Opinion of the Bush family's impact on American politics

[Marokai Backbeat]

6. George W. Bush.
*Bush deserves the last spot on here for being the most directly damaging Presidents on this list, as well as having the unbelievable skill of being able to f**k up damn near everything he attempted or did.

9/11? He ignored all reports and threats of terrorism before it happened. Bin Laden? Couldn't get him. (Thanks Obama!) Tax cuts? Were so wasteful and unstimulative that he did them twice. Medicare Part D is one of the most incredible stories of legislative clusterf**kery that you could ever read, and was a total mess to boot. The PATRIOT Act. No Child Left Behind? Plenty, actually. Afghanistan? Mismanaged. Iraq? A lie from the very beginning. All told, his middle eastern excursions will cost us trillions of dollars that we could've used for anything else. His first veto? Killing a stem cell research bill.

Illegal wiretapping. Torture. Rendition. Sold his plan to privatize Social Security to the public so hilariously badly that it was abandoned within weeks. Completely lied about his promise to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban. Riddled mining and oil drilling regulations with loopholes for his industry friends and raised a middle finger to every environmental cause he came across. Neutered FEMA due to a lack of any interest in qualified governing, and New Orleans paid the price. Wanted to appoint Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, for Christ's sake. Vetoed a children's health insurance program expansion bill that was fully paid for. Ruined America's image abroad and made us the laughing stock of the first world. This is just the stuff off the top of my head.

In addition to all of that, his term ended with the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, the damage of which will be felt for generations. Everyone who acts like we can't treat Bush like a terrible President because he's too recent and we're biased? Screw you. George W. Bush is one of the worst Presidents in the history of the United States. End of story.

Guess.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

The first one was harmless and generally inconsequential.

The First Bush - Clearly a positive

Not bad-President 41...

Guys please stop.  President George H. W. Bush's wimpy bungling incompetence is what caused the first Gulf War and led to the decades of suffering and chaos that followed.

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http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/twenty-five-years-after-another-gulf-war

The conversation between Glaspie and Saddam Hussein occurred one week before Iraq invaded Kuwait.

If something like this happened on Obama's watch... oh, boy.  When people say Obama has failed to show leadership and made bad foreign policy decisions I wonder what yardstick they are using.

Uh, I don't see why GHWB is "wimpy" for a miscommunication on part of of the ambassador. Saddam was hellbent on territorial expansion and fixing Iraq's finances with oil money, and this became urgent seeing the wreck Iraq was in after the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam was cocky and thought he could intimidate the U.S. if we decided to retaliate; even in the run up to the 2003 invasion, when his country was far, far weaker than it was in late-1990, he was still taunting the U.S. and talking big game. He was a deluded dictator!

And this doesn't take away from the point that GHWB was pretty much neutral in overall effect on the U.S: he took on the NRA and gave us an assault weapons ban in 1989, bailed out and re-regulated the savings and loan industry after their crisis that year. In 1990 he gave us the Clean Air Act (helping us become free of acid rain), the Immigration Act, Americans with Disabilities Act (over the business lobby), compensation for people who were recklessly exposed to radiation in nuclear testing by the government, and oversaw the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification (over the UK and France's objections!). He gave us stronger employment discrimination protections with the Civil Rights Act of 1991, START I & II with Russia, and knew his limits during the fall of the Soviet Union.

Vetoing FMLA was stupid, and giving us Dan Qualye was blatant pandering and he could've screwed things up if he had to become President for whatever reason but in the end that thankfully didn't happen. Probably his biggest sin is nominating Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

I don't buy into all the deranged conspiracy theories surrounding him, and I get why people don't like him, but in the end I'd say the view that he was neutral overall and mostly inconsequential is justified.