ten most awesome moments of the bush admin.
 

The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency
By Brad Reed, AlterNet
Posted on July 1, 2008, Printed on July 1, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/89686/

In a lot of ways, choosing the Bush administration's 10 greatest moments -- disastrous failures, all -- is about as pointless as picking out your 10 least favorite hemorrhoids: There are entirely too many of them, and taken together they all add up to a throbbing mass of pain. But unfortunately, history demands that we at least make the effort so that future generations will understand why we perform voodoo rituals cursing Bush's memory before we go to bed every night.

Narrowing down the Bush administration's various debacles to a mere 10 was no easy fete. In fact, I expect that many people will express dismay that their least favorite moment was left off the list. "How could commuting Scooter Libby's sentence not even make the top 10??!!" I can hear some of you shrieking already. Well, I'll tell you. Essentially, I tried to rate each Bush disaster by two main criteria: its body count and its damage to the country's reputation. So while Bush's awkward groping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be personally humiliating to everyone, it doesn't have the same heft as, say, the Iraq War.

But for those of you who insist on seeing your least favorite moment get its due, here is list of every honorable mention I could come up with: warrantless wiretapping; Valerie Plame; Scooter Libby's sentence commuted; Bush believes Rafael Palmeiro is innocent; soldiers face neglect at Walter Reed; signing statements; the Kyoto treaty ripped up; loyalty oaths; the fake turkey; a staged teleconference with troops, staged FEMA press conference, extraordinary rendition, support for junk science; endorsement of neo-creationist "intelligent design"; inaction against global warming; record oil prices; record budget deficits; record trade deficits; record number of Americans without health insurance; two recessions; no-bid contracts; bin Laden still at large; the Federal Marriage Amendment; stem cell research vetoed; waterboarding ban vetoed; "Last throes"; "Old Europe"; "It's hard work"; "Bring it on"; "Yo, Blair!"; "I'm the decider"; "I'm the commander guy"; "I'm a war president"; "This is the guy who tried to kill my dad"; "So?"; "Let the Eagle Soar"; John Bolton; Kenny Boy; Harriet Miers; John Roberts; Sam Alito; Blair talks Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera; Cheney shoots some guy in the face; the Military Commissions Act; Jose Padilla arrested and held without charge or access to counsel; endless tax cuts for the rich; let's waste a shitload of money by sending people to Mars and let's hire some Heritage Foundation staffers to rebuild Iraq.

And with that, let's go onto our 10 worst moments.

10: Bush Gets Re-elected

BRAD1

In a way, Bush's re-election was even more depressing than the shady shenanigans the GOP used to get him elected in 2000. See, back then Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" who promised to be a "uniter, not a divider" who would run a center-right administration like his father did. By 2004, the myth of Bush the Uniter had been demolished by his exploiting the 9/11 terror attacks for political gain, by dropping poison pills into bills to make Democrats vote against their own proposals, and by supporting needless and divisive initiatives such as a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. On top of this, the Bush re-election crew ran one of the nastiest and most negative campaigns in recent memory. The low point in the whole affair came when administration allies and surrogates took to the airwaves to falsely accuse Democratic candidate John Kerry of lying about his service in Vietnam, even claiming in one instance that he intentionally shot himself to get out of the war.

The reason for this historically negative campaign was obvious: As Paul Krugman deftly observed at the time, Bush had "no positive achievements to run on." But this didn't stop more than 59 million Americans from voting to give Bush yet another four years to build on his already-impressive resume of negative achievements.

9: Alberto Gonzales' Congressional Testimony

BRAD2

One of the Bush administration's favorite pastimes over the past eight years has been gleefully urinating in the faces of the other two branches of government. This tendency is best exemplified by Ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions under oath about whether a group of eight federal prosecutors had been fired for partisan reasons. Essentially, all of the attorneys in question had exemplary performance records but were targeted because they did not prosecute several so-called "voter fraud" cases to then-presidential adviser Karl Rove's satisfaction. When the Senate Judiciary Committee called then-Deputy AG Paul McNulty to testify about the firings, he claimed that all of them had been dismissed due to "performance-related issues." About a month later, Gonzales penned an editorial for USA Today reiterating McNulty's claim that the attorneys were fired for performance reasons and called the entire controversy an "overblown personnel matter."

