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 Psienesis wrote:

 -Shrike- wrote:
Over here in the UK, he's basically remembered as a war-mongering idiot who was best buddies with another war-mongering scumbag. Neither G.W. Bush or T. Blair will have a great legacy in Britain, almost entirely because of the aforementioned war-mongering.

That is largely how he is remembered in the US, as well.

Pretty much.

Completely screwing up Afghanistan and then starting a vanity war under false pretenses that completely destabilized a region (Y Hai thar ISIS!) are pretty heft millstones around his neck.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The greatest presidents in history probably are Lincoln and FDR.

And Reagan.

I don't think so.

Which is actually kind of ironic given that there are a bunch of accounts from white house staff that the entire point of the wars was, in fact, to remove a violent dictator and install a peaceful democracy. We did actually find WMDs, most of Iraq's oil goes to non American companies, etc. If it really was a corrupt plan designed to obtain cheap oil, Bush was pretty terrible at being corrupt.

Anyone who puts Reagan at the top of their list probably doesn't know as much about this countries political and socio-economic history as they think (or are otherwise blind to the ramifications of his policies).

Reagan is viewed....curiously favorably given his performance (as opposed to events that simply happened to occur during his presidency), and were he alive and running today, would not stand a chance of getting the vote of many who otherwise sing his praises.

 -Shrike- wrote:
The first thing I thought of was Sherlock, in which Dr Watson served in Afghanistan. I'm actually struggling to think of any fictional Iraq veterans. Even Danny Pink on Doctor Who was an Afghan vet.

Good catch, the divide in public perception of the two conflicts is pretty stark when one starts looking at things like that.

 Breotan wrote:
In my lifetime, I'd rank the Presidents as follows, top being best bottom being worst.

Reagan
Nixon
Clinton
Bush Sr.
Bush Jr
Ford
Obama
Johnson
Carter

Yes, in the last 50 years, the bottom three Presidents are all Democrats. Many people would claim bias on my part and it is true, but I expect history will vindicate me here. The three powerhouses are all the top. None are the greatest President in US history and I am ignoring any scandals in favor of their actual job performance. Bush Sr, and Ford were both Veeps who road a better man's coattails to power and they got punted for it at the end of their term. Still, they weren't bad - mostly they continued policies put in place before them - but they weren't really that great either.

Why is Johnson second from bottom? Why is Obama worse than Ford? Why Clinton over Sr?


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chaos0xomega wrote:
Anyone who puts Reagan at the top of their list probably doesn't know as much about this countries political and socio-economic history as they think (or are otherwise blind to the ramifications of his policies).

Or they are Republican. To deny his impact is concentrated stupid.

I'm not worried about Bush Jr's flubs. The idea that Bush Jr is an idiot is an invention of the left-wing in this country. Yes, he has a folksy way about him but he did graduate Harvard with a Business degree and while it may not be the same as a degree in quantum physics, it's still hard work. Harvard's standards may have slipped since it was founded several centuries ago but they haven't slipped so far that they give degrees to morons.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
In my lifetime, I'd rank the Presidents as follows, top being best bottom being worst.

Reagan
Nixon
Clinton
Bush Sr.
Bush Jr
Ford
Obama
Johnson
Carter

Yes, in the last 50 years, the bottom three Presidents are all Democrats. Many people would claim bias on my part and it is true, but I expect history will vindicate me here. The three powerhouses are all the top. None are the greatest President in US history and I am ignoring any scandals in favor of their actual job performance. Bush Sr, and Ford were both Veeps who road a better man's coattails to power and they got punted for it at the end of their term. Still, they weren't bad - mostly they continued policies put in place before them - but they weren't really that great either.

Why is Johnson second from bottom? Why is Obama worse than Ford? Why Clinton over Sr?

Johnson actually did some good during his tenure but his poor leadership in Viet Nam was far worse than Bush Jr's in Iraq/Afganistan which puts him low on the list but Carter's term was an unmitigated domestic disaster. Obama is worse than Ford because Ford really didn't do much. Not much positive but nothing negative either, except for pardoning Nixon and that's just one item in a short administration. I put Clinton over Bush Sr. because while both were big government types, Clinton worked (forced) with the Republican congress and pushed through many positive agenda items such as balanced budget, welfare reform, and refused to tank the economy as Bush Jr. & Obama did. Bush Sr. was actually moving away from what Reagan had built and the whole "read my lips" thing was a metaphor for his Presidency, imo.

 Frazzled wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Anyone who puts Reagan at the top of their list probably doesn't know as much about this countries political and socio-economic history as they think (or are otherwise blind to the ramifications of his policies).

Or they are Republican. To deny his impact is concentrated stupid.

