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Reflecting on President George W. Bush

Submitted by IrishRep on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 00:50
in

With President-Elect Obama about to become President Obama I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the end of President George W. Bush’s time in office.  I do not want to reflect on his policies or his legacy; but, better yet the way people better Democrats have shown us how not to treat the person that holds the highest office in the land.  Over the past five years and especially during President Bush’s second term we have seen the President be ridiculed and downright disrespected. 

This disrespect was rarely geared towards his policies; but, more towards the individual.  Over the past four years you have heard the President be called a war monger, a fascist, a racist (thanks Kanye West), an idiot, and my personal favorite phrase “I am smarter than he is”.  Even now in the final days of his presidency there is an article in the Rolling Stone saying how the end cannot come quick enough.

That brings me to the point of how we as Republicans should treat President Obama.  We should treat him with respect and we should respect the office that he holds.  The office of the President has been slandered by so many over the past few years and we should not make the same mistake.

Now, I will bring this full circle.  We should all watch President Obama and make sure that when he does something that we disagree with we voice our opinions loud and clear.  We should make it known that we disagree with card check, the bail outs, the fairness doctrine, tax hikes, and anything else that should come along that we disagree with.  But, we should never slander the man or the office that he holds. 

We are better than that.

So, say a pray for him (he will need it) and then get ready to work against him in 2012. 

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I would say

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 05:15.

... in general, that there is too much of a focus on national politics anyway.

I agree with what you're saying here; but I think there is too much work to do at the state level to conern ourselves over-much with Obama at this point. 

YES.

Submitted by chemjeff on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 21:13.

We need to work overtime in our local communities to promote conservative values and elect Republicans that we can believe in.  I was on the #TCOT conference call last weekend and caller after caller kept complaining that when they went to their local Republican leaders, they were the youngest people in the room.  We need new blood and new life in the conservative movement.

At this point, looking at the

Submitted by In between on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 06:35.

At this point, looking at the man, Bush is an ideologue. He was consumed by Iraq and took his eyes off of everything else. He looked at things one way, he did not get along with congress, and he had no sense of curiosity. He let religion control him, Cheney controlled him, Rumsfeld controlled him, and the neocons controlled him. He had a narrow view in looking at what would solve our economic problems. A theory of tax cuts that would solve all problems, only to make matters worse. His statements showed he was delusional and had no idea what was going on. We have seen our government challenged with lies and deceit, with religion, the attack of the constitution, and a failed ideology. Maybe the attacks seemed like disrespect, but in reality we just wanted to get something done instead of failed policies. We were never heard. I am glad that this nightmare is almost over, and now maybe we can get down to business. 

What's going to be fun is to see

Submitted by T D Williams on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 21:15.

how the historians, commentators and even politicians are going to change their tune.

Ronald Reagan, more of an idealogue than Bush, left office 20 years ago.  At the time he left office, he was considered by many not only wrong-headed, but not too good on details and  governing.  Some questioned how much governing was actually done by Nancy or advisors.  Iran Contra, widely derided trickle down economics, and fuzzy, laid back thinking were supposed to be his legacy.  A lot of historians, commentators, reporters, and politicians were glad to see Reagan go.

Now, only 20 years later, even a liberal historian like Douglas Brinkley says Reagan is one of the top 5 presidents ever.

John Kerry, who fought Reagan tooth and nail at the time, now says really nice things about him and his presidency as, of course, does Barack Obama.

George Bush is coming out with a win in Iraq (Truman and Eisenhower didn't get that out of Korea).  He kept the country safe from another terrorist attack after 9/11 and set up major mechanisms to deal with terrorism (as Truman did with the Cold War).

Not a bad legacy for historians to chew on.  It's interesting to see that Bush starts in the middle of the pack even while in office in Scholar survey results at about the same position where Reagan was in the mid-1990's just a few years out of office.

