Talk Elections

Election Archive => 2012 Elections => Topic started by: jmc247 on April 25, 2012, 05:50:50 AM



Title: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: jmc247 on April 25, 2012, 05:50:50 AM
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RNC Spokeswoman: Republican Economic Platform Will Be The Bush Program, ‘Just Updated’

Media Press Secretary of the Republican National Committee, said that the Republican party’s economic platform in 2012 is going to be the same as it was during the Bush years, “just updated”.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/23/469123/rnc-spokeswoman-republican-economic-platform-will-be-the-bush-program-just-updated/?mobile=wp (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/23/469123/rnc-spokeswoman-republican-economic-platform-will-be-the-bush-program-just-updated/?mobile=wp)

The man wouldn't wouldn't be named for most of the last three years and the primary and is considered a big government enemy of the tea party is suddenly being strongly embraced one by one by the new party elite since Romney clinched the nomination.

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Marco Rubio: George W. Bush 'Did a Fantastic Job'

George W. Bush, in my opinion, did a fantastic job as president over eight years, facing a set of circumstances during those eight years that are different from the circumstances that a President Romney would face.

http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/marco-rubio-george-w-bush-did-a-fantastic-job/256274/ (http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/marco-rubio-george-w-bush-did-a-fantastic-job/256274/)

It could have something to do with the fact Romney no longer need the anti Latino immigrant, small government tea baggers, they checked the polls and realized Bush is back to being supported by half the nation, or it could be a sign Romney has sent out the word (who is by the way very close to George W Bush, his father and brother) to try to give Bush the Reagan treatment that he lead America through its darkest hours since Pearl Harbor and unlike Hoover acted to stop a Great Depression.

Regardless if you consider it true or not it's a narrative that can sell to the public like the idea Reagan won the Cold War mainly the idea worked because they repeated it constantly and Reagan was likable personally.

()

Mitt Romney I think understands the party needs a new Reagan or Republican FDR like figure. By reforming Bush in the eyes of the public into the Republicans FDR they are also protecting Romney from attack given Mitt's current positions are all virtually the same as Bush's or to the right of Bush.

I think it's a politically astute plan. It's certainly smarter then McCain's idea that he could run away from Bush politically in 2008 and told the President to maintain a low profile and don't defend his policies. McCain was connected to all Bush's unpopular policies and the ones he used to distance himself from Bush that he was against waterboarding didn't help as the nearly 60% of the public supported it.

By not having Bush defend his policies in 2008 McCain was telling the President not to try to rebuild support for policies McCain himself virtually all strongly supported. Obama turned 2008 into a referendum on Bush/McCain's policies and Bush was told not to defend them by McCain's campaign and McCain made a half hearted defense of the major policies he backed like the TARP or Immigration Reform, and I could go on and on.

()

For Romney he already knows Obama will tar him as a Bush clone who will lead America off an economic cliff. That won't hurt him if the image of Bush is recast as having saved the country from total economic collapse. Romney has personally already started selling the notion to the public.

How effective the plan is I suspect in large part up to Bush and how willing he is to re-enter the spotlight in major way not to attack Obama, but to talk about the issues and remind the masses how likable he can be when he wants to be... Romney could only wish he had that kind of personal charm.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Snowstalker Mk. II on April 25, 2012, 09:43:01 AM
The GOP won't bother with rehabilitating Bush when they have Reagan to worship.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Politico on April 25, 2012, 10:33:09 AM
Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: This election is about Obama, not Bush. This is 2012, not 2008, not 2004, not 2000. 2012.

Bush is a divisive character that nobody is interested in bringing back into the spotlight. If Barack Obama wants to try to go to that well one more time, it will be one time too many.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: CLARENCE 2015! on April 25, 2012, 10:35:34 AM
Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: This election is about Obama, not Bush. This is 2012, not 2008, not 2004, not 2000. 2012.

Bush is a divisive character that nobody is interested in bringing back into the spotlight.
Amen...


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: CLARENCE 2015! on April 25, 2012, 10:36:07 AM
Actually- only "Amen" to the first part... I believe W will be vindicated by history


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: HagridOfTheDeep on April 25, 2012, 01:11:47 PM
I hope he will be. He's a better president than the one we've got now. If another 9/11 happened tomorrow (heaven forbid), I would not at all be confident with Obama at the helm. That 3AM phone call still hasn't come yet.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: King on April 25, 2012, 01:18:17 PM
"Hey guys, this Romney fellow sure is terrible.  Makes me appreciate Bush."


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Zioneer on April 25, 2012, 01:27:14 PM
Actually- only "Amen" to the first part... I believe W will be vindicated by history

No he won't. W was a complete failure of a President. His policies have failed far more than Obama's policies ever could (though Obama has too many conservative-ish policies anyways).


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Politico on April 25, 2012, 01:58:02 PM
This attempted revitalization of "Blame Bush" reminds me of the following quote from the movie Traffic, which is probably not historically accurate but that is beside the point:

"You know, when they forced Khruschev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor. He said - 'When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter.' Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter, which said - 'Blame everything on me.' So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm. He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said - 'Sit down, and write two letters.' "


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: CLARENCE 2015! on April 25, 2012, 02:16:48 PM
Politico- a great analogy...I remember when W was taking about a recession he had inherited and liberals accused him of blaming Clinton for his problems- leave it to the left to have selective enforcement


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Devils30 on April 25, 2012, 02:57:56 PM
Trying to rehab Bush's image is one of the dumbest ideas out there. People are mixed on Obama but know this crisis started under Bush


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Oakvale on April 25, 2012, 03:26:40 PM
This attempted revitalization of "Blame Bush" reminds me of the following quote from the movie Traffic, which is probably not historically accurate but that is beside the point:

"You know, when they forced Khruschev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor. He said - 'When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter.' Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter, which said - 'Blame everything on me.' So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm. He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said - 'Sit down, and write two letters.' "

I don't see why the horrific, embarassing disaster that was the Bush Presidency shouldn't be blamed for the continuing effects of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression since they, uh... caused it.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Brittain33 on April 25, 2012, 03:46:20 PM
I believe W will be vindicated by history

W believes that about himself, too.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Bacon King on April 25, 2012, 03:50:31 PM
I just learned that Bush and Romney were in the same graduating class in Harvard's MBA program. I wonder if there's any personal connection there?