I did admit my bias. Still, Reagan was a decent president and certainly tops the list of those in my lifetime. As to chaos0omega's claim about not knowing much about history, I'd like to remind everyone that I lived through those times and there is a reason that Reagan won two landslide elections despite the press wishing for another Watergate scandle to pin on him.

 Breotan wrote:
I'm not worried about the flubs. The idea that Bush Jr is an idiot is an invention of the left-wing in this country. Yes, he has a folksy way about him but he did graduate Harvard with a Business degree and while it may not be the same as a degree in quantum physics, it's still hard work. Harvard's standards may have slipped since it was founded several centuries ago but they haven't slipped so far that they give degrees to morons.

As someone who has an MBA from one of top graduate business schools in the country (at least by Forbes' ranking), I can tell you that getting in is the hard part (and isn't always predicated on academic performance). Once you are in, as long as you show up half the time, turn in most assignments, and take your exams, you're probably going to get your degree. The schools don't like failing people (looks bad on their records and impacts both present and future revenue), and will go to great lengths to ensure that students graduate, particularly if they're connected and/or legacies.

I know more than one individual who got into a program, graduated, and was given jobs they would never have gotten off of merit. Probably 20% of my graduating MBA class fit into this category.

Not saying that Bush Jr was an idiot or that he didn't necessarily earn his degree, only that you can't judge someone's capabilities purely off what school they went to.

(Breotan points noted above)

Fair points. I may disagree but I like the methodology.
A discussion of Presidents rankings might be more appropriate on another thread, but I'd put Johnson higher: Civil RIghts Act, War on Poverty programs.

I'm not American, and I didn't live in this time, but I know Reagan was very liberal and it impacted badly on people's life in the USA, but this cut in the government spendings allowed him to push the Soviet so hard in the military field that the USSR went bankrupt.
At least, this is how I see it^^
A kind of sacrifice to win the Cold War.
Correct me if I'm wrong

 godardc wrote:
I'm not American, and I didn't live in this time, but I know Reagan was very liberal and it impacted badly on people's life in the USA, but this cut in the government spendings allowed him to push the Soviet so hard in the military field that the USSR went bankrupt.

Reagan didn't cut spending, US gov't spending and debt ballooned under Reagan to unprecedented heights, more than any other single administration before him. It was just spent in different areas

At least, this is how I see it^^
A kind of sacrifice to win the Cold War.
Correct me if I'm wrong

Yes and no. The Soviet Union was already heading on that road, their domestic investment & output had been deficient for many years, it was going to come home to roost eventually. One might make a case that Reagan's policies hastened its arrival and/or a more dramatic collapse, that's possible, but the Soviet Union's economic engine was unsustainable & heading for a reckoning of some sort in the state it was in before Reagan ever stepped into office.

Just because Im Republican doesnt mean Im ready to rub one out over Ronaldus Magnuses grave. He was a gakky president who paved the way for basically everything thats happened since then. Just because you lived through his presidency doesnt mean you understand how destructive and far reaching his policies have been. He, more than Clinton or Bush, can be blamed for the dotcom bubble burst and the Great Recession, the collapse of the American middle class, increased income inequality, etc. etc. etc.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Bush did a lot of good for Africa in regards to financial/infrastructure aid, more than almost any other President, which will unfortunately always be overshadowed by the negative crap he did, especially in the ME.

Other then that, he was junk.

I opened this thread to post just this. A major accomplishment by his administration (some might argue, the only accomplishment worth really noting...) was how he worked with and treated Africa. He saw it his duty as a good Christian to extend opportunity to the countries of that continent, and did a good job at doing so. I'm in health care, particularly HIV research, and he started and funded PEPFAR, which provided money to get HIV drugs to regions blighted by that disease. This is doubly impressive in my eyes in that this is not typically an issue that most Republicans would take up. So even though I also agree that he was largely a junk president, he certainly did a good job here.

 -Shrike- wrote:

The first thing I thought of was Sherlock, in which Dr Watson served in Afghanistan. I'm actually struggling to think of any fictional Iraq veterans. Even Danny Pink on Doctor Who was an Afghan vet.

On the subject of Afghanistan I think that would've made a better Vietnam comparison. I mean it was considered the 'graveyard of nations' or something and the soviet union's losses at Afghanistan are often seen as being the Vietnam for the soviets. Really you'd think if any person was insulting the idea of a war against any country it'd be us trying to go up against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. If the Gulf War showed anything it's that we sent Iraqi forces under saddam packing in record time.

 -Shrike- wrote:
The first thing I thought of was Sherlock, in which Dr Watson served in Afghanistan.