I don't think Bush will rise as swiftly or as high as Reagan because winning the 50 year Cold War was so huge in US history.  And Reagan also turned around the horrible Carter economy.   Still, I expect George W. Bush to rise to near the top 10 if not in the top 10 within 20 years.

 It's nice to have hope I

Submitted by In between on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 22:42.

 It's nice to have hope I guess. 

Reagan came in at the right time. The democrats were lost, actually as well as republicans.

So let me go back to LBJ. LBJ wanted to expand the Vietnam War and his Great Society programs. And the only way he could do it is to have the fed print the money. In effect create inflation. LBJ wanted to do two things that were costly and they call this "guns and butter." It takes about 3 years for inflation to show up.

Nixon tried to fix inflation with "wage and price controls" and failed.

Ford tried to fix inflation with "WIN buttons" and failed.

Carter had no idea what to do.

In each cycle with each president, inflation, interest rates, and unemployment went up. Carter did get Paul Volcker in as head of the federal reserve in his last year as president. It was under Reagan that Paul Volcker beat inflation with 21.5% interest rates which also drove up unemployment over 10%.

Ever since then and for over 20 years inflation, interest rates, and unemployment has come down.

Reagan was tough on communism and he brought hope back to America. I give him all the credit in the world.

There is one caveat and that is supply side economics. It left deficits and Bush 41 called it voodoo economics and Bush 41 had to raise taxes to get rid of the deficits. 

Clinton had a bad first two years. He turned conservative with Gingrich and they left a yearly surplus.

Bush 43 wanted tax cuts and his war in Iraq. In both cases they were funded with deficit spending. That is borrowing of money from other countries. This was his "guns and butter." I view the last 8 years as an economy that ran on borrowed money. Bush started with a debt of 5.6 trillion dollars and today that debt is over 10 trillion dollars, add to that a yearly deficit now of 500 billion dollars and that is not adding anything on this latest financial crisis.

The damage of the deficits and debt alone will last some 20 years. Bush has done nothing to solve various problems. He has ignored just about anything that we face.  And I call this laissez-faire or just plain ignorance.

On Iraq Bush listened to the neocons and never talked to James Baker, Brent Scrowcroft, Bob Gates, or his father. He ignored the warnings that it would be a quagmire. We were not attacked by Iraq. Instead, we were attacked by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Bush abandons Afghanistan, a war we are losing today. Bush never had enough troops and the military is stretched thin, and he never paid for the war. 4400 soldiers are dead, many wounded along with civilians due to all the blunders. And we still do not have Osama Bin Laden.

We are winning the war in Iraq, not by Bush as he was in a quagmire, but by having an Iraq Study Group that was needed, and by Gates and Petraeus. Bush was in over his head, and he was in denial for over 3 years as the war got worse. And today as I said before, we are losing it in Afghanistan.

I will give Bush credit for keeping the country safe, although this is questionable. He certainly went against the constitution on 4 amendments. And by abandoning Afghanistan, are we any better off with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan. So in the end, like always, someone has to clean up his mess.

Personally, all I saw in the last 8 years if our jobs going overseas, our money going to Iraq, and the neglect of our infrastructure. Add to that lies, deceit, ignorance, arrogance, blunders, and incompetence. There are some 30 books and hours of documentaries on Bush. And they do not paint a pretty picture.

And I will leave you this.

"Mission accomplished" clueless

"I believe in a strong dollar" as the dollar went lower. Clueless

"We are winning the war on terror" for three years as the war got worse. Clueless

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" clueless

"free trade" as factories close. Clueless

"America, has no problems" at the olympics-on you tube. Clueless

deficits and debt

And a war on a lie.

 

Uhm...

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 08:02.

Weren't the anthrax scares AFTER 9/11? Or do we not consider them attacks?

Yes, and for the longest time

Submitted by In between on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 08:36.

Yes, and for the longest time they did not know who did that. Finally, it was a guy in a laboratory.