Thread: Is W. the worst president ever?

I might not be the only one to think he is...

Video: Un periodista arroja sus zapatos a Bush durante una rueda de prensa en Irak : Vídeos en ELPAÍS.com

I am not sure that proves that he is the worst ever. It just means some idiot threw something at the man who holds the most powerful position in the world.

I have never liked Bush from the day he announced he was running for his first term. I am sure though, he will show in history as the worse President ever.

Well someone thinks he is. Check out the other thread of a reporter throwing his loafers at Bush lol

Originally Posted by allout

I have never liked Bush from the day he announced he was running for his first term. I am sure though, he will show in history as the worse President ever.

What about the other bloke who kept on saying he didnt have sexual relations with that woman? He was a complete and utter tool, so was the wife. Im sure that there were worst presidents than him.

Originally Posted by Rhiannon

What about the other bloke who kept on saying he didnt have sexual relations with that woman? He was a complete and utter tool, so was the wife. Im sure that there were worst presidents than him.

Bill I did not have sexual relations with that woman Clinton.

Originally Posted by Rhiannon

What about the other bloke who kept on saying he didnt have sexual relations with that woman? He was a complete and utter tool, so was the wife. Im sure that there were worst presidents than him.

At least he's not gay....:slaugh:

Is there a worse president than W.??
Bottom line, did W. do something right in the last 8 years?

I suspect when the smoke of politics clears history will not regard him as near the worst. Check back in 50 years and see... personally my own plans include being dead by then.

Originally Posted by Rhiannon

What about the other bloke who kept on saying he didnt have sexual relations with that woman? He was a complete and utter tool, so was the wife. Im sure that there were worst presidents than him.

His Name was Bill Clinton and his wife is going to be the new Secretary of State. That was nothing to the perverse nature of many Presidents in history. :swink:


Funny story about that though. My mom, now 80, was totally annoyed that Monica could have semen all over her dress. She thought it was set up because she could not figure out how that would happen. Imagine the fun of explaining to your mother that it was oral sex! :sblush:

She was really disgusted once she caught on. :slaugh:

Originally Posted by allout

Funny story about that though. My mom, now 80, was totally annoyed that Monica could have semen all over her dress. She thought it was set up because she could not figure out how that would happen. Imagine the fun of explaining to your mother that it was oral sex! :sblush:

She was really disgusted once she caught on. :slaugh:

Completely off topic = as usual, my grandma is a god fearing woman, who goes to church all the time, shes in her 80s now, but about 10 years ago one christmas, she came inside and got out her plant and tree encyclopedia and went looking for a "fuc*ing mango tree"

Apparently the boys next door, were yelling at the mango tree, 'fuc*ing mango tree" LOL they got a ball stuck up there and couldnt get it out LOL

She thought it was a new type of mango tree that she hadnt heard about before lol she was told that there was no such thing and the boys next door needed to have their mouths washed out with soap LOL

Lets just hope that Obama is one of the best presidents ever. He'll need to be to deal with the current financial crisis; the war in Iraq; and the envoironmental issues that the world is facing.

Originally Posted by Rhiannon

What about the other bloke who kept on saying he didnt have sexual relations with that woman? He was a complete and utter tool, so was the wife. Im sure that there were worst presidents than him.

Old post, and I don't usually talk politics, but I HAVE to comment here. Bill Clinton's infidelity should never have been a public issue and had nothing to do with politics. It is a shame the last few years of the Clinton administration were clouded by a scandal that was irrelevant to politics. Bill Clinton presided over the largest economic expansion in U.S. history and the amount of people collecting welfare was the lowest it had been in about 35 years. Remember the Internet boom of the 90's? I was swimming in money then. Why do you think President-elect Obama selected ex-Clinton administration officials to head his economic team?

Bush expanded the government which cost money, started two wars which cost more money, then gave people tax cuts and and tax rebates. He spent more money and brought in less. He wasted Clinton's budget surplus and brought us into a deficit. George W. Bush is also responsible for a lot of death. His own defense officials disagree with his ideology behind the Iraq war.

Bill Clinton's infidelity should never have been a public issue and had nothing to do with politics. It is a shame the last few years of the Clinton administration were clouded by a scandal that was irrelevant to politics.

Absolutely true. It was a waste of time. For every guy that was offended that he was getting something from a kid half his age there were 10 middle aged guys that wanted him to write a "How-to" book... and frankly if I was married to Hillary I wouldn't have shown *near* as much restraint.

Aside from that a lotta the people pointing fingers were typical Pharisaic assclowns that didnt need to be casting the first stone given their own peccadillos.

