# Bush had "bad luck". No, he didn't. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 7, 2008, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619 "2008-11-07T11:20:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/81 "2008-11-10T05:21:52Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Bush became president with a high performing,low debt economy. Being a believer in the repub principals ,he totally fucked up the economy and national debt. That was not bad luck. That was bad principals,poor ethics and shitty regulation concepts. Bush inherited a low deficit economy, not a low debt one. The national debt was already huge when he entered office. He did manage to double it, of course, but it certainly wasn’t “low” by anyone’s measure before him. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/82 "2008-11-10T05:29:38Z")
I think the article quoted in the OP is a strawman that is showing (going by this thread) some signs of being highly effective. I say this as an outsider, but when I think of the very worst aspects of Bush, I don’t think of 9/11, and I don’t think of Katrina, and I don’t think of the financial collapse. These are all events that (at least arguably) Bush was not directly responsible for. The article is an attempt to create a minor riot in the street so people won’t notice the bank robbery going on a block away. The hope is to create a conservative talking point that makes the focus something vaguely defensible if highly controversial (“Bush couldn’t have stopped 9/11 or Katrina”) so that the _real_ issues (like starting a war on a lie) won’t get talked about. > [@Sinaijon](#): > > Next thing I know, I’m being asked for a point by point rebuttal. WTF? There’s alway some idiot newbie who thinks that because in the pit it is \*permissible \*to post unreasoned abuse and drivel, it is rhetorically _sufficient_. Got news for you, buddy… ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/83 "2008-11-10T15:32:41Z")
> [@Hostile\_Dialect](#): > > To be fair, the wildfires here in California have exposed massive problems on the city, county and state levels. The fire chief here resigned in frustration after the 2003 wildfires, and after last year’s wildfires there was a sentiment among those in public service during both events that not much had changed. It cuts deep: everything from littering laws to the end of California’s prisoner brush-clearing program in the 80s has some effect on the whole thing. I suppose one could argue that, given the amount of time Bush spent clearing brush on his ranch, he could take personal credit for the fires not spreading to Texas. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/84 "2008-11-10T18:09:22Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I think the article quoted in the OP is a strawman that is showing (going by this thread) some signs of being highly effective. > > I say this as an outsider, but when I think of the very worst aspects of Bush, I don’t think of 9/11, and I don’t think of Katrina, and I don’t think of the financial collapse. These are all events that (at least arguably) Bush was not directly responsible for. The article is an attempt to create a minor riot in the street so people won’t notice the bank robbery going on a block away. > > The hope is to create a conservative talking point that makes the focus something vaguely defensible if highly controversial (“Bush couldn’t have stopped 9/11 or Katrina”) so that the _real_ issues (like starting a war on a lie) won’t get talked about. Good point. I don’t know if that’s what the particular Harvard history professor quoted was aiming at, but we can expect to see that sort of strategy used over the next several years of defending the indefensible. Sort of like how John McCain and other conseratives (mavericks all, maybe) kept repeating “The surge worked!” as a way to avoid having to defend the criminally insane policy decisions that caused the whole bloody needless mess in which “the surge” is one of the few identifiable bits that seems to have “worked”. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/85 "2008-11-11T07:33:45Z")
Well, I might be one of the leading “Bush-Bashers” at the SDMB and I’ll admit I started a lot of “Dubya-bashing” threads but this guy deserves it. As I’ve said many times, Sept 11, 2001 represents one of the worst (if not _the_ worst) attacks upon our country. How did Dubya “inspire” us afterward? Not at all. What precious words of wisdom did he tell us? Go shopping? Bring it on? Wow, that made me feel so much safer. If nothing else, he has speech writers. Shouldn’t he have used them to write something that was powerful and uplifting? Yes, but did he? No. :mad: How about some of the personnel with which he has surrounded himself? The Arabian Horse Judge manager of FEMA has already been mentioned. How about [Kay\_Coles\_James](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Coles_James)? She was nominated by - you guessed it - Dubya Bush to be the Director of the Office of Personnel Management. Ms James was previously the Dean of Regent University’s government school. And just what is Regent University? A school founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. It seems that Ms James decided to get a great many of Regent University’s students government jobs - 150 of them. And these students meet very well with Mr Bush’s stringent requirements of “hiring applicants with strong conservative credentials but weaker academic qualifications” Read about another Bush appointee here: [http://www.americablog.com/2006/02/24-year-old-bush-political-appointee.html](http://www.americablog.com/2006/02/24-year-old-bush-political-appointee.html) Yes George C. Deutsch was appointed to NASA and told climate scientists to decline talking about global warming and _always_ emphasize that it’s the Big Bang _Theory_. This 24 year old “wunderkind” eventually resigned due to the fact that he didn’t even have a college degree. Dubya’s bowing to the far right religious fundamentalists brings results such as these. Heck, that’s how he got elected for 2 terms. Don’t worry about the job you lost or the high price of gas or our shitty educational system - Dubya will try his best to make sure queers won’t get married. I could go on, but as is, this is one of the longer postings I’ve made and so I’d like to see what others have to say about this President who had a run of “bad luck”. Give me a fucking break!