Your thoughts on the transition of power and the final 91 hours of the Bush presidency.
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The end of an ERROR!
Bush will be remembered as the President that the nation asked for, got, and deserved. His legacy is the continued tradition of his predecessors, taking that which Americans thrust upon him: their liberty, their obligation, and their ignorance in exchange for their responsibility. Americans wanted a man who would keep us safe, ask for zero sacrifice and not bother us with the personal responsibility which comes from owning one’s awareness of what’s going on in the world. And within those parameters he gave us the only possible outcome he could, a complete and total mess. Be careful what you wish for.
As the title says he still has 91 hours to screw something else up. Let’s hold our breaths.
Bush’s legacy is in Obama’s hands.
If Obama can turn around the economy, restore America’s “prestige”, defeat our enemies while making friends, etc. then Bush will be seen as one of the great presidential screwups.
But, on the other hand, if Obama closes Guantanamo, repeals the Patriot Act, ends waterboarding, etc. and we get another terrorist attack on American soil, then Bush will be seen by all too many as “unappreciated”, “unjustly ridiculed”, and one of the greatest Presidents we ever had.
Ergo, Bush’s legacy is in Obama’s hands.
Can we really drag Bush & Co. off to Gitmo and detain them as enemy combatants? Just to ask Cheney a few questions would be justice of the highest poetic order. First question:
“Please estimate to the nearest billion
how much profit you and your corporate chums have made since you invaded Iraq ?
#65 I find it hard to believe, regardless of what Obama does, that Bush will ever be regarded as “one of the greatest presidents”, except maybe by the oil men and war profiteers who put him up to it.
@58 – Mark
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Who will you libbies hate now, after Bush is out of office?
Why Bush of course. Just like the right wing nut jobs on this board still aren’t over Clinton. We will hate’n on Bush for at least a decade. No need to be hate’n on Cheney. If there is such a thing as karma he will have a heart attack soon.
# 9 Olo Baggins of Bywater said, in part:
“But wait, he’s not done yet.”
I won’t breathe any easier until about Wednesday. If then.
# 24 Misanthropic Scott said, in part:
“I’m truly amazed we survived, albeit barely. I think it is a huge international embarrassment for the United States that we let this guy finish out his term without being impeached for war crimes.
“It sends the very bad message that the U.S. is complicit in this. We should have done everything in our power to show the world that he was not representative of the people of the United States.
“Unfortunately, we did not.”
No kidding. Even more unfortunately, it looks like Bush, Cheney et al. may be allowed to wiggle out of it all just like Reagan, Bush (Sr.) and Oliver North and their cabal.
# 34 StirThePot said, in part:
“We have no one but the Democrats to blame for the way the country is…”
Oh, I see — because they couldn’t stop him, we’ll blame them instead of him. Might as well blame the Police Department of the City of New York for 9/11 then, eh?
# 44 Birch said, in part:
“This administration consistently refused to accept any responsibility for its errors and the damage it did to our nation.”
Yes, it’s a peculiar kind of brain damage that seems all too common in capital cities, especially Washington. What has surprised me is how widely it has spread in the general population as well.
# 46 amodedoma said, in part:
“Somebody tries to kill your daddy, make’s you wanna get some serious retribution! That’s what that was about…”
Apparently. Remember when actual grownups were in charge of big important things, like countries?
—–
I fear the brain damage is now so widespread that we will never be able to get back the dream…
#65 – Ah_Yea
How about the most likely scenario of all:
Obama closes Guantanamo, repeals the Patriot Act, ends waterboarding, etc. and we DON’T get another terrorist attack on American soil? And it turns out that Obama CAN turn around the economy, restore America’s “prestige”, defeat our enemies while making friends?
How much of a bungling, evil, incompetent assmunch is Bush going to look like then?
Mustard,
I also hope for the best.
“How much of a bungling, evil, incompetent assmunch is Bush going to look like then?”