After it emerged that six of the fired attorneys had actually been given positive job evaluations, Gonzales rushed up to Capitol Hill to perform damage control. He said he "regretted" saying that the fired attorneys had lost his confidence, and then went on to say that he had no idea why the attorneys had been targeted for dismissal. Additionally, Gonzales said there was nothing at all improper about the firings, despite the fact that he admitted that he had "limited involvement" in the ordeal. Gonzales also responded to questions by answering "I don't recall" a total of 64 times.

Although several GOP senators called on Gonzales to resign in the wake of his testimony, Bush said Gonzales' performance had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job" and that he would stay on as attorney general.

And the fun didn't stop there. When the Senate Judiciary Committee hauled Gonzales back to testify about his frantic hospital visit to get a fresh-from-surgery John Ashcroft to approve Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, it resulted in the sort of clown show that would have put Barnum and Bailey to shame. The lowlight came during a classic debate between Gonzo and Arlen Specter over whether Ashcroft could have effectively performed his duties as attorney general while he was under heavy sedation. After Gonzales finally stepped down in August 2007, Bush stamped his feet and cried that Gonzo had had "his good name dragged through the mud."

8: North Korea Conducts a Nuclear Test

In his 2002 State of the Union Address, Bush stated forthrightly that "the United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." And to show how serious he was, Bush decided to invade Iraq, a country whose vast stockpile contained precisely zero weapons of mass destruction.

But while Bush was busy freedomizing the Iraqis, North Korea -- a country best known for being home of the world's worst government -- steadily built up its nuclear capabilities and eventually conducted a nuclear test in October 2006.

Oopsie-doodles!

While there is a great deal of dispute over whether the North Korean test was actually a successful test, it seemed clear that Bush's strategic doctrine of ignoring our enemies until they meet every one of his demands has failed somewhat spectacularly. Naturally, Condi Rice declared that the test was actually a significant win for Bush administration policy, thus proving once again that down isn't just up for the Bush administration, but sometimes sideways as well.

7: Colin Powell's Bogus WMD Presentation at the U.N.

BRAD3

For those of you who are too young to remember, there was a time when Colin Powell was an internationally respected diplomat and military leader who was seen as the sort of rare Republican straight-shooter who also had a fine sense for global sensibilities. Indeed, at the time of Powell's appointment to the State Department, the BBC described him as Bush's "trump card" and as "a national hero whose charismatic image bridges America's racial divide." But little did anyone know that Powell's public image as a renowned warrior-scholar would come crashing down to Earth less than four years after his appointment.

In February 2003, Powell gave a presentation before the U.N. Security Council that was instrumental in convincing both the American public and large swaths of the international community that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to global security. During his speech, Powell told scary tales of mobile biological weapons labs, chemical weapons stockpiles and aluminum tubes that could be used in a nuclear weapons program. All of these claims turned out not only to be wrong, but based on sourcing that even Powell acknowledged was "deliberately misleading" in some cases.

And what's more, Powell knew how shaky a lot of the intelligence was before he made his infamous presentation to the United Nations. As Bob Woodward reported in his book Plan of Attack, Powell had deep doubts about an intercept between two senior members of the Iraqi Republican Guard that vaguely sortakindamaybe might have mentioned something along the lines of using vehicles for bioweapons labs. Yet despite reservations about the intel, Woodward reports that Powell "decided to use it" for his U.N. presentation anyway. Ditto for an "inferential" report on Iraqi Scud missiles that Powell acknowledged had not been seen by anyone.

Years after feeding bogus intel to the Security Council, Powell said his performance was a "painful" "blot" on his record. Well la-tee-da. I'm sure that's a fine comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people who died needlessly as a result of Powell's Security Council boo-boo.