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on April 25, 2012, 04:31:49 PM
This attempted revitalization of "Blame Bush" reminds me of the following quote from the movie Traffic, which is probably not historically accurate but that is beside the point:

"You know, when they forced Khruschev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor. He said - 'When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter.' Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter, which said - 'Blame everything on me.' So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm. He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said - 'Sit down, and write two letters.' "

I don't see why the horrific, embarassing disaster that was the Bush Presidency shouldn't be blamed for the continuing effects of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression since they, uh... caused it.

Just one of their tactics to get people to forget about it so that more Republicans can get elected.  Can't say I blame them for doing it, since it is an effective strategy.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Politico on April 25, 2012, 09:57:38 PM
I just learned that Bush and Romney were in the same graduating class in Harvard's MBA program. I wonder if there's any personal connection there?

I suspect Romney rarely encountered Bush on campus if only because Bush was usually *cough* drunk/hungover off-campus *cough*


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: ○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└ on April 25, 2012, 10:07:02 PM
I just learned that Bush and Romney were in the same graduating class in Harvard's MBA program. I wonder if there's any personal connection there?

I wonder if they had any classmates who also want to run this country into the ground. The Harvard Business school should probably disband.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: LastVoter on April 25, 2012, 10:07:27 PM
I say good luck & have fun.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on April 25, 2012, 11:35:35 PM
I just learned that Bush and Romney were in the same graduating class in Harvard's MBA program. I wonder if there's any personal connection there?

It's very likely considering how power hungry Romney was in college: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/us/politics/how-harvard-shaped-mitt-romney.html?pagewanted=all (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/us/politics/how-harvard-shaped-mitt-romney.html?pagewanted=all)


Also lol: ()


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: tpfkaw on April 25, 2012, 11:42:40 PM
I just learned that Bush and Romney were in the same graduating class in Harvard's MBA program. I wonder if there's any personal connection there?

Romney was a straight-A student and Bush generally made the gentleman's C, so perhaps Willy tutored Dubya. :P


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: jmc247 on April 26, 2012, 12:18:32 AM
When Bush talks prople remember what they liked about him. Hell even Cheney's numbers went up a good ten points when he was out there in the press on a daily basis back in 2010.

Yes it was a common meme of his second term the more Bush says the less the public likes him. But, he was pushing big and unpopular initiatives and each time he came on the news in 08 it seemed to be to announce a new taxpayer funded bailout.

Bush I really think in a 2-3 weeks could rebuild his favorability numbers solidly over 50%. The last poll in early 2012 nationally done by PPP had him at 45% approve and 46% disapprove.

The problem is according to one of his advisors he has lost his faith in his own instincts and long held political views. That he came in office wanting a humble foreign policy and after 911 he becomes the most interventionist President since FDR.

He promotes and believes in the capitalist system and suddenly the economic system is about to fail and he has to bail out the banks and autos becoming the most economicslly interventionist President since FDR.

He believed his party trusts his judgement, but they reject his SC pick and force him to pick a far right radical. His party also gives him a big old middle finger on Immigration reform.

He was forced to fire one of his long time friends Don Rumsfeld and his long time relationship with Cheney fell to pieces in his second term over Bush's belief there was serious skulduggery going on between Libby and Cheney.

Basically the Bush of 2000 had everything he believed turned upside on him and he no longer has faith in the conservative pro-capitalist principals he once believed in. He also lost his faith in most of his long time fiends in his WH except Condi Rice.

He still has 'friends' like Mitt Romney willing to write a personal check for 100,000$ to Bush's Freedom Institute where he spends most of his time in recient years doing things like raising cash that democratic elections can be held in certain African counties.

If Bush wanted to rebuild his popularity he could do it quickly, not even Obama can connect with the public on an emotional level the way Bush can when he wants to, but he is pretty depressed at the moment and would rather be working in his Institute, but Romney is trying to get him out of his shell he has rapped himself in and if he comes out W can be a very effective campaigner, organizer and money raiser when he so decides.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: pbrower2a on April 26, 2012, 08:38:59 AM
Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: This election is about Obama, not Bush. This is 2012, not 2008, not 2004, not 2000. 2012.

Bush is a divisive character that nobody is interested in bringing back into the spotlight. If Barack Obama wants to try to go to that well one more time, it will be one time too many.

Except for partisan hacks who still believe that George W. Bush was a fine President, any attempt to revive Dubya as a model worthy of emulation will fail for at least the next fifty years. Democrats could long enunciate the name "Hoover" as a reason to vote for just about any Democrat. At the least Herbert Hoover had a moral compass that Dubya seemed to lack. Hoover  was the wrong man for the time. Dubya was the wrong President for any time -- a shallow, vainglorious, dishonest man who would have created a disaster or at the least turned a small calamity into a big one.

Sure he is divisive, but he has his supporters -- those who want to enrich themselves at the expense of others and reward themselves for treating others badly and selling off natural resources, and those who want their superstitions and bigotry accepted as undeniable fact. Greed, cruelty, and folly have their built-in constituencies, but a good society shows how ineffective and destructive they are. So what if he has his supporters -- the Mafia has its groupies, too. Is that good reason for giving command of the economy to crime syndicates?

This election is about George W. Bush to the extent that politicians can reject the disastrous economic policies and international priorities of a failed President. Maybe the 2008 election was more that than the election of 2012 because the Republicans will have a different nominee. But the policies are the same, as the 2010 election showed. Republicans underplayed those policies and spoke only of 'budget deficits' and the 'failure' of President Obama to restore the good times. The 'good times' were a destructive binge, and the hangover is at best the recognition that one needs some other way to get a satisfying life.