On the other points...

Notwithstanding laughably self-serving claims by Al Gore, the internet boom was not so much the administrations doing as it was a happy coincidence of timing with regard to what technology came outta the garage when. Clinton did little to "cause" it... and the Janet Reno Justice Dept attacks on Microsoft did their best to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. It was also during his term that stock certificates for most dotcoms became a tool to be used only for cleaning up small spills.

The massive economic growth was largely fueled by the same ill-conceived over-leveraging of mortgage assets that we just saw come crashing to earth in spectacular form to cause the stuff you're pointing at Bush for, so giving Bill "credit" for it isn't necessarily in his favor. No administration occurs in a standalone vaccuum independent of the actions taken prior.

The rocket went straight up in one administration and the gravitational pull took over in the next... just as the last time we had a budget surplus (wow... the Andrew Jackson terms) led to a phenomenal crash in the following term (Van Buren's). Though presidents are judged by contemporaries as if everything that happens "on their watch" is solely their fault... history looks at the broader view and notes cause and effect.

As such I don't tend to demonize either of them quite the same as some or at least for the same reasons, but YMMV.



[MENTAL]If presidents were elected for 12 hour terms...
every other one would be blamed for plunging the world into darkness,
the rest would be known for bringing light to the world.
[/MENTAL]

robjones, I don't know if I could've put it better myself. I can't say that Bush will go down in history as the worst president, but I have to agree he is one of the main reasons our national deficit has grown exponentially. And, Clinton, the deficit didn't increase not just because he didn't increase the size of government, but also due to our diminished military. Anyone remember the USS Cole and Somalia fiascos? I believe those two events were the burgeoning of the attacks on September 11th. Yet, when they occurred, Clinton's inexperience in military matters lead him to simply tuck tail and run.

Still, I don't believe either Bush or Clinton will go down as the best or worst administrations in U.S. history. Of course, that remains to be seen. In fact, the housing crisis we're experiencing now can be dated back to Carter's administration. If you don't remember, his administration created the adjustable rate mortgage to ensure that lending institutions would not lose money with rising interest rates. Once the ARM was created, those institutions were now able to transfer that risk to naive home buyers. If I also remember correctly, didn't we have a fuel issue during his administration as well?

It's easy to point fingers at the current administration for the ills of the nation, right or wrong. Obama and his campaign manager were successful in convincing people that that was the case. I believe there is no one man that can change our country's state, but the people themselves.

Military, lol then blame bush. who started a war on BS intel?

To fight 'terror' one does not need a huge military.

Do you think Clinton would have had support to do more than he did? fucking republicans railed against him for everything he did try.

When the economy was doing good under Bush his cronies claimed it was all his doing, now that it's tanking it's 'but but but you can't blame him.'

Originally Posted by grim

To fight 'terror' one does not need a huge military.

:

And the US is one of the countries with the lower number of caught terrorists...

How can you have a 'war on terror', that's like having a 'war on drugs'?
...oh wait

Good points from robjones and chaka42 about presidents not being responsible for economic trends. Business people have been the ones who were responsible for Internet business and mortgage business problems. I also didn't know those things about the Carter administration creating ARMs.

Though, I still blame presidents for the causes of their own tax policies and can't help but notice that Clinton had us in surplus before Bush spent $1 Trillion per year on Iraq, then cut taxes. I believe if an administration wants to lower taxes, they also have to cut fat out of their spending and possibly make the government smaller.

If people here don't think W is necessarily the worst, then who do you think is the worst? Was Herbert Hoover the worst for being so lame during the great depression?

I dont know about the worst but i think it is fair to say he is not the best president ever.

Good at ducking shoes though fair play to him for that.

Originally Posted by vectro

..I believe if an administration wants to lower taxes, they also have to cut fat out of their spending and possibly make the government smaller.

I completely agree. But isn't that what Obama is attempting to do? Cut taxes AND do all these things with healthcare, education, bailouts, etc.

Again, I think it will be difficult to narrow down one administration as being the worst. We all see it based on our perspective and experiences, so modern thinking will point at more recent presidents like Reagan, Bush, Clinton and W. Bush. Quite frankly, most people don't know enough about all of the presidents to make an educated decision.

Originally Posted by Codythebest

And the US is one of the countries with the lower number of caught terrorists...

And that's bad? Considering the number of terrorist attacks on the U.S. as compared to other countries, it's not such a bad thing.

Originally Posted by chaka42

I completely agree. But isn't that what Obama is attempting to do? Cut taxes AND do all these things with healthcare, education, bailouts, etc.