6: The Terri Schiavo Affair

BRAD4

In what will no doubt go down in history as one of the craziest things our federal government has ever done, the U.S. House and Senate both passed an emergency law to save the life of a woman who had been near-brain dead for more than a decade. The case of Terri Schiavo, who collapsed in her home and who later lost oxygen to her brain after her doctors misdiagnosed the cause of her collapse, was undoubtedly tragic for everyone involved; it was also undoubtedly none of the federal government's business.

After numerous state courts had sided with then-husband and guardian Michael Schiavo and ruled that Terri's condition was irreversible and that her feeding tube could be removed to end her life, the Christian Right launched into an epic freak-out the likes of which America has not seen since 17th Century Salem. After much Tasmanian devil-style screeching and hollering from the GOP base, the Republican Congress passed a bill transferring jurisdiction of the Schiavo case to federal court. Bush, who seemingly never misses an opportunity to take a naked ride on the crazy train, interrupted one of his frequent Texas vacations to sign the damn thing into law.

Ah, if only he'd been this swift and alert when Hurricane Katrina hit (see Moment #4).

While there were several moments of sheer, unbridled lunacy throughout (Pat Buchanan calls Michael Schiavo and his supporters Nazis! Tom DeLay issues threats against judges who don't rule how he wants them to! Peggy Noonan calls Michael Schiavo supporters part of "culture of death!"), the craziest by far was then-Senator Bill Frist's declaration that Terri had been misdiagnosed after he spent an hour watching a video of her in his office.

5: Bush and Condi's Excellent Gaza Adventure

The Bush administration can be described as a slapstick comedy with an unusually high body count: Picture the Three Stooges and the Keystone Cops duking it out with cruise missiles.

There is no better example of this than Bush and the State Department's wild adventures in the Gaza Strip in 2006. As Vanity Fair's David Rose reported earlier this year, the trouble began when Bush started stamping his feet and throwing a hissy fit about having elections in the Palestinian territories. Essentially, Bush's desire to be seen as a "freedom president" meant forcing various swarthy third-worlders to vote in elections that would presumably result in U.S.-friendly regimes around the world. After Hamas predictably defeated Fatah in the elections, Bush decided he didn't like democracy in the Middle East so much after all, and he had Condi Rice tell Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas that "America expected him to dissolve the Haniyeh government as soon as possible and hold fresh elections." Apparently, Condi believed that having an American-backed leader dissolve a democratically elected government would warm the Palestinians' hearts to American aims. Long story short: The U.S. government decides to bolster Fatah by sending them a bunch of arms. Word of these shipments leaks to a Jordanian newspaper. All hell breaks loose; Hamas defeats Fatah and proceeds to use the American-supplied arms it confiscated from Fatah against Israel. The entire ordeal was an amazing illustration of the administration's complete inability to anticipate entirely predictable outcomes. Or as Khalid Jaberi, a commander with Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, put it: "Since the takeover, we've been trying to enter the brains of Bush and Rice, to figure out their mentality. We can only conclude that having Hamas in control serves their overall strategy, because their policy was so crazy otherwise."

Epic, epic fail.

4: "Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job"

BRAD5

Yes, we're getting into Bush's real crowning achievements here. The Think Progress blog has done an admirable job of chronicling the entire affair, so I'm just going to summarize the lowlights from its timeline:

Aug. 29: Katrina makes landfall, then-FEMA chief Michael "Brownie" Brown warns Bush that the levees could overflow, Bush gives John McCain a cake. Brown, a Bush hack who had previously worked as "the chief rules enforcer of the Arabian Horse Association," also preemptively asks Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, if he "can quit now." He also declares himself "a fashion god."

Aug. 30: Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff learns that the New Orleans levees had failed, looters run rampant in New Orleans, Bush plays guitar, then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan says that Bush will return to his Texas ranch for one more night of vacation before returning to Washington.

Aug. 31: Federal relief workers try to evacuate New Orleans residents in what Chertoff describes as "conditions of urban warfare."

Sept. 1: Bush says, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Brownie says he's received "no reports of unrest."

Sept. 2: Karl Rove begins to enact his strategy of blaming local officials for the Katrina disaster, Bush tells Brownie that he's doing "a heckuva job" and also says he's "satisfied with the response" of the federal government but "not satisfied with all the results," and pledges to rebuild Trent Lott's house.

