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Seriously, George W Bush is an underrated president

M

micrometers

Diamond Member
However you feel about Iraq, I do give him props for

1. the fact that after 9/11 there were zero successful terrorist attacks in the USA. Given the high publicity and profile of the 9/11 attacks, it could easily have snowballed.

2. The fact that civil liberties have not been noticeably infringed IMO. Artists are as free as they've ever been to make the art that they want and say what they want.

3. Decisive action in halting the 2008 financial collapse, including bailing out Detroit automakers. Yes, a lot of the run-up occurred under his watch, but in all honesty blindness to it was bipartisan and likely would have occurred under a Democratic president as well.

4. Making an attempt at serious school reform with No Child Left Behind. And to all the angry liberals, Ted Kennedy was behind the legislation, which is often overlooked.

5. Medicare Pt. D was an expansion of the social safety net that included thought-out ways to move towards a more market-driven health care system

6. Making genuine attempts of outreach towards American Muslims and Latinos. Bush saying that islam is a religion of peace in the aftermath of 9/11 was invaluable.
 
Actually, Bush is underrated, but mostly for what he did in Africa.

Africans show much love to President George W. Bush
President George W. Bush has done more for Africa than any U.S. president in recent memories. He is warmly remembered across Africa for his U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which since 2003 has provided AIDS treatment to millions on the continent hardest hit by the disease. His compassionate conservatism policy in Africa has worked and saved millions of lives.
Many Africans may not see eye to eye with President Bush on some of his policies, but when it comes to Africa, he is a good friend. So when he visited Africa this week, this was not lost on many Africans and he was warmly welcomed. In Ethiopia, Bush was awarded Ethiopia's Outstanding Leadership award for PEPFAR's contribution to improving health.
Amnesty International's ludicrous call to arrest the former president was ridiculed and ignored by African leaders.
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http://nazret.com/blog/index.php/20...-much-love-to-president-george-w-bush?blog=15

It is one of the first links that came up on Google. There are far more.
 
Given your previous posting history, I'm pretty sure this is a stealth troll thread. However, the post is reasonable enough for discussion, so I'll bite.

George W. Bush got us involved in a bullshit war in Iraq, and unnecessarily extended the war in Afghanistan. Not only has this gotten thousands of American troops killed, it's cost us trillions of dollars (which we've had to borrow), strained our relationships with close allies, and jeopardized our position as a broker (for lack of a better term) of world trade.

In an era where the strength of a nation is increasingly defined by its economy rather than its military, George W. Bush has caused more damage to the US than any president in recent memory.
 
Doc Savage Fan said:
I'm not a big Bush fan but I couldn't believe that liberals attacked him on African relief and his work on AIDS.

BDS has caused many self-inflicted lobotomies.
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Are you talking about how he tried to promote abstinence only education in Africa? That can and most certainly should have been criticized. Abstinence only education is not only foolish, but dangerous. That is the only area I am aware of that Bush was criticized on in regards to his AIDS policy, which otherwise received pretty uniform praise.

EDIT: I've always found it funny that while he was president criticism of him was always responded to with "OMG BDS BDS BDS". After he left office it's mostly been 'oh yeah, he really WAS an incredibly shitty president, huh.'
 
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He vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enchancement Act - thus preventing all those people suffering from diseases from ever hoping to find a cure. I mean, why prop them up for maybe possible potential defeat?

He saved those suffering, from ever having to hear; "there may be hope for you, someday".

And, as an added bonus, medical supply companies continued doing well because of this. Example; a child with diabetes (where a cure may be found through stem cell research) will continue poking needles in their fingers, thus ensuring the manufacturer (plants in China, HQ in Texas) of said needles can go on.

With performance like this, it's a wonder why the public didn't demand a 3rd term from him.
 
Macamus Prime said:
He vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enchancement Act - thus preventing all those people suffering from diseases from ever hoping to find a cure. I mean, why prop them up for maybe possible potential defeat?

He saved those suffering, from ever having to hear; "there may be hope for you, someday".

And, as an added bonus, medical supply companies continued doing well because of this. Example; a child with diabetes (where a cure may be found through stem cell research) will continue poking needles in their fingers, thus ensuring the manufacturer (plants in China, HQ in Texas) of said needles can go on.

With performance like this, it's a wonder why the public didn't demand a 3rd term from him.
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that was very bad I agree.
 
eskimospy said:
Are you talking about how he tried to promote abstinence only education in Africa? That can and most certainly should have been criticized. Abstinence only education is not only foolish, but dangerous. That is the only area I am aware of that Bush was criticized on in regards to his AIDS policy, which otherwise received pretty uniform praise.
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Nope...while I agree with you on this one minute point, I'm looking at the big picture...like treating AIDS. Wikipedia says it was the largest health initiative ever initiated by one country to address a disease.

