A detailed list of the bad things Bush did while in presidency

[Berzerker]

What part of getting rid of Saddam that you don't like?

He used other people's blood and other people's money. And God only knows what mess "we" created by removing Saddam; sure, we were told about a mushroom cloud over NYC if we didn't invade (as if Saddam wanted to nuke NYC), but who knows what Iraq will look like in 10 or 20 years. We helped the fundies in Afghanistan and look how that came back to bite us. If you don't want to see a mushroom cloud over NYC, stay the **** out of that region. You want to see a mushroom cloud over NYC, stay the **** in that region and keep screwing with people and I'm almost sure we'll see that cloud someday.

[Asmodean]

Okay...the thing is this:

This is as much about predicting the future, as it is about policy today. Most people see environment policy as a choice between lifestyle or clean air. It goes deeper than that though. It's about us making a choice for future generations. It's about the future of mankind.

Some people don't see it that way though. They see restrictions in emissions as blocking progress and growth. And that's true. Green policy does hinder the economy. But if the choice is less growth now or no growth in 100 years, I know what I choose.

And yes. I know that it isn't a proven fact that pollution now will cause the Earth to be uninhabitable at some point in the future. But neither is it a proven fact that it won't. So why run the risk??

Asmodean

[Berzerker]

Btw, someone complained about Kyoto, get serious for a minute. The Senate voted that treaty down 99-0 before Bush even got into office.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Btw, someone complained about Kyoto, get serious for a minute. The Senate voted that treaty down 99-0 before Bush even got into office.

That doesn't stop some people from blaming thousands of deaths on Bush....

And considering that Kyoto wouldn't have done a damn thing... it's even lamer... but I guess that's just typical for some of the anti bush crowd... just blame Bush even if it's not his fault...

[DarthVeda]

Here's another for the list: Allow the democratic party to continue existing.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Ming
...

And considering that Kyoto wouldn't have done a damn thing... it's even lamer... but I guess that's just typical for some of the anti bush crowd... just blame Bush even if it's not his fault...

Despite that he agrees with the former administration on this topic, it's his fault too. Not only did he say NO to Kyoto, he said it in a very arrogant and egocentric way: "The American way of life is not negotiable!"

(He's got shares in the oil industry after all)

[Q Classic]

the things bush has done wrong:

1. been a pure politician who cares jack **** for the regular american citizen -- just like clinton.

2. left japan and skorea high and dry in regards to nkorea because it was clintonian, and then after much hemming, hawwing, and really really really bad pr, ended up with a policy not unlike clinton's.

3. deferred any repairs on social security so i'll have to pay even more money in exchange for never seeing a cent of it returned to me.

4. done nothing for the economy. sure, the stock market's up, and all the "leading indicators" are positive in this "jobless recovery". i'll believe the economy's doing better when my best friend's dad gets a job again, and my mom gets the desperately needed schoolteacher's raise that has been deferred for three years now.

bush sucks.
clinton sucks.

we haven't had a good president since old george washington.

some things in common

It should be of no surprise that a couple of weeks ago, President Clinton came to President Bush’s defense with respect to the flap over whether or not Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger .

Newsweek reported that the current president’s advisers carefully added language attributing the uranium accusations to the British, thereby enabling the president to make a statement that was true on its face, but that would lead those of us listening to draw false conclusions.

It was the kind of word-parsing we had become familiar with hearing from our former president, so it’s really not surprising that Clinton would come forth with some begrudging respect for his successor.

It was also not surprising because our current president and our former president are beginning to show some striking similarities.

A recent poll by the New York Times shows that while President Bush still enjoys generally popular support on the whole, there is a deep, seething hatred for him among the far left. This isn’t mere disagreement or a divergence of viewpoints on policy; it’s acidic, and it’s personal. In fact, it’s the very same kind of deep-seeded loathing that the far right had -- and still has -- for President Clinton.

Clinton was hated by the far right because they found him morally unfit for the office of the presidency. A common refrain among conservatives was that President Ronald Reagan so respected the honor of the presidency that he never removed his suit jacket while in the Oval Office. Clinton, we all know, removed far more than his jacket. The right thought Clinton a moral midget, and so developed an unrelenting, gnawing disdain for the man, and for the idea that he could have somehow found his way to Washington.

Similarly, Bush is hated by the far left because they find him intellectually unfit for the office of the presidency. We heard throughout the campaign how he lacked the intellectual curiosity we should all be looking for in our policy makers. We have since seen Bush's malapropisms and mis-turns of phrase regularly rehashed and replayed on late night television. The left thinks Bush an intellectual midget, and so has developed an unrelenting, gnawing disdain for this man, and for the idea that he could have somehow found his way to Washington.

The similarities go on.

Both former President Clinton and our current president also present a kind of philosophical paradox.