Sept. 4: Chertoff says that "government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur."

And so on. While watching Katrina unfold live on my television, I suddenly had the urge to sell all my belongings, purchase several firearms, move out to a remote cabin in Montana and wait for society to fall apart. Because hey: If the entire world was going to completely collapse around me, I might as well have a wise-cracking psychic dog to keep me company.

3: Abu Ghraib

BRAD6

In its May 10, 2004, issue, the New Yorker magazine published an explosive report by renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh detailing the systematic torture of prisoners by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Administration apologists used two distinctly different strategies to push back against the inevitable bad press that ensued: One was to condemn the guilty parties but refer to them merely as "a few bad apples" who weren't reflective of American policy; the other was to dismiss the entire scandal as "an out-of-control fraternity prank."

But it turned out, of course, that the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib weren't merely the work of a few rogue soldiers. Indeed, it turns out that the tactics employed in the infamous Iraqi dungeon were first taken out for a test spin at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And what tactics did those *******, you ask? Why, sleep deprivation, stress positions, sexual humiliation and a technique called waterboarding that is meant to simulate the experience of drowning. And where did they get the idea to use these techniques? Why, from senior Bush administration officials, of course! With the full approval of Bush himself! As ABC News reported earlier this year, "the high-level discussions about these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed."

Amazingly, the Bush administration tried to justify its decisions by claiming that waterboarding was perfectly legal and did not constitute torture. Despite the fact that, you know, it was deemed illegal 40 years ago by U.S. generals in Vietnam.

This particular scandal was so bad that even the John Birch Society (!!!) concluded that the administration and its flunkies were war criminals.

2: 9/11

BRAD7

The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the most terrifying and traumatic moments in American history. Thousands of people perished that day, all due to an evil act carried out by a group of religious fanatics who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Penn. But while the loss of life on that day was indeed a major tragedy for all Americans, what happened afterward was in many ways more disturbing: In essence, the politicization of 9/11 caused us to lose our collective minds for a long period of time.

The first shot was fired by Karl Rove in a January 2002 address to the Republican National Committee in which he implored the GOP to "go to the country on (the War on Terror) because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." And sure enough, by the time the midterm elections rolled around, Bush and his GOP minions were milking 9/11 to get as many votes as they could. When Senate Democrats tried to extend union rights for workers in the newly created Department of Homeland Security, for instance, Bush issued a pissy veto threat, and then-spokesman Ari Fleischer described the Dems' proposal as "a step backward, not forward, in protecting the country."

And that's just a mild example. Here are some other choice GOP attacks that accused Democrats of helping al Qaeda win by not kissing Bush's ass with the sufficient level of enthusiasm:

"America sits and wonders why it is that al Qaeda, this ragtag bunch of terrorists scattered all over the globe, can reorganize themselves. I think the difference is that al Qaeda doesn't have a Senate. Al Qaeda doesn't have a Senator Daschle." -- Dick Armey

"As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead. He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that's not the truth. Since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times." -- An attack ad targeting then-U.S. Senator Max Cleland. Cleland is a vet who lost both legs and an arm in the Vietnam War.

"Al Qaeda terrorists. Saddam Hussein. Enemies of America. Working to obtain nuclear weapons. Now more than ever our nation must have a missile defense system to shoot down missiles fired at America. Yet Tim Johnson has voted against a missile defense system 29 different times." -- An attack ad targeting Sen. Tim Johnson. This one was particularly rich, since a missile defense shield would have done precisely nothing to stop the 9/11 attacks.

"How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field?" -- Trent Lott, who freaked out because then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle had the gall to suggest that we'd have to capture Osama bin Laden in order to consider the war on terror successful.

"(Daschle's) divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country." -- Virginia Representative Tom Davis, also attacking Daschle's remarks. Who knew that demanding the capture of our enemies was tantamount to treason?