There are no words to express just how much of an evil, incompetent assmunch he will look like then!
#71–Ah Yea==there are always words, thats the wonder of Engrish.
What will the evil, incompetent assmunch BushtheRetard look like then?
Why just as he does NOW.
But the question only highlights the challenge assmunch left to be cleaned up. If Obama only 2-3 of those things, wouldn’t that be a refreshing change?
Bush is as responsible for the problems of this country as we are. Nobody said or did anything over the past 8 years except complain, and it was the same tiny group of organizers that protested Bush’s policies who were out protesting Clinton’s back in 2000. The rest of us sat on our fat, Starbucks-consuming debt-building asses and waited for some new savior to come along and make the usual empty promises. And in two years we’ll turn on Obama, and start talking about how the next guy will fix things. It’s amazing what people were able to do to organize with the advent of the simple printing press over 200 years ago, and yet we have all the networks and devices we need to organize and yet we still do nothing but bitch.
waa,waa,waa….Why don’t you all just leave Britney alone…I mean leave Bush alone.
But seriously,Lets just face it folks…Its Politics and there’s just not much we can do about it.
75, yes there is…
Got a shot gun??
As a Monday morning quarterback my thoughts about Bush are this. He did motivate us in our worst of time (9/11) but then he threw us into a war with Iraq that turned out to be a mistake and led us away from the real war against terror. Where are the WMD’s? Who knows?
On his watch our economy slowly burned out like a light bulb always brightest before it goes out. Yet for the longest time he was in denial that the economy was even failing.
Who knows if the next administration can do anything in 4 years to significantly turn the economy around. But George W Bush did very little to save the economy from falling off the cliff. In the end we lost a lot of Americans in 9/11 and thousands more fighting in Iraq which when we leave will no dought fall into a civil war and collapse. Can anyone tell me what good he did for our country???
#77, jescott,
He did motivate us in our worst of time (9/11) …
No. WE, the American public motivated ourselves. WE held our flags high. WE lit the candles to remember those taken in 9/11.
What did Bush do? He went looking to use this as an excuse to attack Iraq. Instead of going after bin Laden, he allowed him to set up in Pakistan and then turned around and turned even more against America.
78 Mr. Fusion. So you’re saying there’s actually nothing to being the lowest-rated or the highest-rated president in history as Bush was.
And Iraq should have been given a pass for attacking US ally Kuwait. Similarly, Canada should not have come to the aid of its ally, the US, in Afghanistan. That Obama will find bin Laden via, what, love & diplomacy?
RBG
#16 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>Get back to me in about 6 years. Took me that
>>long to sort through everything Clinton
>>pulled and its long term effects…
Heh heh. How about we put you in a time capsule and see what you think in 500 years. Maybe by then, folks will have forgotten about the debacle of 2000-2008. Everybody else knows right now what they need to know about this feckless puppet. In six years, it’s only going to be worse.
>>Not at all. The lending practices he pushed >>didn’t fully explode until this year.
The “lending practices he pushed” were never a problem. It wasn’t until Bush came along, with his unbridled enthusiasm for letting corporate predators do whatever the fuck they want, that things got so entangled in the web of collateralized debt obligation, credit default swaps, derivatives, and all the other imaginary “financial instruments”, that the economy began to melt down.
If Clinton had been able to run for two more terms, the Dow would be at 25,000, thousands of American kids would still be alive, bin Laden would be rotting in a supermax facility somewhere, Katrina survivors wouldn’t still be breathing H2CO fumes in trailers, and the United States would still be the greatest country on earth.
MISSION truly would have been ACCOMPLISHED.
# 79 RBG said, “So you’re saying there’s actually nothing to being the lowest-rated or the highest-rated president in history as Bush was. ”
Actually, that would be Truman @22%. He started a far more deadly war (for our troops). It will be interesting what the view will be in 20-30 years (like Truman)…
#81 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>He started a far more deadly war (for our
>>troops).
