Opinion of George W. Bush

[bedstuy]

Obviously, I disagree with Bush on policy.  The Bush tax cut, invading Iraq, massive giveaways to corporate America while vetoing healthcare for children, scapegoating gay people, pandering to the Christian right, the list goes on.  He was awful on policy and on that alone I would vote HP.

But, beyond that, you have to question Bush's leadership and his competence.  There are four big events he completely botched.  Regardless of how you feel on policy, I defy anyone to say Bush did a good job on any of the following:

1.  He came into office thinking terrorism was Bill Clinton's pet issue so he ignored the issue until 9/11. 
2.  He botched the war in Afghanistan, letting Bin laden escape and eventually ignored the worsening security situation.
3.  He botched Iraq completely until 2007.  He didn't fire Rumsfeld or our incompetent generals, or set out a strategy to win in Iraq. 
4.  He was frozen during the financial crisis, couldn't get TARP passed quickly and his team, especially Hank Paulson, made huge missteps that worsened the crisis.

[MadmanMotley]

In office: HP
Out of office: FF

[IceSpear]

HP (sane)

[IceSpear]

FF because I'm not a far-left hack.  (Insert nasty comment here.)

So 75% of Americans in 2008 were far left hacks?

[Supersonic]

FF.

[Zioneer]

Obviously, I disagree with Bush on policy.  The Bush tax cut, invading Iraq, massive giveaways to corporate America while vetoing healthcare for children, scapegoating gay people, pandering to the Christian right, the list goes on.  He was awful on policy and on that alone I would vote HP.

But, beyond that, you have to question Bush's leadership and his competence.  There are four big events he completely botched.  Regardless of how you feel on policy, I defy anyone to say Bush did a good job on any of the following:

1.  He came into office thinking terrorism was Bill Clinton's pet issue so he ignored the issue until 9/11. 
2.  He botched the war in Afghanistan, letting Bin laden escape and eventually ignored the worsening security situation.
3.  He botched Iraq completely until 2007.  He didn't fire Rumsfeld or our incompetent generals, or set out a strategy to win in Iraq. 
4.  He was frozen during the financial crisis, couldn't get TARP passed quickly and his team, especially Hank Paulson, made huge missteps that worsened the crisis.

Indeed. I would argue that Bush's tendency to delegate things to incompetent or greedy/ambitious underlings made him personally worse, than the common image of the dumb harmless guy.

[H. Ross Peron]

The worst President since Hoover

[bedstuy]

Obviously, I disagree with Bush on policy.  The Bush tax cut, invading Iraq, massive giveaways to corporate America while vetoing healthcare for children, scapegoating gay people, pandering to the Christian right, the list goes on.  He was awful on policy and on that alone I would vote HP.

But, beyond that, you have to question Bush's leadership and his competence.  There are four big events he completely botched.  Regardless of how you feel on policy, I defy anyone to say Bush did a good job on any of the following:

1.  He came into office thinking terrorism was Bill Clinton's pet issue so he ignored the issue until 9/11. 
2.  He botched the war in Afghanistan, letting Bin laden escape and eventually ignored the worsening security situation.
3.  He botched Iraq completely until 2007.  He didn't fire Rumsfeld or our incompetent generals, or set out a strategy to win in Iraq. 
4.  He was frozen during the financial crisis, couldn't get TARP passed quickly and his team, especially Hank Paulson, made huge missteps that worsened the crisis.

Indeed. I would argue that Bush's tendency to delegate things to incompetent or greedy/ambitious underlings made him personally worse, than the common image of the dumb harmless guy.

There's a definite pattern.  Don Rumsfeld, Tommy Franks, Alberto Gonzalez, Paul Bremer, Mike ''Brownie" Brown, Addington, Yoo, Ricardo Sanchez...  Even if you hire bad people, you need to manage them and fire them when they screw up.  In 50% of the militaries around the world Tommy Franks would be shot, in 49% he would be fired and in America he became a potential Republican VP.

[nclib]

Ultra HP. One of the worst ever, at least compared to the general public of the time.

[RosettaStoned]

 War criminal.

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

Bring back the guillotine just so we can use it on him.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Literally everything that is wrong with the Republican Party.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Worst President ever

[nuclearneo577]

HP, he lost the 2000 election and then let Dick Cheney run the country into the ground for eight years. The only good thing that I can say about him is that he's been pretty quiet ever since he left the White House, unlike Cheney.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

HP, he lost the 2000 election and then let Dick Cheney run the country into the ground for eight years. The only good thing that I can say about him is that he's been pretty quiet ever since he left the White House, unlike Cheney.

lol

Seriously, I hate Bush just as much as anyone, but the system worked in 2000.

[publicunofficial]

The one good thing he did was basically destroy the legitimacy of neoconservatives.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

One day and he's already near the Civil War presidents. Let's get him to single digits!

[Zioneer]

HP, he lost the 2000 election and then let Dick Cheney run the country into the ground for eight years. The only good thing that I can say about him is that he's been pretty quiet ever since he left the White House, unlike Cheney.

lol

Seriously, I hate Bush just as much as anyone, but the system worked in 2000.

Didn't Gore technically win the popular vote after all the recounts?

[bedstuy]

HP, he lost the 2000 election and then let Dick Cheney run the country into the ground for eight years. The only good thing that I can say about him is that he's been pretty quiet ever since he left the White House, unlike Cheney.

lol

Seriously, I hate Bush just as much as anyone, but the system worked in 2000.

If you're a Republican, obviously you like the result.  But, the recount was a fiasco by anyone's standards.  If you're a Republican, wouldn't you have preferred doing no hand recounts at all or not doing any recount at all?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

HP, he lost the 2000 election and then let Dick Cheney run the country into the ground for eight years. The only good thing that I can say about him is that he's been pretty quiet ever since he left the White House, unlike Cheney.

lol

Seriously, I hate Bush just as much as anyone, but the system worked in 2000.

Didn't Gore technically win the popular vote after all the recounts?

Gore won the nationwide popular vote regardless of the Florida recounts.

As for the recounts, the Supreme Court did the following
Dec. 9th 2000: issues stay stopping the recounts
Dec. 12th 2000: Declared that the recounts were invalid (and even threw out the running count they had) because they missed the non-binding deadline of Dec. 12th. Gee, I wonder why.

[bedstuy]

HP, he lost the 2000 election and then let Dick Cheney run the country into the ground for eight years. The only good thing that I can say about him is that he's been pretty quiet ever since he left the White House, unlike Cheney.

lol

Seriously, I hate Bush just as much as anyone, but the system worked in 2000.

Didn't Gore technically win the popular vote after all the recounts?

Gore won the nationwide popular vote regardless of the Florida recounts.

Bush won the initial count in Florida and Bush would have won under the limited manual recount requested by Gore.  Gore would have won if you did a statewide manual recount.

[dead0man]

As I've said before, he's like most Presidents, not as bad as the haters say, not as good as the lovers say.  And like most of them, HP.

[morgieb]

The one good thing he did was basically destroy the legitimacy of neoconservatives.

This is true lol.

[Ebowed]

Second worst president in recent history.  The only thing he has going for him is his personality, which is surprising given how unlikeable his father is.

Going on policy, he may very well be the sort of person that 'hell' as a concept was created for.

[SWE]

HP, he lost the 2000 election and then let Dick Cheney run the country into the ground for eight years. The only good thing that I can say about him is that he's been pretty quiet ever since he left the White House, unlike Cheney.

lol

Seriously, I hate Bush just as much as anyone, but the system worked in 2000.

That must be an awful system