And so on. The Republicans' "The Democrats Want to Help al Qaeda Kill You" gambit worked for two consecutive elections before finally running out of gas in 2006. But even so, the ability of one political party to garner votes simply by yelling about treason incessantly is incredibly depressing.

Pass me that bucket of Freedom Fries, will you?

1: "Mission Accomplished"

BRAD8

A lot has been written about Bush's aircraft carrier stunt over the past few years, and with good reason. After all, no other incident better illustrates how Bush's presidency was built entirely on hubristic arrogance, shameless propaganda and a destructive disregard for reality. In what Noam Chomsky correctly called "the opening of the year 2004 election campaign," George W. Bush delivered a so-called "victory speech" for the Iraq War after landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln aboard an S-3B Viking jet dressed in full flyboy gear.

Bush's posturing as a war hero was, of course, laughable. During the Vietnam War, Bush used his family connections to obtain a gentleman draft dodger's assignment flying planes in Alabama for the Air National Guard -- a cushy assignment that he didn't even do very well. But no matter! As long as he gave off an aura of steely resolve, and as long as he wore a ridiculous outfit to emphasize his "manly characteristic," our ever-watchful pundit corps endlessly praised him as the gin-you-wine article.

A sample of the atrocities, painstakingly compiled by Media Matters:

"(T)hat's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?" -- Chris Matthews

"A little bit of history and a lot of drama today when President Bush became the first commander in chief to make a tail-hook landing on an aircraft carrier. A one-time Fighter Dog himself in the Air National Guard, the president flew in the co-pilot seat with a trip to the USS Abraham Lincoln." -- Wolf Blitzer

"And two immutable truths about the president that the Democrats can't change: He's a youthful guy. He looked terrific and full of energy in a flight suit. He is a former pilot, so it's not a foreign art farm -- art form to him. Not all presidents could have pulled this scene off today." -- Brian Williams

And in the time since Bush performed this grotesque PR stunt, roughly 4,000 troops have been killed in action along with tens of thousands of Iraqis, with nary a WMD in sight to justify the carnage. Heck of a job, all around.

Brad Reed is a writer living in Boston. His work has previously appeared in the American Prospect Online, and he blogs frequently at Sadly, No!

1/20/09

gish08 can you not post in my threads anymore, thanks

It seems like people started leaving britney alone after she went to rehab.... Maybe if bush takes up drinking again and goes to rehab people will realize that he's a human being too and stop picking on the guy.

:cry:

It's pretty sad that we live in the kind of political climate of astonishing cynicism and apathy that I have to qualify this statement with a disclaimer of sincerity: I'm baffled to the reason why the president hasn't at least been impeached or at most tried before an international court.

But I don't know if there's anything that coulud be said about the worst president in my lifetime.

I honestly think he wasn't impeached for fear of putting Cheney in the White House.

Or people in congress were afraid of a negative foreign opinion from exposing the illegal actions conducted by the administration.

I mean, he should have been impeached. No doubt about it. And it is appalling that he was reelected.

Democrats have no balls. It's that simple.

Gore would have been a great president

And you can't unfortunately impeach a president from being dumb and stubborn.

he did all that other stuff though

The only thing even close to being "impeachable" was if you could prove he knowingly mislead the war.

I believe he no doubts the reports received were accurate and he was correct.

iraq had to happen to maintain the us dollar trading standard and hold off economic collapse. which results in the shadiness around 9/11, both his elections, lack of FEMA funding, media filler like schiavo, etc. these are just the silly results of the very inevitable and predictable result of attempting to continue the cheap energy way of life, which has nothing to do with america or bush and everything to do with human beings being retarded.

Exactly. In order to impeach someone, that person actually actually has to break some kind of law. You don't drag someone into what ultimately amounts to be a criminal trial just because they're unpopular. I realize that the GOP of the 1990s deserves the lion's share of the blame for it, but still, it baffles me that people these days seem to think that you can impeach a President simply because people don't like him or the decisions he makes. Yes, the GOP's impeachment of Clinton was more or less just part of a vendetta...but isn't the consensus that that was a bad thing? Since when did turnabout become fair play?