Face it: the corrupt boom of the Double-Zero Decade cannot be restored; nobody believes in it anymore. Everybody wants easy money, but wise people recognize that most 'easy money' implies that one gets more than one's share of the reward from the industry and effort of someone else. (Sure, that may be an inheritance, one of the more benign ways of living off the achievements of someone else; a Rockefeller heir can't really hurt a deceased ancestor).

The big landowners, the tycoons and heirs, and the executives no longer need a successful and independent middle class. They never did; they had to tolerate it because of democracy. But that said, big landowners, tycoons and heirs, and executives have frequently shown a contempt for democracy because democracy keeps those people from grabbing everything of value. In other countries they have shown themselves the financial backers of fascistic movements. Such a middle class as they need consists of retainers in all but name -- schoolteachers who indoctrinate (or are fired), cops and soldiers who mow down strikers and protesters, clergy who offer 'pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die' to workers who toil to exhaustion for near-starvation rations but eternal damnation to anyone who shows any sign of dissent or resentment of severe inequity, professionals who are serve the needs of members of the economic elite as if maids or gardeners or else perform triage upon those who can still be exploited for profit.

Take a good look at two of the cornerstones of the old American middle class -- small farmers and small businesspeople. The consolidation of small farms into bigger ones has been seen as progress. Giant, vertically-integrated companies have squeezed out small-scale mom-and-pop manufacturers, food processors, restaurants, and banks. These giant entities have designed themselves to need only an expendable workforce that needs little training so that anyone who works for them can be disposed of at a moment's notice. Such a workforce is best described wit the Marxist word proletariat.

Medical professionals have largely become employees for all practical purposes of insurance companies. Accountants know that they conceal scams of their clients or they lose their clients. Engineers at times are under pressure to cover up corner-cutting that can cause death and environmental calamities. Such professionals used to have some freedom of action that they no longer have.

Did you notice that the highly-educated part of the electorate voted heavily for Barack Obama in 2008? It used to be that a high level of education was one of the strongest indicators of being a likely Republican voter. Such is no more so. Middle-class blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, and Jews voted heavily Democratic. Poor, undereducated whites voted heavily Republican. Maybe 'exotic' people distrust white elites that never trusted outsiders of any kind.

I can say this -- in the event of a culling of the middle class, as normally happens under Hard Right regimes, those parts that seem at all 'foreign' are the most vulnerable. Hard Right regimes need plenty of cheap labor, but they don't need people capable of or tending to think outside the Box. 


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: pbrower2a on April 26, 2012, 09:21:58 AM
When Bush talks people remember what they liked about him. Hell even Cheney's numbers went up a good ten points when he was out there in the press on a daily basis back in 2010.

Con-artists are adept at that. I'm sure that Dubya believed what he said, which is more than one can say of a swindler selling fecal investments. He had good buddies at Enrob Corporation, so even if he intended well his judgment is suspect.   

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Yes it was a common meme of his second term the more Bush says the less the public likes him. But, he was pushing big and unpopular initiatives and each time he came on the news in 08 it seemed to be to announce a new taxpayer funded bailout.

People caught onto his dishonesty and incompetence and they associate those traits with him more than they associate the more personal ones. If he was pushing 'big and unpopular initiatives', then maybe he should have stuck to the old Republican theme of small government that gives no special break to anyone. Dubya betrayed that old theme and became a big-government right-winger.

It may take big measures to undo the damage of other big measures like the "Ownership Society" that Dubya promoted. That measure devoured capital and left $#!+ behind. 

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Bush I really think in a 2-3 weeks could rebuild his favorability numbers solidly over 50%. The last poll in early 2012 nationally done by PPP had him at 45% approve and 46% disapprove.

What are you on?

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The problem is according to one of his advisors he has lost his faith in his own instincts and long held political views. That he came in office wanting a humble foreign policy and after 911 he becomes the most interventionist President since FDR.

Great leaders must be able to contradict their advisors when reality contradicts those advisors. "Humble foreign policy"? Bush I/Clinton would be fine, as President Obama now shows. Dubya simply lacked the capacity for ethical and political judgment.


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He promotes and believes in the capitalist system and suddenly the economic system is about to fail and he has to bail out the banks and autos becoming the most economically interventionist President since FDR.

If that isn't failure, what is? Does subprime lending to sell people housing that they could never afford look like sound politics? The post-WWII housing boom depended not so much upon WWII veterans being enticed into buying into unsustainable lifestyles as it did on working people having solid and reliable incomes that could allow them to buy housing, automobiles, household furnishings, and appliances. Real incomes for working people fell while Dubya was President even in the supposed good times, and such economic security as working people had vanished.

Remember: Ken Lay was one of the best friends of the 43rd President.
 
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He believed his party trusts his judgement, but they reject his SC pick and force him to pick a far right radical. His party also gives him a big old middle finger on Immigration reform.


Wrong on the first part -- he chose a personal crony who should have been rejected. Republicans snookered Democrats into rejecting that one and put in their ringer. Considering that President's lack of political astuteness I can only wonder why he achieved so little with Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress for most of six years.   

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He was forced to fire one of his long time friends Don Rumsfeld and his long time relationship with Cheney fell to pieces in his second term over Bush's belief there was serious skulduggery going on between Libby and Cheney.

Don Rumsfeld acted as if he should have instead been with his grandchildren. You can swim with sharks, but you had better show no weakness. I could only think of King Lear when I saw Don Rumsfeld. He might have been competent in his prime, but in old age everyone was undercutting him while feigning personal loyalty. As for the personal relationship with Dick Cheney, when you get or allow people to do nasty, dishonest, and corrupt things  the consequences to personal relationships can get as ugly.     

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Basically the Bush of 2000 had everything he believed turned upside on him and he no longer has faith in the conservative pro-capitalist principals he once believed in. He also lost his faith in most of his long time fiends in his WH except Condi Rice.

See above. But crony capitalism itself requires big government, and undoing its effects also requires big government. That's why we have President Obama.

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He still has 'friends' like Mitt Romney willing to write a personal check for 100,000$ to Bush's Freedom Institute where he spends most of his time in recent years doing things like raising cash that democratic elections can be held in certain African counties
.

