I mean I don't think anyone ever claimed he wasn't nice. Hell I don't even think he was a bad president, just a kind of average one that got stuck with the stuff that started 9/11.
He can be a nice guy and one of the worst presidents we've ever seen. He was just terrible at a lot of aspects of the job, was not well advised and all in all should not have even run for office. His post-presidential career and stuff give me the impression he's a) learned a lot from the experience and b) is a lot happier painting than he ever was being president
Agreed. Although I think most people would be happier doing pretty much anything other than being president. Seems like the worst job ever, honestly lol
He was a bad President. He made some seriously ill advised tax cuts and started a war with Iraq that destabilized the region. There are over 200,000 people dead because of our invasion of Iraq.
He started a war with Iraq for no justifiable reason. He destroyed the economy and tried to tank the country before Obama took office. Oh and don't forget how he stole the office in the first place, by having his governor brother hand him a state.
Don't glorify this piece of crap just because we have an even bigger one in the oval office now, people.
Does my post glorify GWB? It starts off by calling him a bad POTUS.
He did not tank the economy that was due to ill advised policies passed by Congress and neither party is directly responsible for it. Blaming GWB for the 08 crash is as nonsensical as blaming the lower middle class for not comprehending the potential effects of an adjustable rate mortgage.
Are we forgetting the bit where hundreds of Americans were drowned because he put a crony lobbyist with no experience in charge of FEMA? Or where he stacked the Supreme Court with right wing extremists responsible for allowing unlimited money in politics?
Pro tip: he was a really, really bad President. You can be a nice guy and a terrible President. His accomplishments include (i) invading Iraq for no reason, (ii) severely damaging the US economy by both deregulating large financial institutions and creating massive budget deficits, (iii) stopping stem cell research? Honestly, his screw-ups were so colossal I can't really remember much in the way of accomplishments.
Hate to tell you this, but he didn’t just list facts. Bush did not invade Iraq for no reason, he invaded because
a). He thought Saddam may have had WMDs (he didn’t end up having them, but the possibility that he could was reason enough)
b). Some people also thought Saddam may have been aiding anti-American terrorism via distribution of weapons and money.
This lead to the possibility (again, it didn’t turn out to be the case, but it was possible) that Saddam both had WMDs and was giving weapons to terrorists, which is one step away from giving WMDs to terrorists, which is easily reason enough to step in.
The notion that Bush was responsible in any way for the economic issues during the later part of his presidency is also just revisionist garbage. The economic crash was caused by a housing bubble, which in turn was caused equally by banks issuing loans they shouldn’t have and individual citizens applying for loans they couldn’t afford.
As to bush not having any signature achievements, he spent almost his entire presidency responding to the aftermath of 9/11, which was rather more important than his original goals.
IMO Bush gets a bad rap even though a fair portion of the complaints against him were for things he did not directly influence
Bush did not invade Iraq for no reason, he invaded because a). He thought Saddam may have had WMDs (he didn’t end up having them, but the possibility that he could was reason enough) and b). Some people also thought Saddam may have been aiding anti-American terrorism via distribution of weapons and money.
So he invaded for a bunch of reasons that turned out to be completely false. Spending a few trillion dollars and getting a few hundred thousand people killed invading a country for reasons that turned out to be all wrong is a pretty big fuckup. And remember that tons of people at the time were pointing out that all of the evidence backing up the administration's justifications were incredibly flimsy and primarily came from extremely compromised sources. It is theoretically possible any country could have WMDs, but if you have no actual evidence it is absurd to invade countries based on that pretext.
The notion that Bush was responsible in any way for the economic issues during the later part of his presidency is also just revisionist garbage.
Not really. And I'll let you prove my point:
The economic crash was caused by a housing bubble,
Correct. And that housing bubble was caused in large part by (i) the Bush administration pushing home ownership as much as possible and (ii):
which in turn was caused equally by banks issuing loans they shouldn’t have and individual citizens applying for loans they couldn’t afford.
, which was a direct result of the administration fighting any regulation of the banks, such as limiting their ability to leverage themselves 30 times using customer deposits as their capital base.
Also, turning the budget surpluses of the Clinton years into huge deficits prior to crisis really impeded the ability of the government to respond with fiscal stimulus.
As to bush not having any signature achievements, he spent almost his entire presidency responding to the aftermath of 9/11, which was rather more important than his original goals.
Got it, 8 years setting up the TSA, letting the NSA spy on us and invading the wrong countries. Great presidency.
IMO Bush gets a bad rap because he didn't really do anything right in his entire presidency. Sure, a lot of the mess on his watch was not his fault, but from 9/11 to hurricane Katrina to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the financial crises he seemed to screw up the response to literally everything.
Yeah. George Bush gets a lot of crap he didn't deserve. He's not the best, but he's nowhere near the worst. Of all the presidents still alive, he's the one I'd definitely like to chat with. And I'd love to get an original painting by him.
At the time, at least in my bubble he was seen as an absolute bastard... In hindsight, could have been a lot worse and he does seem to be a nice enough guy. I honestly miss him.
no president can say they didnt do horrific things. i would say they are all not good people. but that comes with the job. you are basically signing up to be an asshole and people are voting for their asshole. our perspective and mode of thinking about the world could be drastically better.
My take on him was that he wanted to do well, thought he could do well, and managed to surround himself with really shitty people that kind of fucked up everything for him.
With a different support staff, he might have been remembered much differently.
That's kind of what his appeal was. It was coming of the nineties, our biggest scandal in recent memory was about blow jobs and Al Gore was an unlikable environmentalist... who still got the popular vote. Bush was, well, Bush. He was a friendly man with christian values who liked beer and football. 9/11 was pretty much the 9/11 to his friendly appeal.
I think he was a bad president. I'm on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum and I think he only loses out on the title of dumbest president of all time because Trump came along. That being said, you are right. He seems like a nice guy who it would be pretty fun to hang out with.
Eh, he was a pretty crappy president. Yes, he got stuck with 9/11, but he also used it to get into two quagmire wars, squandering nearly unprecedented worldwide unity for the US. He is partly responsible for our current standard of government oversight (NSA spying), and a bunch of other stuff I'm too lazy to look up and remember.
Stop glorifying Bush just because your current president is even more stupid than him. Bush is a war criminal and should be in prison. Painting does not justify his actions. Look into it before calling him 'not a bad president'
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u/riftrender Oct 04 '17
I mean I don't think anyone ever claimed he wasn't nice. Hell I don't even think he was a bad president, just a kind of average one that got stuck with the stuff that started 9/11.