Uh…he didn’t start that war, Paddy-RAMBO.
# 82 Mister Mustard said, “Uh…he didn’t start that war, Paddy-RAMBO.”
Sure he did. The US wasn’t attacked nor threatened. No one attacked the US, he initiated an attack against one side in an ongoing civil war… Same as Kennedy did in Vietnam…
Whatever happened, thank God we had GW instead of Gore or Kerry. Especially Gore. Now that BHO is going to give Gore credence again, his AGW myth will cause more human suffering and misery than Hitler, Stalin and Saddam combined.
One bright spot is that the worldwide economic meltdown has forced foreigners to admit that they’re nothing without the US and that they depend on the US for their own welfare – which is as it should be.
His primary legacy was in restoring America’s reputation in the world. After the withdrawal in Vietnam, and Clinton’s paying little heed to terrorist attacks, Bush made sure that people understood there is a price to attacking.
#79, RBG,
78 Mr. Fusion. So you’re saying there’s actually nothing to being the lowest-rated or the highest-rated president in history as Bush was.
When Bush had an 89% approval rating, it was because the entire country came together against an evil. The same happened after Pearl Harbor and when the Maine blew up. We united as one for the common good. That 89% was less about Bush than about nationalistic unity. It didn’t take long for that to dwindle to less than 50%.
Thank God and Greyhound,He’s gone!
#83, Cow-Paddy, Ignorant Shit Talking Sociopath, Retired Mall Rent-A-Cop, Constitutional Scholar, California Labor Law Expert, and Leading Troll Extraordinare,
And it might be added, the US also fought under the United Nations banner with troops from many other countries.
Cow-Paddy, quit digging.
RE #88,
Eff eff eff, I did it again. The first two paragraphs in that blockquote should have been my comments and not a quote.
Mr. Confusion added: “And it might be added, the US also fought under the United Nations banner with troops from many other countries.”
So? Starting an a war against someone who isn’t attacking you is immoral.
Nice trying to justify killing young Americans though…
# 3 bobbo, you are so right. People are so focused on an illusion of change. Yes BUSH is leaving, double YEA!!.
However, the dumb and historically illiterate American people who elected him are staying and are no smarter.
More importantly, if the Bush Administration spy ops criminality is not investigated; we Americans, are setting ourselves up for a rogue and criminal government that will run rough shod over American’s constitutional rights at will. Our citizenry ability and responsibility to check government power will be lost.
It sounds like Mr. Obama want to ignore all those who elected him and the liberal, human-rights and civil-liberties groups, and would rather listen to the outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden’s advice/threat (bather!) to not allow any investigation.
His misinformed reasoning; it’s the same BUSH always used, “look forward not look back”.
How freaking naive can you get. How star struck must Obama be with his new powers!!! How already out of touch with Americans and reality he must already be!!!!!!!!
If you don’t investigate government activities in a democracy, you set the government above the law and empower it to violate it at will. With out an investigation you rob (steal, take …) the ability of Americans to self govern.
I worry and now somewhat dishearten, after learning this, that Obama will becomes a puppet (Uncle Tom) no better then BUSH. I want someone with the kohona’s to right wrongs and expose fraud, else American’s CAN’T CHANGE and we can’t self govern.
Will Obama further erode Americans rights, and ability to self govern, STAY TUNED.
President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush’s final approval rating at 22 percent.
Seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years.
Mr. Bush’s final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since Gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago.
The rating is far below the final ratings of recent two-term presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, who both ended their terms with a 68 percent approval rating, according to CBS News polling.
Recent one term presidents also had higher ratings than Mr. Bush. His father George H.W. Bush had an end-of-term rating of 54 percent, while Jimmy Carter’s rating was 44 percent.
Harry Truman had previously had the lowest end-of-term approval at 32 percent, as measured by Gallup.
Gee, I wonder why that happened. What on earth could have caused so much disapproval of Bush?