Each man commands huge support among his respective base. President Bush can count on strong support from conservatives in the election ahead, just as President Clinton didn’t need to worry about strays from the left in 1996 (unlike Al Gore , who lost disgruntled leftists to Ralph Nader ). Likewise, each man knows that about 15-20 percent of the electorate positively loathes him.

And yet neither really embraces policies that should inspire such vehement feelings from either side. President Clinton was a “triangulator.” He chose his policies carefully, so as not to upset the fat part of the philosophical bell curve. When his proposal for universal health care grew unpopular, he dropped it. He offended his gay supporters when he embraced “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He took on Sister Souljah .

President Bush, while promising not to “govern with polls” in the campaign, has done precisely that. Much as he is despised by the left, it is President Bush’s political strategist Karl Rove who prevents him from straying too far rightward. Consequently, the president has decided to postpone any serious discussion about Social Security reform until his second term. Rather than veto a wasteful, gargantuan prescription drug benefit that pretty much everyone in Washington knows is doomed to failure, President Bush knows that seniors vote in droves, and so he has promised to sign it.

In fact, you could make a convincing case that President Clinton was in fact more conservative than President Bush has been so far, which makes the intense loyalists and detractors of each all the more perplexing.

On free trade, President Clinton wooed union leaders and union members while simultaneously opening huge new channels of free trade (through NAFTA and GAT ), which unions vehemently opposed. President Bush talked free trade up in his campaign, but has largely been a disappointment, having signed a disastrous farm subsidies bill , and upheld protectionist tariffs on steel, lumber, catfish and computer chips.

In his first two years in office, President Bush has increased federal spending considerably more than President Clinton did in his first two years, even after adjusting for defense and homeland security.

President Bush talked much in his campaign about education choice , but in the end, signed an education bill President Clinton would have been proud of -- one that increases, not decreases, federal involvement in primary and secondary schooling.

On civil liberties , President Bush has certainly upheld his conservative credentials. But even here, it’s hard to see where he’s been that different than President Clinton. One can’t imagine former Attorney General Janet Reno -- architect of the Waco disaster -- showing any more post-Sept. 11 deference to the Bill of Rights than Attorney General John Ashcroft has.

Foreign policy? Both men dropped bombs on Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush is about to send a “humanitarian” military mission into Liberia . President Clinton sent one into Somalia . Both were/are interventionists .

When President Bush’s father first ran for president in 1988, Democrat Ann Richards delivered a famous (if borrowed) line at the convention of his opponent, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis . Addressing feminist issues, Richards said, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards, and in high heels.”

You might say that today, President Bush is doing many of the same things President Clinton did, only backwards, and in cowboy boots.

[Japher]

Bush has also successfully mutilated the English language good.and.bad

[Ming]

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
Not only did he say NO to Kyoto, he said it in a very arrogant and egocentric way: "The American way of life is not negotiable!"

Good for him. Frankly, he's not your president... he's ours.

Your leaders sold you out by going along with a treaty that didn't do crap except for making an attempt to make the politicians look good. I would rather have somebody looking after his countries interests then selling them out for their own popularity while accomplishing nothing in the process.

[Asmodean]

From my point of view, Bush has been a pretty good president. The only real f*ck up I can recall, was the pressure he applied on the EU to accept Turkey as a member. As if we would ever accept a country with such a blatant disregard for human rights. That was WEAK, Bush. Other than that, thumbs up from me

Asmodean

[Berzerker]

Olaf, do you know what Kyoto would have done to the USA? Have you read it? There's a reason why the Senate voted that trash down 99-0 before Bush even won election and there's a reason why some of the USA's competitors wanted it. People often complain that the USA "consumes" so much of the world's resources but they ignore that the USA produces more than any other country.

[Berzerker]

Originally posted by Ming


That doesn't stop some people from blaming thousands of deaths on Bush....

And Mickelson starts fading.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Berzerker
...

People often complain that the USA "consumes" so much of the world's resources but they ignore that the USA produces more than any other country.

Yeah, like you were self-sufficient in oil. Why did your army "secure" the Iraqi oil fields before anything else?

[Asmodean]

That, Olaf, is the most ridiculous statement of all time.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Asmodean

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Ming


Good for him. Frankly, he's not your president... he's ours.

Your leaders sold you out by going along with a treaty that didn't do crap except for making an attempt to make the politicians look good. I would rather have somebody looking after his countries interests then selling them out for their own popularity while accomplishing nothing in the process.

You have a point there. Our Göran Persson have double standards when he signs the Kyoto Protocol with one hand and shut down nuclear power stations with another, forcing Sweden to buy "dirty" coal power from Denmark and Poland during peak times. But politicians using double standards is not the fault of the Kyoto protocol. The basic idea is good, we just have start working for it.