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/86 "2008-11-11T10:50:16Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > Good point. I don’t know if that’s what the particular Harvard history professor quoted was aiming at, but we can expect to see that sort of strategy used over the next several years of defending the indefensible. > > Sort of like how John McCain and other conseratives (mavericks all, maybe) kept repeating “The surge worked!” as a way to avoid having to defend the criminally insane policy decisions that caused the whole bloody needless mess in which “the surge” is one of the few identifiable bits that seems to have “worked”. “The surge worked” = “We finally got around to sending in the number of troops that the military had told us we needed in the first place, advice we ignored because Rumsfeld and company were insistent in the face of all facts and expert advice to the contrary that the locals would greet us with cheers and flowers but hey, better late than never.” Sometimes you make your own bad luck. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/87 "2008-11-11T17:36:38Z")
We were told the surge was going to stabilize Iraq and allow the Iraqi government to take over its own national security needs. The actual results of the surge have been a decline in American casualties - certainly a good thing but if that had been the goal, we could have achieved it by a withdrawal. Iraqi self-sufficiency? Still not there. So the surge only worked by the tactic of redefining success after the fact. If James Randi had been monitoring the surge, he would have kept his million dollars. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/88 "2008-11-11T19:25:10Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > We were told the surge was going to stabilize Iraq and allow the Iraqi government to take over its own national security needs. The actual results of the surge have been a decline in American casualties - certainly a good thing but if that had been the goal, we could have achieved it by a withdrawal. Iraqi self-sufficiency? Still not there. So the surge only worked by the tactic of redefining success after the fact. If James Randi had been monitoring the surge, he would have kept his million dollars. In fact, we won’t know if the surge worked until after we withdraw. More troops and minimally competent tactics (which we at least finally got) is going to reduce the violence. Is it out or is it simmering? Who can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/89 "2008-11-11T20:02:24Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > the violence. Is it out or is it simmering? Who can tell. [Triple Bombing in Iraqi Capital Kills 28](http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-11-10-voa6.cfm) ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/90 "2008-11-11T20:56:19Z")
I’ll take “Unintentional False Dilemmas” for 500, Alex. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/91 "2008-11-11T21:02:28Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Bush inherited a low deficit economy, not a low debt one. The national debt was already huge when he entered office. > > He did manage to double it, of course, but it certainly wasn’t “low” by anyone’s measure before him. It was minuscule by Bush’s standards. How could Bush and his hoard be so wrong.so long? I thought people were supposed to be able to learn. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/92 "2008-11-11T23:04:17Z")
> [@howye](#): > > For the purposes of argument, let’s say Bush had bad luck. My response is so what? **The test of leadership is what you do in response to changing conditions. Bush failed horribly every time. He was faced with events that in hindsight could have been handled fairly simply.** > > 9/11 - Suppose a failure of intetlligence gathering and that the actual event was not foreseeable. The simple and proper response is to go after the group that did it. Not start going after them and then get distracted with an unnecessary war in a country that had nothing to do with the attack. Sure, Bush might have had some bad luck, but he handled it so poorly it boogles the mind. > > Katrina - Bad luck, maybe. But again a massive response when it became clear that New Orleans was going to get hit and not enough people were going to be evacuated would have changed history. Bush made some of his own bad luck in not having competent people in charge of his agencies, but the devastation could have been lessened by a better response. > > Every President is faced with bad situations, whether its luck or a failure to stop events before they get rolling. What has to be remembered is how they handled it. Bush has failed every test. This. Bush was simply not qualified. He had no “skills”, no interest in anything, and was too convinced that he alone was always right no matter what. He was a walking disaster. When he finally goes away, I say Good Riddance. He did not belong in the White House. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619/93 "2008-11-11T23:46:00Z")
**SteveG1** > [@](#): > > Bush was simply not qualified. He had no “skills”, no interest in anything, and was too convinced that he alone was always right no matter what. He was a walking disaster. When he finally goes away, I say Good Riddance. He did not belong in the White House. That sums up “Dubya” very well. I was a kid when Russia launched Sputnik. It is hard to imagine that 50 fucking years later, we have a President that is such a doof he says “the jury is still out on evolution”. No doubt he said this just to earn more support from the religious right whackos that put him in office … _ **twice** _. Great. We’ve had a President that sent out the message that it is hip to be stupid. I wonder how long it will be before all the damage he has done politicaly, economically and educationally will be reversed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-had-bad-luck-no-he-didnt/471619.md?page=4)