13 Reasons To Be Glad Bush Is No Longer President

By ThinkProgress on Apr 25, 2013 at 9:09 am

The five living presidents will meet in Texas on Thursday to dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. And while Bush and his aides are using the occasion to soften the 43 president’s image and solidify his legacy, a recounting of Bush-era policies — from his deregulation of Wall Street to the invasion of Iraq — greatly undermine the new rosy narrative of the Bush years:

Authorized the use of torture

Though the US Code bans torture, Bush personally issued a memorandum six days after the September 11th attacks instructing the CIA that it could use “enhanced interrogation techniques” against suspected terrorists. The methods included waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and “stress positions.” A recently-released bipartisan committee concluded it was “indisputable” that these techniques constituted torture, and that the highest authorities in the country bore responsibility for the creation of a torture programs at Guantanamo Bay and CIA “black sites” around the world.

Politicized climate science

Bush’s “do-nothing” approach to climate change prevented the U.S. from pursuing meaningful action. Though he claimed that global warming was a serious problem that was either a natural phenomenon or caused by humans, the administration routinely edited scientific reports to downplay the threat of climate change, censored CDC testimony that climate change was a public health threat, and promoted climate denying studies financed by ExxonMobil. At the end of the Bush presidency, a top intelligence adviser warned the incoming president that climate change was a massive destabilizing national security threat that would lead to “Dust Bowl” conditions in the Southwest.

Ignored Afghanistan to launch a war in Iraq

Rather than consolidating gains after the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Bush and his neoconservative allies pushed for removing Saddam Hussein from power, kicking off a war that led to one mistake after another. Ten years later, the war is estimated to have cost cost up to $6 trillion and resulted in the death of more than 100,000 Iraqis, 4,000 Americans and another 31,000 wounded. Meanwhile, Afghanistan saw a resurgence of the Taliban after Bush shifted resources to Iraq.

Botched the response to Hurricane Katrina

Bush appointed Michael Brown — a man whose only real qualifications were political connections and a sting at the International Arabian Horse Association — to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 2003 and he preceded to undo everything the Clinton Administration had done to make FEMA functional, botching the response to 2004′s Hurricane Frances so badly as to prompt calls for his firing. But Bush kept Brown on board and, as a detailed timeline of the response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrates, neither man took the storm seriously until it was too late. Bush, who famously said “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” midway through the crisis, thus presided over the most deaths due to a single natural disaster in the United States since 1900.

Defunded stem cell research

At the turn of the century there was perhaps no greater hope for finding cures to illnesses ranging from Alzheimer’s to diabetes than ongoing stem cell research. But months after taking office, Bush eliminated all federal funding for any new research involving stem cells, citing a religious objection to the use of embryos — even though the embryos in question were byproducts from couples undergoing in vitro fertilization and would have been destroyed by IVF clinics regardless. Twice more during his presidency, Bush vetoed legislation that would have restored funding.

Required Muslim men to register with the government

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush’s Attorney General, John Ashcroft, instituted an anti-terrorism program to register all male immigrants between 18 and 40 years old from 20 Arab and South Asian countries. Thousands of innocent men came forward to register, only to be rounded up for minor visa violations. Roughly 1,000 men and boys in the process of applying for permanent residence were arrested and confined in standing-room-only centers, enduring invasive strip searches and beatings by guards. Many were deported, while others were held for months after their immigration cases were resolved, without a shred of evidence they had any links to terrorism.

Reinstated the global gag rule

On Bush’s first day in office he reinstated a rule that prevented any non-profit doing work overseas from using any of their own, private money to fund family planning services. This so-called “Global Gag Rule” posed a serious threat to international maternal health, but it also cut off funding for HIV/AIDS initiatives, child health programs, and water and sanitation efforts.

Supported anti-gay discrimination

In 2004, President Bush endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), which would have banned same-sex couples from marrying in the U.S. Constitution. The Massachusetts Supreme Court had just ruled in favor of marriage equality, and Bush hoped to block the ruling from taking effect because “a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization.” Though the FMA failed numerous times in Congress during Bush’s tenure, he exploited the issue of same-sex marriage to turn out conservative voters for the 2004 election. That year, 11 states added constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage.

Further deregulated Wall Street

Under Bush, federal agencies eliminated regulations on predatory lending, capital requirements, and other Wall Street practices, allowing banks to engage in riskier and more destructive practices that contributed to the financial crisis that started on his watch. Bush’s Treasury Department also pushed for even further deregulation that would have given Wall Street more oversight over its own practices even after the housing collapse had begun.

Widened income inequality

The per-person benefits of Bush’s tax cuts accrued to the top one percent of Americans, as the rate for capital gains dropped to 15 percent. The CBO found that federal income taxes dropped far more as a percentage of the one percent’s income than for any other group after 2000.

Undermined worker protections

Under Bush, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, whose mission is to protect safe working conditions, issued 86 percent fewer rules or regulations and pulled 22 items from its agenda of proposed safety and health rules. The office’s funding and staff were also consistently reduced. Meanwhile, funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency charged with helping workers who claim discrimination against their employers, was similarly low and staffing fell even as the number of complaints increased, leading to a rising backlog of cases.