You can say a lot of things about Bush and his decisionmaking, but you can't say he ever clearly strayed outside the bounds of the law. Even at worst he always solidly within the huge gray area where legitimate exercise of presidential power meets the Constitution. He just never opened himself up to being impeached the way Clinton did. If he had, then I'm sure he would be impeached pretty quickly.

Bush's biggest mistake is overstepping what I believe his role and strengthening the executive branch to far beyond what a democracy dictates.

I wonder how many people even remember Hariet Miers almost being on the Supreme Court.

That one was a knee slapper, for sure.

Exactly. Now if the US federal government allowed Recall Elections then I would be pissed we didn't do that.

5-4 majority reigns supreme regardless. Bush got what he wanted, and with someone that had superior qualifications.

My personal favorite moment was from 2004.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were at the Crawford ranch and they decided to do some photo-ops.

The 3 of them met reporters in front of the ranch dressed in full western gear. Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld had big belt buckles, cowboy boots and jeans. You could see the pain in their faces as they tried to walk. The footage was used in the movie Sideways on one of the TV's in the background.

i saw katrina at #4 and thought it should have been higher.

then i read 1-3. :-/

1: "Mission Accomplished"

http://www.popandpolitics.com/wp-con...flightsuit.jpg

This has been parodied so much it's probably lost it's affect, but I remember watching this live. The surrealism of watching President Bush in full flight suit land on an aircraft carrier to announce the war being over, high-fiving everyone... I mean... did you see his crotch?

It was like those terrible Michael Bay movies come to life.

You can goof on Dukakis in the tank, you can goof on Kerry hunting... but this was legendary.

This picture is going to be in American History books forever, right under the column that vilifies Bush as the most deceitful and hated President of all time.

So hated he was elected twice?

Those same people who defended him, defended the war... they are still out there. It's like the fallacy of the American people being against the Iraq War now. The American public isn't against the war... they are against losing the war.

There hasn't been a war we haven't liked (at first) yet.

It can all happen again.

yeah, you know, i was thinking the other day about how i hope somebody has made an exhaustive list of all of the horrors of the bush administration, because im already beginning to forget a lot of them. there are so many and they are so varied.

there was a government report released last week about how ideologically driven the justice department's hiring was, where something like 97% of all republican applicants got the job even though they went to garbage christian school and were much less qualified than other liberal candidates, and it really brought back the memories: the outrageous fucking amateurishness, the shamelessness, the sheer crudity of this administration. "permanent campaign-mode," its been described.

but reading that, a lot of the feeling of that time came back. i dont know if anyone remembers the feeling that existed from maybe 2003 to 2005: just his nausea, this violent hatred mixed with total impotence and powerlessness, this feeling of hopelessness in view of a balless and politically incompetant democratic leadership... it raises my blood pressure just to think of it.

http://web.knoxnews.com/silence/archives/jesusland.jpg

this and the "were sorry" and "were NOT sorry" websites with all the hick people carrying guns... oh boy, im glad i can finally use past-tense when referring to all this stuff

someone has never heard of andrew jackson

Andrew Jackson is hated?

That's what happens when you try to elevate every trivial misstep into something more than what it is. Now that it's pretty clear that Bush has not been putting the pieces in place to allow him to throw out the Constitution and stay in office forever, I can see how it'd be hard to remember which hyped up, lefty-outrage manufactured crises are the ones that should be part of the official narrative.

Quote:

but reading that, a lot of the feeling of that time came back. i dont know if anyone remembers the feeling that existed from maybe 2003 to 2005: just his nausea, this violent hatred mixed with total impotence and powerlessness, this feeling of hopelessness in view of a balless and politically incompetant democratic leadership... it raises my blood pressure just to think of it.

