the United States began to lose its position of world leadership, they will point—rightly—to the Bush presidency. Thanks to his policies, it is now easy to see America losing out to its competitors in any number of areas: China is rapidly becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the next century, India the high tech and services leader, and Europe the region with the best quality of life.”
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Bush. Worst President. Ever.
« Reply #1 on: 2008-08-29 16:50:21 » |
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I was thinking that when Bush looked into Putin's soul, what he really saw was his own reflection.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Re:Bush. Worst President. Ever.
« Reply #2 on: 2008-08-29 19:32:56 » |
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You are wrong I think.
Putin might be, probably is, totally without empathy and utterly nasty, still he is not only brilliant to a degree few people outside of the highest levels of chess can begin to comprehend, but is also competent, diligent and, at least on a personal level, likable. He is also perceived by most Russians as having done more for Russia than anyone else since the near sainted Stalin. Who was just as nasty as Putin, but no matter how easily he managed the rather stupid Churchill and somewhat less stupid Roosevelt, not nearly as smart.
From this it follows that Bush, who is quite capable of making rocks look gifted, saw whatever Putin wanted him to see, neither more nor less. That said, I have seen it reported by multiple Russian sources that Putin allegedly shared some of his supposed private religious convictions with Bush. If that was the case, no doubt that was exactly what Bush needed to hear to conclude exactly what Putin wanted him to.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Bush. Worst President. Ever.
« Reply #3 on: 2008-08-29 20:16:28 » |
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Hermit,
I wasn't really saying Bush=Putin, but on that theme I'd go with "totally without empathy" and yet "on a personal level, likable". I was also thinking in terms of their both being fundamentally authoritarian plutocrats and destructive to democracy.
Your other points are well taken; Bush is definitely not bright, and a mental midget compared to Putin. I would add that I suspect that he somewhat intentionally acts stupider than he actually is as a defense mechanism, but in Putin's hands he's obviously a malleable dumbass. In terms of "whatever Putin wanted him to see", I'm still thinking Bush saw his own reflection, . . . not because they are equals, however, as we've established.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Bush. Worst President. Ever.
« Reply #4 on: 2008-08-29 20:51:11 » |
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As for the record deficits, I think its time that US citizens realize that Republicans don't see that as irresponsible at all. They usually don't explicitly say this in public - that wouldn't be very popular - , but fiscal irresponsibility is their cynical way to beat down and weaken what they see as an always-too-big-and-powerful government.
Especially starting with Reagan government bankruptcy has been the consistent GOP goal. Leave the government as deeply in debt as possible, that way when Democrats take over they will have to spend most of their efforts on debt reduction instead of making the government actually work. In their minds a fiscally responsible government is a strong government, and to them that's evil.
Oh yeah, foxes in the henhouses, that's on purpose too for similar reasons.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Walter Watts
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Re:Bush. Worst President. Ever.
« Reply #5 on: 2008-08-29 20:54:02 » |
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Quote from: MoEnzyme on 2008-08-29 20:16:28
Hermit,
I wasn't really saying Bush=Putin, but on that theme I'd go with "totally without empathy" and yet "on a personal level, likable". I was also thinking in terms of their both being fundamentally authoritarian plutocrats and destructive to democracy.
Your other points are well taken; Bush is definitely not bright, and a mental midget compared to Putin. I would add that I suspect that he somewhat intentionally acts stupider than he actually is as a defense mechanism, but in Putin's hands he's obviously a malleable dumbass. In terms of "whatever Putin wanted him to see", I'm still thinking Bush saw his own reflection, . . . not because they are equals, however, as we've established.
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I'm thinking more along the lines that when Bush looked into Putin's eyes, Bush was thinking:
1) I like to fish.
2) I hope Barney isn't shitting in my shoes while I'm over here.
3) I wonder if Barney likes to fish.
4) Wow. Vladimir Putin. I wonder if I could take him in Sambo.
Walter
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Walter Watts
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No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!
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