Freudian slip like the one that Africa is a big country? I do not trust Dubya for his judgment on what constitutes democracy; to an extent that I could have never believed in 2000 Dubya has made a travesty of 210 years of political tradition.
 
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If Bush wanted to rebuild his popularity he could do it quickly, not even Obama can connect with the public on an emotional level the way Bush can when he wants to, but he is pretty depressed at the moment and would rather be working in his Institute, but Romney is trying to get him out of his shell he has rapped (sic!) himself in and if he comes out W can be a very effective campaigner, organizer and money raiser when he so decides.


Bullhist! Dubya had his chance and blew it. President Obama may have difficulty relating to some parts of the American public (like white people in the Mountain South and Deep South), but he relates well to the vast majority of the rest. Dubya is a near-recluse whom one never sees on camera except at baseball games in which a contest between the Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers cannot be seen as a contest between "Blue" and "Red" America.

If the Democrats need to raise money, then the image of Dubya will be very effective.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Yank2133 on April 26, 2012, 09:58:05 AM
People still overwhelming blame Dubya for the economy tanking, so this seems like a bad idea to me. Mitt better off running as Reagan 2.0 then trying to rehabilitate Bush's image.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Politico on April 26, 2012, 10:18:03 AM
George W. Bush, unlike his father, should have never came anywhere near the White House. With that said, continuing to blame Bush after almost four years of Obama is weak. The Obama Jobless "Recovery" belongs to Obama. Obama got the stimulus he wanted, and of course Obamacare. Obama got everything he wanted, and now he wants to point fingers? Blaming somebody else for your problems is the easiest thing in the world to do, but people expect more from the president. Years have passed since Bush. "Blaming Bush" worked great in 2008. "Blaming Bush" did not help Democrats in 2010, so why do they think 2012 will be any different? Don't get me wrong - I hope Democrats continue to blame Bush. I think it's only slightly less of a loser than that populist garbage the Democrats seemed poised to run on. It's still a loser, though, so obviously I support this tact.

Obviously Team Romney has no plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W. Bush, contrary to what the OP may be inferring. Governor Romney is his own man with his own ideas, has never spent time in Washington, DC, and he is a stark contrast to George W. Bush in pretty much every way. Governor Romney may not become Reagan 2.0 (I certainly hope he does), but he will easily be the best president of the 21st century thus far.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Bull Moose Base on April 26, 2012, 01:20:15 PM
Though Romney will naturally try to avoid W being part of the conversation, for his close circle of economic advisors, he chose two of W's chief economic advisors.  (Romney also cited Dick Cheney as the exemplary VP pick, not that that means anything.)  The biggest difference between W and Romney, counter to their images, is Romney's platform is much more conservative.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on April 26, 2012, 02:02:27 PM
Cheney was a good VP pick in 2000. At the time he wasn't seen as the evil man in the basement torturing people, but was instead the respected former Secretary of Defense credited with the victory in the Gulf War, along with Powell and Schwartzkoff. He filled in W's blank spots on Foreign Policy and had connections on the Hill. Aside from his health (which was problematic even back then), he was seen as able to step in and serve as President if necessary.

He met all the right criteria to veep for a Governor turned Presidential Candidate, Foreign Policy Cred, connections with Congress, and trusted with the nukes if necessary. Romney probably wishes there was another Cheney out there that is 15 to 20 years younger and doesn't have the health problems.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on April 26, 2012, 02:14:15 PM
It is ironic that Pbrower accuses the "Revivers" of partisan hackery then goes on to trash Bush in a partisan fashion.


It is possible to revive Bush's image because he was a dynamic figure, in spite of his reputation as being a far right conservative. He is not Hoover at all. Bush wasn't asleep at the wheel at any point in his Presidency.


-Enron and Worldcom collapse so he signs Sarbox
-A large population of illegals, he wants to pursue a "Compassionate" response
-Seniors can't afford their drugs so he pushed Medicare Part D (Unfunded yes, Donut hole yes, but he still got the underlying program done and in place)
-Education system is failing so he passes NCLB (It has failed, but it was seen as the appropriate response by both sides and was a rejection of conservatism by Bush)
-Economy collapsing so he agrees to bailouts
-Terrorist attacks cause him to abandon his previous pledge to a "humble foreign policy"

However, I don't think 2012 is the time to do it.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Vosem on April 26, 2012, 08:41:39 PM
Except for partisan hacks who still believe that George W. Bush was a fine President, any attempt to revive Dubya as a model worthy of emulation will fail for at least the next fifty years. Democrats could long enunciate the name "Hoover" as a reason to vote for just about any Democrat. At the least Herbert Hoover had a moral compass that Dubya seemed to lack. Hoover  was the wrong man for the time. Dubya was the wrong President for any time -- a shallow, vainglorious, dishonest man who would have created a disaster or at the least turned a small calamity into a big one.

I'm not going to say anything about Hoover because that's just a meaningless rant. Dubya was a good President in a position where we needed a great President. The 'he will be viewed as bad for 50 years' is clearly not true; a PPP poll from this January showed Bush had an approval rating of 45/46; in that poll, he was doing better than Obama, who was at 46/49. That's not perfect, but that's not so bad you spend 50 years railing against him. When a has-been has approvals like that, that's 'meh'.

Sure he is divisive, but he has his supporters -- those who want to enrich themselves at the expense of others and reward themselves for treating others badly and selling off natural resources, and those who want their superstitions and bigotry accepted as undeniable fact. Greed, cruelty, and folly have their built-in constituencies, but a good society shows how ineffective and destructive they are. So what if he has his supporters -- the Mafia has its groupies, too. Is that good reason for giving command of the economy to crime syndicates?

Insulting 45% of the country is a great way to win any election. You'll motivate them to turn out against you. You continue your meaningless ranting by invoking the Mafia, who have as much to do with the issue at hand as Herbert Hoover does.