Don't you think that all this shows that, in retrospect, you were getting a little too worked up over stuff? You're talking about being nauseous and having your blood pressure raised over "horrors" which you've now all but forgotten. We're almost through with Bush's second term, and while things aren't exactly peachy keen you certainly can't say that the temper tantrums, smarmy apologies to the rest of the world, and predictions of utter doom thrown out after election day 2004 were in any way justified.

god, corganist

i think the ideological hiring at the justice department is a good example of one of the many galling things of the bush era that its easy to lose track of. its "small" in one respect (if you measure relatively -- something like iraq makes the most vile misconduct seem like a trifle), but its not at all inconsequential or unimportant. there are a zillion of these things, most of them relating to this administrations bad habit of placing ideology/partisanship over sound policy/reality.

dont know how you can say that second paragraph with a straight face. by all accounts, bush's second term was even more of a disaster than his first (or at least his disasters were better acknowledged). god could only know what wouldve come of his second term had his political capital not been squandered so fantastically on his social security plan, katrina, the spiraling war in iraq, gonzales, etc. the democrats winning in 2006 is what realyl staunched the wound once and for all.

look, corganist, just accept it already: you failed. you helped elect, and tirelessly defended, this monster. 8 years have been lost. the only consolation is that, by being so horrible, bush maybe helped breathed political life into a tired democratic party and bequeathed us a guy like obama.

Bush has been a bad president. I don't think he was a misunderstood genius who was slandered by the liberal media. I'll say it again, he was a really bad president.

After years of Clinton leaving his pizza boxes laying around the oval office, this was supposed to be the CEO administration.

We elect a president to represent us, our spokesman to the world. When I see people say we can't talk to Iran, I wonder... WHY THE HELL DO WE VOTE FOR A PRESIDENT?

I just don't see how any of that is any different than what every other administration in history has done. Republican administrations like to hire republicans? Democrat administrations like to hire democrats? Shock of shocks!

Face it, ideology and partisanship goes hand in hand with the perception of what one's idea of what "sound policy/reality" is. You act almost like when the Bush administration hires more republicans, it's just to stick it to the democrats. In actuality, they want policies to be enacted a certain way (because, ostensibly, they think it's the "right" way) and so they hire people who are inclined to do so. I don't see anything particularly galling about that.


So you're justifying all the unnecessary hand-wringing about Bush's being re-elected by pointing to how bad things could have gotten hypothetically...even though they didn't? Maybe you had really low expectations for this term, but Bush really hasn't done enough of anything, good or bad, to justify them. The fact is that he never had enough political capital to do any good or ill even if he had wanted to...what with the panty-waists making up the GOP majority from 2004-2006. The Dems mid-term wins were more a reaction to the failure of the GOP to seize the moment of Bush's re-election than it was any kind of left-wing stake to the heart of Bush. Bush was a lame duck long before the midterms.

It's not about winning and losing. I've never been out to say Bush has been a great president by any stretch of the imagination. All I've ever said is that being ineffectual or incompetent doesn't make the man a monster who is endangering the livelihood of the nation and the free world. And I think time has borne that out. Despite all the gloom and doom predictions and general hopelessness and negativity of four years ago, the country has gone on and everyone is at least cautiously optimistic that the next guy will be better. The fact that you have to fish and reach for what you were so angry about Bush before just bears out that things weren't near as bad as you were making out.

what do you mean? the justice department is supposed to be apolitical, hiring "your own" there is completely inappropriate, not to mention expressly forbidden. this isnt classic party insularity, this is the underhanded politicization of an apolitical institution. and this is just emblematic of the kind of irresponsibility and misplaced priorities of the bush admin

no. what "sound policy" is is debatable on one level, but that doesnt mean obvious things cant be eliminated from play. there was a blatant disregard for making things work on a policy level, and a maniacal focus on making things work on a polticial level. again, misplaced priorities. even at their worst, other administrations took things like, i dont know, "basic competance" into consideration when hiring or appointing people. instead you have an andalusian horse trader running (sorry, a LOYAL andalusian horse trader, my bad) the nations disaster managment agency. its this kind of almost comic negligence that really leaves the bad taste in peoples mouths.

and why is "galling" banned anyways? what kidn of stupidity is this?

no, i said they went plent bad ("worse," i said). i was just saying "wow, imagine how worse still it couldve gotten if bush actually got to use his last two years and wasnt a lame duck."

what the fuck? what kind of world are you living in. he had plenty of political capital. he won in 2004 by a large enough margin, both houses were repubican... you'd think he'd run amok over america. that capital was lost due to repeated failure and a string of scandals.


what youve said about his greatness/lack of is one thing, and what youve done is another. youve defended the man like he's some innocent victim for 8 years running now.
even now: can you seriously paint a picture of bush as this mere "dud" figure, just ineffectual? i pray nightly that thats all he would be.