IIRC that's what he did even in the original Sherlock Holmes stories...

I don't know if Bush was a good or a bad president, not yet, anyway. I do think he was a good guy who had a plan of what he wanted to do in office, but then had to scrap that plan entirely due to events like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, etc. However, his administration did create many of the problems we have today in our current government. The War on Terror created/fostered a belief among the various federal agencies and politicians that "the ends justify the means" in order to protect us "or else the terrorists win", and that mentality led many to believe they could do what they want. We've seen the fallout from that in things like Fast & Furious, the IRS thing, and others, where officials, after years of being allowed to do what they want as long as it could be excused as protecting us, became accustomed to doing whatever they wanted. We're starting to fix that in now, but I do believe that is a legacy that has tarnished his administration. It's not entirely his fault, but he could have reined in some of the more over zealous members of his administration.

 DarkLink wrote:
We did actually find WMDs

Not of the sort we had gone to war in search of, and not of the sort that justified the war in the first place.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/no-wmds-in-iraq/

I did admit my bias. Still, Reagan was a decent president and certainly tops the list of those in my lifetime. As to chaos0omega's claim about not knowing much about history, I'd like to remind everyone that I lived through those times and there is a reason that Reagan won two landslide elections despite the press wishing for another Watergate scandle to pin on him.

Which they got with the Iran-Contra Scandal, excepting Reagan let Ollie North take the fall for that. Let's also not forget our dicking about with the cocaine trade (dicking about = actively encouraging and involving ourselves in it) in South and Central America and eroding the Middle Class via the flim-flam artistry that is "trickle down economics".

 Psienesis wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
We did actually find WMDs

Not of the sort we had gone to war in search of, and not of the sort that justified the war in the first place.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/no-wmds-in-iraq/

Aye, they pull more chemical weapons out of farms in France every year than they found in Iraq.

A couple forgotten gas shells was hardly a WMD stockpile or active weapons program that necessitated an invasion and 8 year occupation.

 whembly wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Bush was an probably still is an idiot.

Yet his presidency passed as any other and he achieved about as much as his predecessor and successor.

I think this says more about who rally runs America than any individual president. It also highlights that the presidency is not one person but a team. A president has a lot of paper power and can achieve quite a bit, but some feats are always beyond them. Wall St is far more powerful than any president, as is the Pentagon and many of the major industries.

A presidents power to achieve results is always less than many of the unaccountable bodies in the US, and it is not surprising that predidents of widely different personal aptitude succeed and fail on a broad parity.

This is what actually bugs me, Bush graduated from an Ivy League school, he flew fighter jets, the only thing people have against him is his lack of oratory skills. Where as we currently have President Obama, who is one of the best public speakers around, of course he is also the idiot who said that Muslims invented the Printing press.......

Or that there's 57 states in the union.

To be fair... every Public Office officials flub things from time to time.

IIRC Bush senior was a combat pilot. Dubya never did real military service but joined the Air Guard which meant he didn't have to face draft to Vietnam.

As for Obamas bad quotes, everyone mispeaks from time to time. Most get to smile say 'oops' and carry on, though the press latch onto others and never let go.

To OP. I think he did a more or less good job. My biggest complaints differ from those of many. A lot of criticism is based on hindsight/Monday morning quarterbacking. Gets too little credit for accomplishments and to much blame for failures. All in all a mediocre president who did some great things and had sone mistakes.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
We did actually find WMDs

Not of the sort we had gone to war in search of, and not of the sort that justified the war in the first place.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/no-wmds-in-iraq/

Aye, they pull more chemical weapons out of farms in France every year than they found in Iraq.

A couple forgotten gas shells was hardly a WMD stockpile or active weapons program that necessitated an invasion and 8 year occupation.

I don't think you can fault Bush for following poor intel. Thats the people feeding him the bad intel's problem, not his. The President is supposed to act on what he's given, if he had to do his own checking he'd never get anything done.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
We did actually find WMDs

Not of the sort we had gone to war in search of, and not of the sort that justified the war in the first place.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/no-wmds-in-iraq/

Aye, they pull more chemical weapons out of farms in France every year than they found in Iraq.

A couple forgotten gas shells was hardly a WMD stockpile or active weapons program that necessitated an invasion and 8 year occupation.

I don't think you can fault Bush for following poor intel. Thats the people feeding him the bad intel's problem, not his. The President is supposed to act on what he's given, if he had to do his own checking he'd never get anything done.

Without wanting to get too much off into a tangent, I can certainly remember late 2002 and early 2003 on the lead up to the conflict, and even then, there was extreme scepticism of the existence of these weapons and programs, and many of the sources saying that such things did exist were, well, highly biased with a vested interest in seeing Saddam removed (but nobody wanted to discount them because it was feeding them what they wanted to hear in many ways).