This election is about George W. Bush to the extent that politicians can reject the disastrous economic policies and international priorities of a failed President. Maybe the 2008 election was more that than the election of 2012 because the Republicans will have a different nominee. But the policies are the same, as the 2010 election showed. Republicans underplayed those policies and spoke only of 'budget deficits' and the 'failure' of President Obama to restore the good times. The 'good times' were a destructive binge, and the hangover is at best the recognition that one needs some other way to get a satisfying life.

George Bush was not a 'failed President'; his approval ratings may have declined in his final several years, and apparently once he killed your cat, but he was OK; as I said above, a good President where we needed a great one. But good luck telling Americans the 'good times' not merely won't, but shouldn't, come back. A great way to win an election. Your belief that the 2010 elections showed that Republicans are Bush-come-again is at least defensible, but your belief that this will result in a loss betrays a remarkable lack of mathematics skills, in that you seem to not understand that 44,593,666 (the number of votes Republicans got in 2010 House of Representatives elections) is more than 42,191,291 (the number of votes cast for anybody who wasn't a Republican, not just Democrats and other left-wing parties, in 2010).

Face it: the corrupt boom of the Double-Zero Decade cannot be restored; nobody believes in it anymore. Everybody wants easy money, but wise people recognize that most 'easy money' implies that one gets more than one's share of the reward from the industry and effort of someone else. (Sure, that may be an inheritance, one of the more benign ways of living off the achievements of someone else; a Rockefeller heir can't really hurt a deceased ancestor).

The last sentence about inheritance and Rockefeller is more rambling; it has less to do with the topic at hand than the Mafia or Hoover. Your point that the 2000s cannot be restored is a truthism; you can't travel back in time. The 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, etc. will also not be restored.

The big landowners, the tycoons and heirs, and the executives no longer need a successful and independent middle class. They never did; they had to tolerate it because of democracy. But that said, big landowners, tycoons and heirs, and executives have frequently shown a contempt for democracy because democracy keeps those people from grabbing everything of value. In other countries they have shown themselves the financial backers of fascistic movements. Such a middle class as they need consists of retainers in all but name -- schoolteachers who indoctrinate (or are fired), cops and soldiers who mow down strikers and protesters, clergy who offer 'pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die' to workers who toil to exhaustion for near-starvation rations but eternal damnation to anyone who shows any sign of dissent or resentment of severe inequity, professionals who are serve the needs of members of the economic elite as if maids or gardeners or else perform triage upon those who can still be exploited for profit.

Fascistic movements generally draw upon a base of middle- and lower-class supporters, though rich people can support it too. Fascism is (this should all really be past tense) not really a class ideology. Your first two sentences directly contradict one another. I don't even vaguely understand what point your trying to make with the rest of the paragraph except that I feel a little frightened now, both of you and of the characters you're describing.

Take a good look at two of the cornerstones of the old American middle class -- small farmers and small businesspeople. The consolidation of small farms into bigger ones has been seen as progress. Giant, vertically-integrated companies have squeezed out small-scale mom-and-pop manufacturers, food processors, restaurants, and banks. These giant entities have designed themselves to need only an expendable workforce that needs little training so that anyone who works for them can be disposed of at a moment's notice. Such a workforce is best described wit the Marxist word proletariat.

We're now beyond the point where this has anything to do with George W. Bush or reality.

Medical professionals have largely become employees for all practical purposes of insurance companies. Accountants know that they conceal scams of their clients or they lose their clients. Engineers at times are under pressure to cover up corner-cutting that can cause death and environmental calamities. Such professionals used to have some freedom of action that they no longer have.

In reply to your first sentence, doctors do deserve to get paid every so often. In reply to the second and third, it's always been that way. After all, if scams are revealed, accountants lose clients who have gone to jail, and if corner-cutting is revealed, engineers may lose their jobs; in America, this sort of thing is regulated pretty strictly (it was under Bush too), but it's this way everywhere. I don't understand what point you're trying to convey with the fourth sentence, so I have nothing to say.

Did you notice that the highly-educated part of the electorate voted heavily for Barack Obama in 2008? It used to be that a high level of education was one of the strongest indicators of being a likely Republican voter. Such is no more so. Middle-class blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, and Jews voted heavily Democratic. Poor, undereducated whites voted heavily Republican. Maybe 'exotic' people distrust white elites that never trusted outsiders of any kind.

I don't understand the last sentence. With regard to the remainder, it was true in the 2008 election, though this again has nothing to do at all with George Bush.

I can say this -- in the event of a culling of the middle class, as normally happens under Hard Right regimes, those parts that seem at all 'foreign' are the most vulnerable. Hard Right regimes need plenty of cheap labor, but they don't need people capable of or tending to think outside the Box.  

'Culling of the middle class' does not normally happen under hard-right regimes -- this isn't a defense of them, but simply a statement of fact ('culling of political and ethnic opponents' happens). The second sentence is true. None of this has anything to do with George W. Bush.

In reply to this article's premise: as I mentioned above, as of January Bush's approval was 45/46 for/against. Democrats can no longer use Bush as a bogeyman because he is no longer as widely detested as he was a few short years ago, and your belief that the majority of Americans view Bush negatively is not held up by the data. If trends keep going this way, the idea of turning Bush into a new Reagan (somebody brought this up earlier) might be achievable by the end of the decade. But trends don't always continue, and I doubt becoming a hero will ultimately be Bush's fate; I do think time will judge him to have been a basically good President.

EDIT: Here's a link to the poll in question (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/02/1-president-is-1-in-americas-hearts.html).


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Politico on April 26, 2012, 08:54:45 PM
Except for partisan hacks who still believe that George W. Bush was a fine President, any attempt to revive Dubya as a model worthy of emulation will fail for at least the next fifty years. Democrats could long enunciate the name "Hoover" as a reason to vote for just about any Democrat. At the least Herbert Hoover had a moral compass that Dubya seemed to lack. Hoover  was the wrong man for the time. Dubya was the wrong President for any time -- a shallow, vainglorious, dishonest man who would have created a disaster or at the least turned a small calamity into a big one.