Ideological court appointments

Bush filled the federal bench with ideologues, including two lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. These conservatives believe that corporations should be able to buy and sell elections, ruled against equal pay for equal work, and have sought to undermine a woman’s right to choose.

Presided over a dysfunctional executive branch

A 2008 analysis by the Center for Public Integrity documented more than 125 executive branch failures over Bush’s two terms. These included government breakdowns on “education, energy, the environment, justice and security, the military and veterans affairs, health care, transportation, financial management, consumer and worker safety,” and others. “I think we’ll look back on this period as one of the most destructive periods in American public life . . . both in terms of policy and process,” Thomas E. Mann, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution observed, noting “genuine distortion in the constitutional system, an exaggerated sense of presidential power and prerogative and acquiescence by a Republican Congress in the face of the first unified Republican government since Dwight Eisenhower.”

 whembly wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Well George, we've brought back the troops from your personal oil grab in Iraq, including the dead ones and we're working on bringing the troops back from Afghanistan, including the dead ones, that being the war you fethed up by starting the second one.

We're very slowly working off the enormous cluster-fethed economic bomb you facilitated happening to the country and the Western world.

We are, gradually and painfully, recovering from the terrible gak you put us all through. I personally only miss listening to your comedic public speaking, rather than any of the other, far more deadly and terrible, things you subjected the world to.

But massive congrats on convincing a part of this country that the guy who inherited your gak storm was somehow responsible for it.

PS, still, go die in a fire.

Frank Conniff

Thousands not around to read books at George W. Bush Library because he didn't read "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US."

George W. Bush Library gift shop claims to have Weapons of Mass Destruction figurines for sale but nobody can find them.

Bush on "Rehabilitation Tour." I went to rehab, don't recall the part about dishonesty & denial being the keys to recovery.

 whembly wrote:

Nah... history will be favorable for Bush.

 whembly wrote:
[Nah... history will be favorable for Bush.

Today the media will whitewash Bush's legacy as his presidential library opens.

Don't let them.

 BrassScorpion wrote:
From Think Progress when they posted this article today:

Today the media will whitewash Bush's legacy as his presidential library opens.

Don't let them.

 whembly wrote:

 BrassScorpion wrote:
From Think Progress when they posted this article today:

Today the media will whitewash Bush's legacy as his presidential library opens.

Don't let them.

You do know that thinkprogress is incredibly biased left-wing site dontcha?

But, then again... who isn't biased?

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
[Nah... history will be favorable for Bush.

They've been saying that for 5 years. While it's still too soon to say so definitively; I'm not so sure that's going to pan out. For the run-up to his library opening, there were a slew of articles asking that very question and the consensus is his undesirables are still very, very high and even people who are pretty dedicated Bushies no longer thing that is going to happen.

Interestingly, people that post about the positive things he do gloss over something he did that probably saved literally a million lives.

As for me and Bush's reputation, I can't say. In my lay opinion he'll probably always be considered a pretty mediocre president, but not the most horrible one of all time or even in the top 5 (maybe the top 10). But history is a weird thing and you never know, for some reason a great deal of Americans consider JFK to be one of our greatest presidents despite him objectively being utterly horrible, and obviously Nixon; who gets rightfully tarred by Watergate but also doesn't get fair credit for a lot of the truly great things he did do - but I think history will come around on him.

Spoiler:

 daedalus wrote:
In this thread:

Go Blue team! RAH RAH!

No, go Red team! RAH!

 daedalus wrote:
Also, I'd rather wrestle a bear with Teddy Roosevelt than take a bath with Taft.

 curran12 wrote:
I'm fairly Democratic leaning, but is anyone else a little bit weirded out that an organization called "Think Progress" is still talking and going on about a President who left office about 5 years ago? I'd wish organizations like this would put their time and effort into...y'know...progress instead of finding new ways to tread the same ground because Bush was "bad."

While I tend to agree with their points, this kind of thing is pretty much the equivalent of all the blustery, antagonistic horse gak that keeps politics from actually doing anything.

 daedalus wrote:
In this thread:

Go Blue team! RAH RAH!

No, go Red team! RAH!

whembly wrote:Heh... we can do this all day long with EVERY.SINGLE.PRESIDENT in modern times...

whembly wrote:Nah... history will be favorable for Bush.

Under Bush, federal agencies eliminated regulations on predatory lending, capital requirements, and other Wall Street practices, allowing banks to engage in riskier and more destructive practices that contributed to the financial crisis that started on his watch. Bush’s Treasury Department also pushed for even further deregulation that would have given Wall Street more oversight over its own practices even after the housing collapse had begun.

Frazzled wrote:I'd rather have a beer with Bush than a lecture from Obama.

 Frazzled wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
In this thread:

Go Blue team! RAH RAH!

No, go Red team! RAH!

Meanwhile Green team is stealthily sneaking up on both teams with a hammer...

 Frazzled wrote:
I voted for Kinky Friedman. Some ask why? I say Why the Hell not!