The fact that we never found anything didn't exactly come as a shock to the overwhelmingly vast majority of people, and that's what's really telling.

Ultimately, he either pick, chose, and fabricated the evidence he wanted to prove a conclusion he'd already come to, or relied on evidence so poor (outdated, unreliable sources, etc) it never should have been considered sufficient for the type of action he chose to take. Either way, it's hard to feel forgiving about that decision.

He was a piece of garbage, ruined the American education system, lied about why we went to war, attacked a guy who had no connections to Al Queda (the guys who caused 9/11) and tanked the U.S. economy. A more worthless president has not sat in the Oval Office.

Oh, and he convinced a bunch of weak minded members of the Christian sect by claiming his presidency was caused by Divine Ruling from God, making them love him and vote him in twice. And he lost the first run on presidency, but cried for a recount and his opponent dropped out of the race in disgust. A majority of Americans elected a child into office. And we're still paying for it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The greatest presidents in history probably are Lincoln and FDR.

Sure, but only if you evaluate a president's worth by his ability to expand the role of government.

He most certainly was not.

His father was a far better leader.


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sqir666 wrote:



1. He helped to destabilize an region.

2. He gave us the"War on Terror" and Patriot Act, both of which our society is still having to deal with thanks to W. Bush.

1. So has Obama, multiple times over, through both direct intervention and withholding direct intervention. Libya, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, etc.

2. Terrorism isn't something that Dubya invented. Following 9/11 the vast majority of American society supported the war efforts and it is inappropriate to pin responsibility on a figurehead leader. If you feel like pining blame is necessary for our wars in Iraq, put it on our entire society.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
We did actually find WMDs

Not of the sort we had gone to war in search of, and not of the sort that justified the war in the first place.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/no-wmds-in-iraq/

Aye, they pull more chemical weapons out of farms in France every year than they found in Iraq.

A couple forgotten gas shells was hardly a WMD stockpile or active weapons program that necessitated an invasion and 8 year occupation.

Tell that to my old SSgt who received chemical burns over a large % of his body due to finding a large Cache of Mustard gas. Or you can tell that to my old Sgt who was a NBC Marine during the invasion and was routinely called out to dispose of captured chemical weapons.

We found TONS and I mean literally TONS of chemical weapons, nobody cared because the public heard WMD and attached that label to Nuclear weapons and ONLY nuclear weapons. If it wasn't radioactive it wasn't a WMD.

With that said, I think Iraq was a poor decision. the US should avoid the middle east like the plague as our foreign policy.

 Frazzled wrote:
You want to parachute into Eastern Europe screaming Die Commie! Die! America Hurr! : Reagan.

Poor Eisenhower. He actually led the Western world against an evil tyranny as Supreme Allied Commander, and still he gets ignored in favour of the guy who gave some nice speaches.

*Leading the 2003/2004 recovery from recession (people forget about that one).

No. That isn't how presidents work. There is simply in the office that lets you lead a country out of recession. It's stupid when people try to give Obama credit for the post GFC recovery, and it's no different trying to give Bush credit for the dot-com bubble recovery.

Bush does deserve credit for rapid action in 2008, to provide stability and prevent the GFC getting worse.

*No child Left Behind

I thought we were supposed to hate Federal intervention, and hate the idea of blaming the schools for failing kids even more?

Anyhow, I actually like a lot of the idea behind NCLB, but the execution wasn't what it needed to be. Still had some very positive results.

*Attempts to fix medicare and the donut hole, including prescription improvements.

The irony of giving him credit for this, when it basically amounted to an open cheque approach is kind of sad, when you consider the shock and outrage from Republicans over the cost ACA, when ACA was actually a cost control measure.

Oh well.

While Ghaz is mostly correct on those points, the distinction made was that the recovered stockpiles were old stockpiles (which should have been disposed of and, for whatever reason, werent), wheras those pushing for the war were claiming that Iraq had an active WMD manufacturing program, which (insofar as the general public is aware) they did not.

chaos0xomega wrote:
While Ghaz is mostly correct on those points, the distinction made was that the recovered stockpiles were old stockpiles (which should have been disposed of and, for whatever reason, werent), wheras those pushing for the war were claiming that Iraq had an active WMD manufacturing program, which (insofar as the general public is aware) they did not.

whatever reason, weren't is pretty easy to explain, Saddam wanted to keep them around in case he needed to gas Iran/Kurds again. But your right, the intel we gathered was limited to a single source and shouldn't have been as highly rated as it was, if anything it is DIRINT's fault not President Bushs.