I'm not going to say anything about Hoover because that's just a meaningless rant. Dubya was a good President in a position where we needed a great President. The 'he will be viewed as bad for 50 years' is clearly not true; a PPP poll from this January showed Bush had an approval rating of 45/46; in that poll, he was doing better than Obama, who was at 46/49. That's not perfect, but that's not so bad you spend 50 years railing against him. When a has-been has approvals like that, that's 'meh'.

Sure he is divisive, but he has his supporters -- those who want to enrich themselves at the expense of others and reward themselves for treating others badly and selling off natural resources, and those who want their superstitions and bigotry accepted as undeniable fact. Greed, cruelty, and folly have their built-in constituencies, but a good society shows how ineffective and destructive they are. So what if he has his supporters -- the Mafia has its groupies, too. Is that good reason for giving command of the economy to crime syndicates?

Insulting 45% of the country is a great way to win any election. You'll motivate them to turn out against you. You continue your meaningless ranting by invoking the Mafia, who have as much to do with the issue at hand as Herbert Hoover does.

This election is about George W. Bush to the extent that politicians can reject the disastrous economic policies and international priorities of a failed President. Maybe the 2008 election was more that than the election of 2012 because the Republicans will have a different nominee. But the policies are the same, as the 2010 election showed. Republicans underplayed those policies and spoke only of 'budget deficits' and the 'failure' of President Obama to restore the good times. The 'good times' were a destructive binge, and the hangover is at best the recognition that one needs some other way to get a satisfying life.

George Bush was not a 'failed President'; his approval ratings may have declined in his final several years, and apparently once he killed your cat, but he was OK; as I said above, a good President where we needed a great one. But good luck telling Americans the 'good times' not merely won't, but shouldn't, come back. A great way to win an election. Your belief that the 2010 elections showed that Republicans are Bush-come-again is at least defensible, but your belief that this will result in a loss betrays a remarkable lack of mathematics skills, in that you seem to not understand that 44,593,666 (the number of votes Republicans got in 2010 House of Representatives elections) is more than 42,191,291 (the number of votes cast for anybody who wasn't a Republican, not just Democrats and other left-wing parties, in 2010).

Face it: the corrupt boom of the Double-Zero Decade cannot be restored; nobody believes in it anymore. Everybody wants easy money, but wise people recognize that most 'easy money' implies that one gets more than one's share of the reward from the industry and effort of someone else. (Sure, that may be an inheritance, one of the more benign ways of living off the achievements of someone else; a Rockefeller heir can't really hurt a deceased ancestor).

The last sentence about inheritance and Rockefeller is more rambling; it has less to do with the topic at hand than the Mafia or Hoover. Your point that the 2000s cannot be restored is a truthism; you can't travel back in time. The 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, etc. will also not be restored.

The big landowners, the tycoons and heirs, and the executives no longer need a successful and independent middle class. They never did; they had to tolerate it because of democracy. But that said, big landowners, tycoons and heirs, and executives have frequently shown a contempt for democracy because democracy keeps those people from grabbing everything of value. In other countries they have shown themselves the financial backers of fascistic movements. Such a middle class as they need consists of retainers in all but name -- schoolteachers who indoctrinate (or are fired), cops and soldiers who mow down strikers and protesters, clergy who offer 'pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die' to workers who toil to exhaustion for near-starvation rations but eternal damnation to anyone who shows any sign of dissent or resentment of severe inequity, professionals who are serve the needs of members of the economic elite as if maids or gardeners or else perform triage upon those who can still be exploited for profit.

Fascistic movements generally draw upon a base of middle- and lower-class supporters, though rich people can support it too. Fascism is (this should all really be past tense) not really a class ideology. Your first two sentences directly contradict one another. I don't even vaguely understand what point your trying to make with the rest of the paragraph except that I feel a little frightened now, both of you and of the characters you're describing.

Take a good look at two of the cornerstones of the old American middle class -- small farmers and small businesspeople. The consolidation of small farms into bigger ones has been seen as progress. Giant, vertically-integrated companies have squeezed out small-scale mom-and-pop manufacturers, food processors, restaurants, and banks. These giant entities have designed themselves to need only an expendable workforce that needs little training so that anyone who works for them can be disposed of at a moment's notice. Such a workforce is best described wit the Marxist word proletariat.

We're now beyond the point where this has anything to do with George W. Bush or reality.

Medical professionals have largely become employees for all practical purposes of insurance companies. Accountants know that they conceal scams of their clients or they lose their clients. Engineers at times are under pressure to cover up corner-cutting that can cause death and environmental calamities. Such professionals used to have some freedom of action that they no longer have.

In reply to your first sentence, doctors do deserve to get paid every so often. In reply to the second and third, it's always been that way. After all, if scams are revealed, accountants lose clients who have gone to jail, and if corner-cutting is revealed, engineers may lose their jobs; in America, this sort of thing is regulated pretty strictly (it was under Bush too), but it's this way everywhere. I don't understand what point you're trying to convey with the fourth sentence, so I have nothing to say.

Did you notice that the highly-educated part of the electorate voted heavily for Barack Obama in 2008? It used to be that a high level of education was one of the strongest indicators of being a likely Republican voter. Such is no more so. Middle-class blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, and Jews voted heavily Democratic. Poor, undereducated whites voted heavily Republican. Maybe 'exotic' people distrust white elites that never trusted outsiders of any kind.

I don't understand the first sentence. With regard to the remainder, it was true in the 2008 election, though this again has nothing to do at all with George Bush.

I can say this -- in the event of a culling of the middle class, as normally happens under Hard Right regimes, those parts that seem at all 'foreign' are the most vulnerable. Hard Right regimes need plenty of cheap labor, but they don't need people capable of or tending to think outside the Box.  

'Culling of the middle class' does not normally happen under hard-right regimes -- this isn't a defense of them, but simply a statement of fact ('culling of political and ethnic opponents' happens). The second sentence is true. None of this has anything to do with George W. Bush.