I think so since that is how he campaigned. He said anyone making less than $250,000 per year (90% of working Americans) would get a tax break. However, he has remained tight-lipped since being elected so we'll see. I think some small business owners who are just above that ceiling are still worried their taxes might increase.

Hard to say who was the worst of ALL time... changing circumstances make it a tough comparison and pretty much none of them get a totally clean slate, but if we limit it to presidents that've been around during my lifetime (that's not a small number... Eisenhower was pres when I was born) you get a little more comparable sample.

I suspect history would credit Jimmy Carter as the least effective of that timeframe, from his inability to get anything thru Congress to his disastrous economic policies to his bungling of the Iran Hostage Crisis. Double digit inflation, marginal tax rates so high that after a point you might make a quarter if you earned a dollar. Oh yeah... good times. LOL. When they came out with a smaller dollar coin, it was laughingly dubbed the JC Penny.

I'm betting a many that think Bush is the worst ever weren't around during the Johnson and Nixon years to see much larger losses on foreign soil in an even less popular cause which was largely escalated with a fabricated casus beli (Gulf of Tonkin Incident). Body bags and military coffins were major growth industries in those days.

We had widescale internal riots and domestic terrorism on our own soil in relation to the Vietnam war, and constitutional breaches by the government internally in response to same under the guiding hand of J Edgar Hoover. We had kids bugging out to Canada to avoid mandatory military conscription (ie - the draft), and national prestige took a hit when we secretly invaded Cambodia as the scope of the war grew and the bad guys were again hiding over a border and raiding across in hopes that we'd play by the same rules they themselves were ignoring.

The documented atrocities that happened on our side were exacerbated by the fact that we didnt have an all volunteer force and besides most of the draftees being unwilling participants, it was also common for volunteers of that era to be there because some judge gave 'em a choice of jail or the military in response to some crime. Abu Graib and Gitmo are freakin walks in the park by comparison with the Me Lai massacre and similar events. Guerrilla wars are by nature an ugly biz, and that one makes current actions look smallscale but wildly successful.

Part of the problem was that Vietnam was such a political issue that decision on a tactical level were being handled by guys in nice cozy offices in DC, and largely by civilians... both being mistakes. Rules of engagement often hamstrung the guys from doing their job, and military men were limited by political necessities instead of being allowed to fight to win (a precursor to our Mogadishu fiasco under Clinton).

Then for political necessity we precipitously withdrew, leaving the country to the aggressors, condemning those that cooperated with us to death or worse. It also proved the value of the strategy still being used today against us... that as long as you can get enough mangled GI bodies on US TV we will turn tail and run. Clinton reverified that in Somalia and was credited by terrorists (I forget the quote, think it was OBL) with emboldening them to attack us even more because of our perceived weakness.

[Added: Found the quote... see bottom of post.]

So basically I'm just saying tho Bush is unpopular now and some of the reasons for it are pretty strong (he's pissed me off in several areas)... when viewed in perspective and compared to similar situations in presidential history it'd be real hard for me to say history will really consider him the worst ever. I'd also say anyone with a sense of history will avoid saying "screw Iraq, just get our guys home". Sometimes a hand has to be played out because cutting and running is worse than the alternative.
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ADDED
Quote from Osama Bin Ladens 1996 Fatwa Declaring of War on US (Full Text of Fatwa)
The excerpted text below addressed Clinton Sec of Defense Les Aspin directly, and clearly stated that our "cut and run" behavior, especially in Somalia, emboldened terrorists to act against us.

Originally Posted by bin laden in 1996

Few days ago the news agencies had reported that the Defence Secretary of the Crusading Americans had said that "the explosion at Riyadh and Al-Khobar had taught him one lesson: that is not to withdraw when attacked by coward terrorists".

We say to the Defence Secretary that his talk can induce a grieving mother to laughter! and shows the fears that had enshrined you all. Where was this false courage of yours when the explosion in Beirut took place on 1983 AD (1403 A.H). You were turned into scattered pits and pieces at that time; 241 mainly marines solders were killed. And where was this courage of yours when two explosions made you to leave Aden in lees than twenty four hours!

But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu.

(and from further down the page)

Those youths know that their rewards in fighting you, the USA, is double than their rewards in fighting some one else not from the people of the book. They have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of God like you, cannot be in the same hell with his righteous executioner.

(and from further down the page)

Those youths are different from your soldiers. Your problem will be how to convince your troops to fight, while our problem will be how to restrain our youths to wait for their turn in fighting and in operations.