Monday, December 22, 2008

An Honest (if partisan) Look At President Bush's Record

Myths and Facts About the Real Bush Record

14 comments:

gbradley said...

I was just reading a similar piece.

"http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/george-w-bush-wasn-t-so-bad

I bet that liberals will get a whole lot of mileage out of "Blame Bush".

Anything good that happens in 2009 will be the result of Obama's genius.
Anything that is bad will be the sad result of Bush's failed policies of the last eight years.

Anonymous said...

The lefties are still blaming Reagan for everything but the sinking of the Andrea Doria so what makes you think a single year'll let Bush off the hook?

I'm surprised Ike didn't come in for his share of the blame for everything that went wrong during the Clinton administration.

Anonymous said...

I can't resist mentioning that the World Trade Center happened on Bush's watch but the right wing blamed it on Clinton.

But what the heck, it has always been this way. It's part of the background noise of politics.

Richard

Darren said...

No, Richard, we blame it on Osama bin Laden. Are you lefties still so touchy about Clinton?

My first battalion commander in the army told me this:

"There are two types of errors: errors of commission, and errors of omission. Errors of commission occur when you do something you're not supposed to do. Errors of omission occur when you don't do something you're supposed to do. I can forgive the first type, because at least you're doing something. I can't forgive the second, because you weren't doing anything."

Any fault President Clinton has regarding 9/11 comes from an error of omission. But the blame for the event rests with bin Laden.

Anonymous said...

Worst President Ever.

Anonymous said...

Darren--
Just found your blog! It's pretty tough over on the East coast, too!Especially teachers in Hillsborough county, Florida!
Actually, west central Florida--Tampa. It's going to be an interesting time, the next few years--education, economics, politics--you name it!!
TampaTeacher

Darren said...

I'm glad you *did* find it. Keep comin' back!

Anonymous said...

Richard

Something I think I should bring up with your blaming (or at least implying blame on) George Bush for 9/11.

Granted, not a great source of information but Dick Morris writes of one of the three times (and the fact Clinton had at least three chances to get Bin Laden but didn’t take the shot, pardon the pun, is very well documented, even with Clinton’s words) and choose not to bomb the location. He justified it by telling Morris “There were women and children there and I gotta be able to sleep.”

Explains the man perfectly. He never comprehended one of the basic requirements of holding that office. He failed to get over his sleeping problem to allow me to sleep at night.

Anonymous said...

No, actually I agree with Darren that the blame lies solely with Bin Laden.

I'm saying that the outside party usually blames the preceding party for myriad things both real and imagined.
It's pretty easy to Monday morning quarterback and say that Clinton should have taken the shot. In retrospect, sure. At the moment, knowing you would have killed an unknown number of civilians for possibly no good purpose, can you say you would have pulled the trigger and slept well in confidence. It was probably the wrong call. One can't say for sure because it might not have changed anything. It might have made things worse. It might have resulted in Al Gore's election. One just doesn't know how history would have unfolded.

Richard

Anonymous said...

Richard

As a Charter Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (VRWC) I have to say I don’t blame Clinton for the attack itself. What I do blame him for is a failure to execute the duties of the office. How many times during Clinton’s term did UBL do things that warranted us taking him out and Clinton failed to act? The only time he did was during the Lewinski scandal and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the only reason he ordered it was the divert attention from the scandal.

Ronald Reagan ordered an attack against Momar Kadafi in 1986 and in the process one’s of the Colonels son’s was killed. Kadafi became very quiet on the international stage after almost being killed by an F-111. After the attack on Hiroshima Harry Truman was asked if he had problems sleeping and he said no. That ended the Second World War and saved countless lives by forcing Japan’s surrender. Both President Bush’s have taken action against threats to this county. In the case of George HW Bush he liberated Kuwait and stopped a threat to Saudi Arabia, a major source of oil to this country. You know what George W Bush did. You may argue the wisdom of doing what they did but they did take action.

Failing to take action to deter aggression will only encourage more aggression. That is something people like Clinton (both Mr. and Mrs. Clinton) never comprehended.

gbradley said...

Richard,
I agree totally.
Do I wish WJC would have taken out Bin Laden when I had the chance? Yes.
Do I blame him for not pulling the trigger because he was worried about excess casualties? No.
I don't know what he knew.

Oh, and Al Gore did get elected. :-)
(slaps hand on knee)
That gets em every time...

Anonymous said...

> I can't resist mentioning that the World Trade Center happened on Bush's watch but the right wing blamed it on Clinton.

You should've tried harder then.

The *second* attack on the World Trade Center happened on Dubya's watch. The first one, along with numerous other attacks on Americans in other countries, happened on Clinton's watch: U.S.S. Cole, Kobar Towers, dual bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa. There are more but the point's made; Clinton was incompetent in foreign affairs matters.

On those few occasions when Clinton ordered some response the response was spastic and ineffectual. He didn't want to respond but enough people were yelling at him that he had to do something no matter how worthless. So Clinton ordered an action not to damage our enemy's ability to harm us in the future but to get people who were yelling at him to do something, off his back.

Clinton's apologists refused to see the distinction but it wasn't lost on our enemies.

Anonymous said...

“Do I blame him for not pulling the trigger because he was worried about excess casualties? No.
I don't know what he knew.”

You should try reading a book once in a while. Or maybe allen (in Michigan) post documenting everything UBL did in the 90s and Slick Willie failed to act upon. You know, the same Slick Willie who tells every fawning reporter “I had an obsession with getting Bin Laden…” and wouldn’t take him after the Saudi’s offered him to us. Why? Because “we couldn’t make a case against him”.

“Oh, and Al Gore did get elected. :-)
(slaps hand on knee)
That gets em every time...”

Oh, ALGORE won the general election. He lost the thing that matters, the Electoral College. I know having the Constitution win out over the Democrat's wishes always get’s em every time (Bitch slap across the face!)

Ellen K said...

Down the road I think Bush's tenure will be viewed in a very different light. Not everything he did was right. I think he erred when he didn't simply go in and flatten Baghdad. I think much of that was due to his own reluctance to inflict collateral casualties on the civilian populations. In a way, I think this reveals both his decency and his naive nature toward the culture of the Middle East. But at least he tried, which is more than I can say for Clinton. Clinton deliberately created walls between the FBI, CIA and NSA that made communication virtually impossible. So what one agency was seeing overseas as a threat could not be communicated to the other agencies. The result was the 9/11 tragedy which I think honestly surprised even Bin Laden in its execution. I don't want us to become as tightly regimented as Israel, but it worries me how lightly the incoming president seems to take the very real threat from terrorist nations. I fear that the same folks who led the Clintonistas to weaken our security forces, will erode what little protection we are afforded. Right now, I could probably drive a truck filled with contraband across the Mexican or Canadian border with impunity. When we find empty trailers and abandoned vehicles along the borders, you have to wonder who, or what, they were carrying. This worries me, and it concerns me more that the incoming administration simply doesn't care to address the issue.