Where do you get the idea that the Justice Department is supposed to be apolitical? It's a Cabinet department of the executive branch of government (which is a political branch). The Attorney General is hand picked by the President to oversee the department, and all members of the DOJ report to the AG...who in turn reports to the POTUS. Why would the President get that power if he and the people he appoints and/or hires are expected to not wield any influence over the department's business? That makes zero sense. It'd be a different thing if we were talking about the courts or something like that, but I don't see what's wrong with the head of the executive branch exerting influence on who works in the departments he has exclusive power over.


True enough, but I wouldn't call any of that a problem of this administration over-politicizing things and leaning too much on partisanship and politics as much as it is a problem of putting too much emphasis on friendship and loyalty. There are plenty of dyed in the wool partisan republicans out there who could have been attorney general, supreme court nominee, or head of FEMA and been eminently qualified for it. But we didn't get (or almost get) Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales, and Michael Brown because it did wonders for the GOP or right-wing political goals.

Probably because it's a little too close to the last name of a certain former mod on this board who insisted any reference to her be tossed down the memory hole.

I still don't see what sets off the last three years as being particularly worse than the first four. To the extent that things have gotten worse since Bush's re-election, it's mostly been just residual consequences from his first term. I can't think of any new fuckups in term two nearly on the level of say, Iraq. Katrina, maybe...but overall, Bush's MO this term has been inaction over action. To me, I'd say that's been a bit safer bet.

He never got out of the blocks after the win in 2004. He and the blockheads in the GOP congress got totally the wrong signal from the election results. They figured the win meant that they had the political capital to do whatever they wanted, hence we got slaps in the face like Harriet Miers, supreme court nominee. In actuality, whatever political capital Bush and the GOP may have had was capital do what the conservative voters who turned out in 2004 wanted. Instead, they decided they could take those voters for granted as soon as the election was done, and in so doing they lost them.

It's not as though I've been continuously making uninvited assertions of Bush's greatness for eight years. The extent to which I've defended him has only been to temper the insane vitriol spewed at him here. I've never proclaimed him an innocent victim. I've just asked that his mistakes be viewed in their proper perspective.

"The war" is an invasion meant to make money for defense contractors and oil spectators. Any argument for "the war" based on the premise of spreading freedom or protecting America is a bold-faced assault on critical thinking.

It's time we broke away from the two party system.

Here's a fun one to add to the list!

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2...rsons_reli.php

Hat tip to Sandefur for catching this. President Bush was at Monticello for a 4th of July celebration and he delivered an address. But it's quite telling that his speechwriters, in quoting Jefferson, cut out an anti-religious statement from a long and famous quote. Here's the way Bush put it:

Thomas Jefferson understood that these rights do not belong to Americans alone. They belong to all mankind. And he looked to the day when all people could secure them. On the 50th anniversary of America's independence, Thomas Jefferson passed away. But before leaving this world, he explained that the principles of the Declaration of Independence were universal. In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, "May it be to the world, what I believe it will be -- to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all -- the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government."

Now let's look at the full quote, including the part that was cut out. This is from a letter he wrote to Roger Weightman reflecting on the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (which, it turns out, was the day both he and John Adams died):

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

Jefferson made many such statements, of course. Clearly they are best edited out by those who advocate nothing if not monkish ignorance and superstition.

del

didn't want to take away from ravenguy's post

I like how bush has given up playing golf out of his deep concern and compassion for the soldiers fighting in this war against terrorism, and all of the veterans. I know giving up golf must say alot to these people. When a soldier is on his death bed, he feels better just knowing his commander and chief gave up golf for him. What a wonderful thing.

please keep your bible-thumping religious zealotry out of this thread