Hell, I remember liberals criticizing him for not giving the money away fast enough...his reason was to make sure safeguards were in place to assure the money was being used for its intended purpose rather than letting it fall victim to the graft/corruption that's so prevalent in Africa. Imagine that!

Many liberals (like you) have difficulty seeing the big picture and focus on minutia like this only in those cases when it suits their highly partisan worldview. It's really quite pathetic.
 
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karmypolitics said:
However you feel about Iraq, I do give him props for

1. the fact that after 9/11 there were zero successful terrorist attacks in the USA. Given the high publicity and profile of the 9/11 attacks, it could easily have snowballed.

2. The fact that civil liberties have not been noticeably infringed IMO. Artists are as free as they've ever been to make the art that they want and say what they want.

3. Decisive action in halting the 2008 financial collapse, including bailing out Detroit automakers. Yes, a lot of the run-up occurred under his watch, but in all honesty blindness to it was bipartisan and likely would have occurred under a Democratic president as well.

4. Making an attempt at serious school reform with No Child Left Behind. And to all the angry liberals, Ted Kennedy was behind the legislation, which is often overlooked.

5. Medicare Pt. D was an expansion of the social safety net that included thought-out ways to move towards a more market-driven health care system

6. Making genuine attempts of outreach towards American Muslims and Latinos. Bush saying that islam is a religion of peace in the aftermath of 9/11 was invaluable.
Click to expand...
The Patriot Act was and is bipartisan, and it's arguably necessary, but it's certainly an infringement on civil liberties (although admittedly not on MY civil liberties.)

NCLB is an abortion of an attempt; no credit for that.

Medicare Part D should have been means tested from day one. There is no excuse for transferring wealth from young lower middle class workers to well-to-do retirees simply because of age.

The rest I'd agree with. And yeah, he was awesome with respect to Africa.
 
theevilsharpie said:
Given your previous posting history, I'm pretty sure this is a stealth troll thread. However, the post is reasonable enough for discussion, so I'll bite.

George W. Bush got us involved in a bullshit war in Iraq, and unnecessarily extended the war in Afghanistan. Not only has this gotten thousands of American troops killed, it's cost us trillions of dollars (which we've had to borrow), strained our relationships with close allies, and jeopardized our position as a broker (for lack of a better term) of world trade.

In an era where the strength of a nation is increasingly defined by its economy rather than its military, George W. Bush has caused more damage to the US than any president in recent memory.
Click to expand...
This is demonstrably not true if your memory extends even back to Clinton. Bill Clinton single-handily removed virtually all barriers to technology transfer, allowing Red China to purchase decades of capitalism's progress in a handful of years and transforming that nation into the economic powerhouse that today is completely eating our lunch. To the extent that outsourcing is destroying our economy, and I think that's a very large extent, we have Bill Clinton to thank.
 
Doc Savage Fan said:
Nope...while I agree with you on this one minute point, I'm looking at the big picture...like treating AIDS. Wikipedia says it was the largest health initiative ever initiated by one country to address a disease.

Hell, I remember liberals critisizing him for not giving the money away fast enough...his reason was to make sure safeguards were in place to assure the money was being used for its intended purpose rather than letting it fall victim to the graft/corruption that's so prevalent in Africa. Imagine that!

Many liberals (like you) have difficulty seeing the big picture and focus on minutia like this only in those cases when it suits their highly partisan worldview. It's really quite pathetic.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? If you use the search feature on here you can find me praising Bush explicitly for his AIDS program. Just because you approve of the program as a whole however doesn't mean that you can't say that parts of it are done badly.

As for what my view on Bush's AIDS program is, I'll quote myself from 2008.
I was criticizing Bush, but I specifically mentioned his AIDS work as worthy of praise:
He has done some great things too... his work on AIDS in Africa is without a doubt head and shoulders above what any other president has ever done.
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See what I mean when I tell you that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail? You immediately thought that just because I thought one part of his program was bad, that I was somehow criticizing it as a whole. Why? Because you already have a predetermined conclusion.

You could of course apologize for being wrong in this case, but I don't even really care if you do. What I do wish it would do is make you think twice before doing it in the future, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.
 
werepossum said:
The Patriot Act was and is bipartisan, and it's arguably necessary, but it's certainly an infringement on civil liberties (although admittedly not on MY civil liberties.)

NCLB is an abortion of an attempt; no credit for that.

Medicare Part D should have been means tested from day one. There is no excuse for transferring wealth from young lower middle class workers to well-to-do retirees simply because of age.

The rest I'd agree with. And yeah, he was awesome with respect to Africa.
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I'd agree with this assessment, adding a couple of points. Not only should Medicare Part D have been means tested, but it was written as corporate welfare for big pharma, by not allowing negotiation of drug prices. It was a decent idea, very poorly implemented.