In reply to this article's premise: as I mentioned above, as of January Bush's approval was 45/46 for/against. Democrats can no longer use Bush as a bogeyman because he is no longer as widely detested as he was a few short years ago, and politico's belief that the majority of Americans view Bush negatively is not held up by the data. If trends keep going this way, the idea of turning Bush into a new Reagan (somebody brought this up earlier) might be achievable by the end of the decade. But trends don't always continue, and I doubt becoming a hero will ultimately be Bush's fate; I do think time will judge him to have been a basically good President.

LOL! Priceless, particularly the section in bold because it captures the feeling I have whenever I read one of pbrower2a's diatribes. You are much more ambitious on here than I! Responding to a pbrower2a diatribe takes enormous effort. Well done, sir!


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on April 26, 2012, 08:59:39 PM
If we're taking about jobs as a campaign issuem then being a former Bain Capital CEO is not really something to run on.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Politico on April 26, 2012, 09:01:03 PM
If we're taking about jobs as a campaign issuem then being a former Bain Capital CEO the current president is not really something to run on.

Fixed.

Who knows more about jobs and the economy: A successful businessperson, or a "community organizer" best known for having a politician's tongue?


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on April 26, 2012, 09:07:09 PM
If we're taking about jobs as a campaign issuem then being a former Bain Capital CEO the current president is not really something to run on.

Fixed.

Who knows more about jobs and the economy: A successful businessperson, or a "community organizer" best known for having a politician's tongue?

Herbert Hoover was a successful businessman too. We all know being a successful businessman automatically guarantees being a successful President.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Politico on April 26, 2012, 09:12:44 PM
If we're taking about jobs as a campaign issuem then being a former Bain Capital CEO the current president is not really something to run on.

Fixed.

Who knows more about jobs and the economy: A successful businessperson, or a "community organizer" best known for having a politician's tongue?

Herbert Hoover was a successful businessman too. We all know being a successful businessman automatically guarantees being a successful President.

We all know what four more years of Obama will look like. America does not want it. All apologies to France.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: pbrower2a on April 27, 2012, 01:28:14 PM
George W. Bush, unlike his father, should have never came anywhere near the White House.

I congratulate you on finally saying something wise. Dubya really was a horrible President. He would have been a poor President had he been a liberal.  

Quote
With that said, continuing to blame Bush after almost four years of Obama is weak. The Obama Jobless "Recovery" belongs to Obama
.

The fault is that the economic elites got "theirs" first and have been able to prevent any of their gain from trickling down.  Bureaucratic elites within giant corporations have preserved their culture of selfish greed, and they have successfully fended off any small-scale competition to their organizations. If anything these elites have sought an intensification of corporate power and control over the American economy -- and over the worker.

Those elites have their stooges in Congress; those stooges obey the lobbyists and not their constituents.

But that said, the "jobless" phase of the recovery is over.    


Quote
Obama got the stimulus he wanted, and of course Obamacare. Obama got everything he wanted, and now he wants to point fingers?



No, the stimulus was as much tax cuts for the super-rich and business subsidies (very ineffective methods) as it was government spending on infrastructure which creates jobs more directly. Rescues of businesses on the brink of going under for no fault of their own worked (thus the slogan "General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead" resonates well), but rescues of culpable entities (giant banks, investment bankers, and insurance companies) are inefficient means of saving those who depend on those as holders of payrolls and pension funds.

"Obamacare" would ideally have been Medicare for all -- except that the medical-insurance business had no intention of abandoning a profitable, if parasitic cash cow. The American economy is now best described as semi-fascist to the extent that economic interests  effectively  have shares of power in government. That is bad economics and bad government.

Quote
Blaming somebody else for your problems is the easiest thing in the world to do, but people expect more from the president. Years have passed since Bush.


Three years after eight years of economic policies that gutted capital while rewarding those who gutted it. Economic crime became one of the easiest ways in which to get rich. Consider the analogue: you go on a binge in a gambling casino with the proceeds of an IRA. The $40K that you brought in took you twenty years to save. Sure, you spend about $5K on souvenirs and other flashy trinkets at the gift shop, but in one night you expend the rest in gambling. Women in gaudy attire cheer you on as you make bad bets that deplete 20 years of savings.

So you get 'comped' a hotel room and some drinks... but you decide to quit when the money is gone. Maybe you didn't hock your car so that you have the dubious pleasure returning in a more expensive vehicle that you don't own (a $100K commercial bus instead of a $20K automobile)... but it was a fun night. For six exhausting hours you lived like some fake Balkan prince, but you ended up a pauper.

We as a nation gave up the productive investments in job-creating plant and equipment so that some hucksters could sell people housing that they could never pay for and turn early-stage interest and lending fees into expensive luxuries.        

Quote
"Blaming Bush" worked great in 2008. "Blaming Bush" did not help Democrats in 2010, so why do they think 2012 will be any different? Don't get me wrong - I hope Democrats continue to blame Bush. I think it's only slightly less of a loser than that populist garbage the Democrats seemed poised to run on. It's still a loser, though, so obviously I support this tact (sic)
.

The solution is to go back to what we used to do well. We need to return to manufacturing so that people who work in factories can buy little bungalows, compact cars, and household furnishings on installment plans as they did in the 1950s. We need a tax system that rewards work and service instead of bureaucratic power and political connections. We need a tax code that favors small business over big business. Think about it -- the high graduated taxes of the 1950s created niches for mom-and-pop entities in food service, retailing, and even banking and manufacturing.  We need to re-invest in human capital so that more people can be more productive and merit higher pay than is possible in business models that well fit dullards as employees.
  
Quote
Obviously Team Romney has no plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W. Bush, contrary to what the OP may be inferring.

The policies did more damage than did the image. Mitt Romney seems to support deflationary measures without a corrupt boom. If anything that asks for a double-dip recession.
 
Quote
Governor Romney is his own man with his own ideas,

No, just a rehash of policy positions from the national Chamber of Commerce, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, American Crossroads, etc....  

Quote
has never spent time in Washington, DC, and he is a stark contrast to George W. Bush in pretty much every way.


George W. Bush was a Washington neophyte, too, and he presented that as a political asset.

