Opinion of George W. Bush

[Mordecai]

HP, one of the worst Presidents in a generation.

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.

5. Walter Reed
6. Valerie Plame and Scooter Libby
7. Literally lost $20 billion in Iraq.
8. Appointed a random guy from the International Arabian Horse Association as Administrator of FEMA, mishandling of Hurricane Katrina.
9. Military Commissions Act of 2006
10. Medicare Part D
11. Alberto Gonzales
12. PATRIOT Act
13. Harriet Miers
14. 2001 California energy crisis
15. No Child Left Behind
16. Soldiers in Iraq using hillbilly armor and getting blown up by IEDS because of Rumsfeld's idiocy.

And there's probably more I've forgotten.

[Randy Bobandy]

Terrible, horrible, awful person.

[MATTROSE94]

In office: HP
Out of office: FF

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

FF

[TNF]

The worst. Thanks for making me a leftist though!

[WalterMitty]

He did more good than bad.  So ff

[The Dowager Mod]

HP.

[Хahar 🤔]

His administration's foreign policy in Africa was certainly an improvement on Clinton. Nothing else really was. The best that can be said for him is that his intentions were good, at least in the realm of foreign affairs.

Bush is in the top 5 worst presidents. I think the only good thing he did for the country was the Do Not Call List and one can easily argue it violates the principle of free enterprise. You'd have thought a president with an MBA would have been far more competent. 

What does an MBA have to do with governmental administration?

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

2nd worst president ever. 1st is Buchanan

FIFY

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

His administration's foreign policy in Africa was certainly an improvement on Clinton. Nothing else really was. The best that can be said for him is that his intentions were good, at least in the realm of foreign affairs.

Surely in your joking...

[Хahar 🤔]

His administration's foreign policy in Africa was certainly an improvement on Clinton. Nothing else really was. The best that can be said for him is that his intentions were good, at least in the realm of foreign affairs.

Surely in your joking...

What part of my statement are you referring to?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

His administration's foreign policy in Africa was certainly an improvement on Clinton. Nothing else really was. The best that can be said for him is that his intentions were good, at least in the realm of foreign affairs.

Surely in your joking...

What part of my statement are you referring to?

"Surely in"....how did I type that? .

[they don't love you like i love you]

HP. Explaining it isn't even neccessary.

[ElectionsGuy]

Percentage and votes match (100 votes)!

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

The worst. Thanks for making me a leftist though!

Are you implying that there was a time when you weren't a leftist, or were you just not interested in politics until the Bush presidency?

[H. Ross Peron]

The worst. Thanks for making me a leftist though!

Are you implying that there was a time when you weren't a leftist, or were you just not interested in politics until the Bush presidency?

I think TNF said before that in his heathen, reprobate days he was a libertarian.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

The worst. Thanks for making me a leftist though!

Are you implying that there was a time when you weren't a leftist, or were you just not interested in politics until the Bush presidency?

I think TNF said before that in his heathen, reprobate days he was a libertarian.

An Austrian school, Ron Paul-type libertarian?  Yikes.

[nclib]

Literally everything that is wrong with the Republican Party America.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

One of the worst presidents in American history by almost any imaginable metric, but I'd take him over the the anti-government, know-nothing paranoiacs who have since taken over his party.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

FF.

[The Dowager Mod]

So the top 5:
Abraham Lincoln: 89.1% Approval
John Adams: 87.0% Approval
James A. Garfield: 83.7% Approval
James Madison: 81.0% Approval
Chester A. Arthur: 80.8% Approval tie
Dwight D. Eisenhower: 80.8% Approval tie

HAHA Garfield.

[Mechaman]

At first I didn't feel like adding to the already overwhelmingly negative chorus here, but I must take a moment to comment on Bush's incompetence.  And that is to say that if he had been working at a successful corporation like the one I work at and produced the same results he did he would've been fired well before January 20th, 2009.

I find it interesting that a lot of people adopted the "Bush is dumb and don't have a lot of book learnin'" meme when he was president just based off of his folkish behavior.  If anything, the case of George Bush should be a damning indictment of judging a political candidate based off of their education.  IIRC, he had better undergraduate grades than Al Gore did and has that MBA degree from Harvard that several people already brought up.  Now, we all know how his presidency went and how good he was at decision making (arguably the most important aspect of business and/or being the head of the Executive branch), but what about his business career?

Well,

Arbusto Energy: 1979-1984: Formed Arbusto Energy from his rich boy education fund and money from rich older people his family knew.  Sells company in 1984 to Spectrum 7, another Texas gas exploration firm.  I'll cut him a little slack here and assume it had something to do with the whole energy crisis thing of the time and just forming a company at absolutely the worst time to form an energy startup.  Then again, that could possibly be an argument against his inability to plan for future contingencies that would seem to have a modicum of possibility.
At least he made some money from the sale, so not a total failure.
Spectrum 7: 1984-1986: Becomes CEO.  Company quickly loses revenue and ends up merging with Harken Energy.  Bush then becomes a director at Harken.  Again, I'll assume that this might have been the oil bust that happened in West Texas at the time.  Still though, what was Junior thinking getting into such a volatile industry that was experiencing such rapid shifts?
Texas Rangers: Stadium was essentially bought and paid for by the public.  Against expert advice, Bush sells $848,000 worth of Harken stock to pay off the loan he took out to purchase a 2% ownership in the Rangers.  When the franchise was sold in 1998 for $250 million, with a $170 million profit, Bush made $14.9 for his original $600,000 investment.  The benefits to the taxpayers and the original landowner to this day is unknown.

SO yes, looks like the only business venture Bush had that was very successful was one that made him lots of money in an investment role, not an executive role.  He seems like the type who would be a natural at Pyramid schemes, but not running a legitimate organization.  So yes, his MBA probably did prove useful as he wasn't a total failure at making money or finding new business avenues however he seemed to not be a genius when it came to being the frontman for the company.  This shouldn't be a surprise, as not everyone with an MBA degree probably is thinking "I want to start up a hundred million dollar business with lots of money from rich donors!"  Many of them actually prefer waiting on the sidelines and seeing a pretty good investment opportunity rise up, see what the growth portfolio looks like, and then throw in a significant chunk of money in the hopes that it will at least double over initial investment.

Bush was incompetent at the job.  That much is very true.  But that might be because fundamentally he wasn't mentally wired to be a President of the country, much less a company.  Sure, he had a lot of book learning, but at the end of the day it isn't what a President learned about West Virginia SHarecropper Law Section 4AB17 that makes them effective as a leader.  Rather, it is the strength of their character to make the tough decisions and the competence necessary to be a long term planner who takes in the situation around them.  A SWAT team leader would've been a better president than Bush.

Simply put, and I mean no disrespect here, Junior was one of those guys who should've just stuck with the usual "son of famous politician" route of staying at home and looking into which firms he can live the big hog off of while looking for promising business ventures.  Not every Taft or Kennedy ends up being a politician, and for good reason.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

It's too bad he's not in single digits.

[Lincoln Republican]

He had his downside, but he was sure amiable.

Can't help but love the guy.