The Patriot Act was IMO mostly necessary, but some of it was an overreach. It should be scaled back.

I find it interesting that a conservative agrees with point #6. While I don't think Islam is a "religion of peace," describing it as such was good diplomacy. Necessary really. I have never understood why that was maligned, and mostly by conservatives.

Africa aid was a major (and unsung) achievement of the Bush admin.

In the main, his presidency was a disaster. I seriously doubt that many will disagree with that over the long haul.

- wolf
 
woolfe9999 said:
I'd agree with this assessment, adding a couple of points. Not only should Medicare Part D have been means tested, but it was written as corporate welfare for big pharma, by not allowing negotiation of drug prices. It was a decent idea, very poorly implemented.

The Patriot Act was IMO mostly necessary, but some of it was an overreach. It should be scaled back.

I find it interesting that a conservative agrees with point #6. While I don't think Islam is a "religion of peace," describing it as such was good diplomacy. Necessary really. I have never understood why that was maligned, and mostly by conservatives.

Africa aid was a major (and unsung) achievement of the Bush admin.

In the main, his presidency was a disaster. I seriously doubt that many will disagree with that over the long haul.

- wolf
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Exactly. I don't believe Islam is a religion of peace, and I don't want to hear my President say that, but I accept that it was necessary that he say that.

I don't accept that Bush's Presidency was a complete disaster, though. I think his will come to be viewed much the same as Obama's, assuming that Obama is either a one-termer or remains on the center-left moderate course he's charted - a largely ineffective Presidency with a couple brilliant moments and a couple dumb moments, but on balance neither particularly good nor particularly bad. Bush caused an amazing transformation of the Middle East, or at least contributed greatly to it, but arguably most of the good from the Iraq War - an Arab Islamic democratic republic serving to inspire other Arab and/or Islamic populaces to rise up for freedom, and showing other despotic leaders that aggression against America would effect THEM, not just their people - could have been done with the Afghanistan example. I think Bush's single largest failing though is his failure to restrain (or attempt to restrain) his own party to fiscal responsibility.

Really, isn't that all Presidents? I honor Reagan and think he accomplished great things, but I also recognize that some of the things he did turned out badly. Bush I was much the same as Bush II or Obama, a mixed bag. Clinton was overall pretty good, but also did the one thing that is most harming us now - transferring the West's hard earned technology to Communist China. I think of post-war Presidencies, only Nixon's, Johnson's, and Carter's have really been disasters, and only Truman's and Eisenhower's have really been very successful.
 
It seems to me it's premature to draw any categorically positive or negative conclusions about a presidency that recent in time. It will really depend on whether his proactive attitude toward the Middle East turns out to be successful or not. He was certainly a profligate deficit spender, and I think it was irresponsible to spend so much while simultaneously cutting taxes, but again, we don't know the long-term repercussions of that yet, and there will always be sharp disagreement on the prudency of his fiscal policies regardless.

I suspect the reality is that his critics were too harsh at the time and unreasonably denying him credit for his actual accomplishments, just as I think is occurring with President Obama today. History will sort it out, in any case.
 
I really appreciate the handwaving about Iraq. Sure its a minor issue that lead to the deaths of thousands, the destabilization of a country, billions wasted sent to PMCs and other contractors.
 
Don Vito Corleone said:
It seems to me it's premature to draw any categorically positive or negative conclusions about a presidency that recent in time. It will really depend on whether his proactive attitude toward the Middle East turns out to be successful or not. He was certainly a profligate deficit spender, and I think it was irresponsible to spend so much while simultaneously cutting taxes, but again, we don't know the long-term repercussions of that yet, and there will always be sharp disagreement on the prudency of his fiscal policies regardless.

I suspect the reality is that his critics were too harsh at the time and unreasonably denying him credit for his actual accomplishments, just as I think is occurring with President Obama today. History will sort it out, in any case.
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Well said.
 
Don Vito Corleone said:
It seems to me it's premature to draw any categorically positive or negative conclusions about a presidency that recent in time. It will really depend on whether his proactive attitude toward the Middle East turns out to be successful or not. He was certainly a profligate deficit spender, and I think it was irresponsible to spend so much while simultaneously cutting taxes, but again, we don't know the long-term repercussions of that yet, and there will always be sharp disagreement on the prudency of his fiscal policies regardless.

I suspect the reality is that his critics were too harsh at the time and unreasonably denying him credit for his actual accomplishments, just as I think is occurring with President Obama today. History will sort it out, in any case.
Click to expand...

I really do think that it is easy to pick up on negative things such as abstinence only in Africa (dumb) or banning stem cell research funding (again, dumb and religiously motivated), or water boarding or guantanomo bay, but you also have to realize that there has not been a successful terrorist attack on the American homeland AND civil liberties have not been significantly impacted.
 
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