 
Quote
Governor Romney may not become Reagan 2.0 (I certainly hope he does), but he will easily be the best president of the 21st century thus far.

He would be Hoover 2.0


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: BigSkyBob on April 28, 2012, 01:27:05 PM
George W. Bush, unlike his father, should have never came anywhere near the White House.

Had George Herbert Walker Bush ran on his real agenda--"Read My Lips, Taxes will go up!"-- he never would have been nominated by the Republican party, and, if they had, even tankboy could have beat him in the general. GHWB obtained the Presidency through fraud. To validate that act of fraud in any way is pathetic.

Had Bill Clinton run on his real character--"I cheated on my wife in the past. I am cheating on her now. And, I will continue to cheat on her in future. I feel no shame or guilt."-- he wouldn't have set foot in the White House either.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Politico on April 28, 2012, 07:57:24 PM
George W. Bush, unlike his father, should have never came anywhere near the White House.

Had George Herbert Walker Bush ran on his real agenda--"Read My Lips, Taxes will go up!"-- he never would have been nominated by the Republican party, and, if they had, even tankboy could have beat him in the general. GHWB obtained the Presidency through fraud. To validate that act of fraud in any way is pathetic.

GHWB was an effective VP, and other than raising taxes he did not really make any mistakes as POTUS. He was the last veteran to occupy the oval office if that counts for anything. Smart guy, too. Furthermore, taxes went up less than they would have under Dukakis, and less than they did under Clinton.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: BigSkyBob on April 30, 2012, 12:37:13 AM
George W. Bush, unlike his father, should have never came anywhere near the White House.

Had George Herbert Walker Bush ran on his real agenda--"Read My Lips, Taxes will go up!"-- he never would have been nominated by the Republican party, and, if they had, even tankboy could have beat him in the general. GHWB obtained the Presidency through fraud. To validate that act of fraud in any way is pathetic.

GHWB was an effective VP, and other than raising taxes he did not really make any mistakes as POTUS.

First of all, raising taxes wasn't just a "mistake," it was an attack on the democratic aspects of our constitutional republic. The Constitution enshires the principle that the American people are a sovereign, self-governing people. The people express their will at the ballot boxes by choosing the representatives that will vote according to their will. For our democratic constitutional republic to work, politicians have to honor their campaign promises. Doing a one-eighty on your central platform makes a mockery of the process. It reduces elections to a sham process voters choice to be lead by a person. [Bill Clinton fraudulently claiming he was a chastened, repentant philander when in fact he he was unreformed and unrepentant, reduced the process of choicing a leader to a process of chosing a name.]

If the electorate isn't given an accurate assessment of the character of the candidates, or, what they will really do when elected, elections are little more than picking a name.  Minimizing what GHWB did is akin to claiming Jonathan Pollard only made one mistake in his life.

Second, forchristsake GHWB nominated David Souter to the Supreme Court. If you are going to shill for the reprehensible Mitt Romney wouldn't it behoove you to at least fake a sincere belief that Bush blew it by nominating Souter?


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on April 30, 2012, 12:40:42 AM
George W. Bush, unlike his father, should have never came anywhere near the White House.

Had George Herbert Walker Bush ran on his real agenda--"Read My Lips, Taxes will go up!"-- he never would have been nominated by the Republican party, and, if they had, even tankboy could have beat him in the general. GHWB obtained the Presidency through fraud. To validate that act of fraud in any way is pathetic.

GHWB was an effective VP, and other than raising taxes he did not really make any mistakes as POTUS.

[Bill Clinton fraudulently claiming he was a chastened, repentant philander when in fact he he was unreformed and unrepentant, reduced the process of choicing a leader to a process of chosing a name.]

lolwut


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Simfan34 on April 30, 2012, 01:16:34 AM
Has anyone considered that such a plan, if it does exist, would serve to pave the way to a palatable Jeb Bush vice-presidency?


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Democratic Hawk on April 30, 2012, 04:59:17 PM
Has anyone considered that such a plan, if it does exist, would serve to pave the way to a palatable Jeb Bush vice-presidency?

Don't know. The one Bush I've time for is the 41st president who, at least, got it that the bills have got to be paid. Shrub cut taxes like Reagan but expanded government like LJB - but, at least, the great man - and I'm talking the 'Uncivil Civil Rights Reformer' perfected "tax-and-spend" liberalism - and America prospered :) with the gross federal debt as a % of GDP continuing its decline

I miss the Golden Age of Capitalism. Born too late to benefit from it. I wouldn't be starting a family this day and age. No security. Not one bit >:(


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: ○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└ on May 01, 2012, 12:28:59 AM
Has anyone considered that such a plan, if it does exist, would serve to pave the way to a palatable Jeb Bush vice-presidency?

Don't know. The one Bush I've time for is the 41st president who, at least, got it that the bills have got to be paid. Shrub cut taxes like Reagan but expanded government like LJB - but, at least, the great man - and I'm talking the 'Uncivil Civil Rights Reformer' perfected "tax-and-spend" liberalism - and America prospered :) with the gross federal debt as a % of GDP continuing its decline

I miss the Golden Age of Capitalism. Born too late to benefit from it. I wouldn't be starting a family this day and age. No security. Not one bit >:(

Bush 41 is better than his spawn, but still pretty crappy. It's an open secret that he was involved with the CIA for a long time, including with a company called Zapata that was cover for the bay of pigs.


Title: Re: The Romney plan to rehabilitate the political image of George W Bush
Post by: Donald Trump’s Toupée on May 08, 2012, 10:42:03 AM
Obama's presidency have rehabilitated George W. Bush. It's no coincidence that Bush's popularity numbers have increased pretty drastically over the last 4 years. Not to mention, a lot of Obama's policies (especially those regarding foreign policy) has all but vindicated Bush, and have made Obama look like a hypocrite at times in the process.

Further, I have always held the belief we would see a Truman effect with GWB. It hasn't been a long enough time yet, and I don't think it will be nearly as great as Truman, but it comes to no surprise to me that people will appreciate GWB more as the years and decades go by.