Bush The Worst President: Helen Thomas Interview

The BBQ Pit
21

[QUOTE=John Mace]

I don’t think the federal government plays a significant role in education, period.
[/quote]

Are you serious? I mean no offense, but I suppose that you’re unaware of the massive changes which NCLB has necessitated? And the fact that the cost for those changes is, in many cases, still unfunded even though the feds said that they would fund it?

[QUOTE=John Mace]

Spending at the federal level is just a fraction of overall educational spending, which is mostly a state and local affair. Blaming Bush for problems with education is just another throw-away snipe.
[/quote]

Not at all. I can, if you require, give you plenty of cites about the destructive nature of NCLB. Among them is the fact that the ‘fraction’ of spending that the fed contributes is far below what it promised and what the costs of NCLB are.

Honestly, I’d suggest that you do some reasearch into NCLB. It’s based on a massive fraud in Houston, created with virtually no lit review, and ignores virtually all of modern pedagogical research as a result. There are classrooms in this country where, due to NCLB, teachers can do almost nothing all year other than test prep, classrooms which are so heavily regimented that every hour has to be documented and proceed in accord with a schedule which does not take into account the individual needs of any students. Not to mention that, more often than not, NCLB ‘warders’ pay far more attention to lower SES schools, making it even more difficult for students who are struggling to get quality education.

As I said, I can provide cites on request (although I might have to dig some of my printed journal articles out of storage so it’d take a day or two for some of them.)
But… to say that Bush has nothing to do with education in this country is, quite frankly, an ignorant position.

22

[QUOTE=Ice Wolf]
Is this the one?
http://www.ameratsu.com/media/vid/cnn/cnn_sr_bush_helen_thomas_060321c_240x180.wmv
[/QUOTE]

Yes, that is the one and thank you Ice Wolf for helping me out of link hell.

23

Um, how does it take balls to say Bush is the worst president ever? In my experience it isn’t actually a ballsy thing in the United States to criticise the President. In fact, it’s actually considered trendy in many circles.

24

[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
But… to say that Bush has nothing to do with education in this country is, quite frankly, an ignorant position.
[/QUOTE]

Well, I didn’t way “nothing”, and crticism of NCLB had not been as one sided as you seem to imply. I read mixed reviews of the program-- some people like it and some people hate it. This NYT* editorial from last year is, I think, tyipcal. It has some good things and bad things to say about NCLB.

*not known for being friendly towards Bush

25

Bush is easily the worst post-War president. His only real competition is Nixon. By the end of Bush’s term, Nixon will still have the much higher kill total, but the issue is complicated by the fact that he inherited a war, whereas Bush started one. I think for abuse of government power Bush has the edge. Nixon’s illegal moves were mostly CYA-type stuff, whereas Bush is blatantly grasping for imperial power. Finally, Nixon had many foreign and domestic accomplishments, whereas Bush has zero.

LBJ more or less started Vietnam (yes, we were already there, but he really got us into it whole hog), which makes him overall a really bad president. But he had several important domestic accomplishments. Bush, again, has none, and he also had the lesson of Vietnam but decided to start Iraq II anyway.

If you look at the pre-War 20th-century prezes, there is Harding, who was completely clueless and incompetent. He had one of the most corrupt administrations of all time, but there is doubt that he really ever knew what was going on. I’d say Bush was worse than Harding, as Bush is well aware of how corrupt and fascist his regime is, and he is the prime mover when Cheney isn’t.

Hoover was similar to Bush in many ways (per recent Salon.com article, he wouldn’t admit mistakes, and we were always “turning the corner” in the Depression), but he did not go out of his way to create additional problems for the nation as Bush has done.

All in all, I think it’s fair to say that Bush is the worst president since 1900.

If we go back into the 19th century, however, we find several presidents that make us hang our heads in shame or scream in horror:

Jackson (Indian killer)
Buchanan (presided over Secession)
Johnson (utterly vile and incompetent)
Grant (drunk, incompetent, and surrounded by corrupt men)

Just to name the most egregious. The times were so different that it’s tough to compare Bush with any of them, but I don’t see how he’d easily beat any of them, either. Why? Because Bush combines all the following qualities into one horrendous fuck of a politician:

Incompetence
Hunger for Power
Corruption
Sense of Entitlement
Sense of Mission from God
Lack of Respect for Science
Imbecility
Irresponsibility
Pride

and Just General Fuckedness. He is a rotten, rotten president, quite possibly the worst ever.

26

[QUOTE=John Mace]
I’ve never subscribed to the belief that presidents should get credit or blame for economic performance because most of what happens is out of his control.
[/quote]

I’m kinda torn about this; it seems to me that – for all but the most obvious instances – similar reasoning could be applied across the board. I’m not sure how one attributes (almost) any credit or blame directly to the president without picking and choosing according to their own biases.

I actually think this is akin to the above issue. If the president proposes legislation (he was responsible for NCLB, right? It wasn’t a Republican package that he simply endorsed, right?), is there much more he can do to have an affect? If that’s the limit, then Bush has substantially affected education. If not, then no president can, and so should get neither credit nor blame. That doesn’t seem to suit my feeling for the power of the office – why care about who is the president in the first place? But then, I could be wrong.

Same as above, IMO. Is the measure of affect proposed legislation? Or is it something more nebulous (i.e., a “social climate”)?

27

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
Um, how does it take balls to say Bush is the worst president ever? In my experience it isn’t actually a ballsy thing in the United States to criticise the President. In fact, it’s actually considered trendy in many circles.
[/QUOTE]

I think it takes more balls if you can reasonably expect to be in the same room with Bush in the future.

28

[QUOTE=Digital Stimulus]
I’m kinda torn about this; it seems to me that – for all but the most obvious instances – similar reasoning could be applied across the board. I’m not sure how one attributes (almost) any credit or blame directly to the president without picking and choosing according to their own biases.
[/QUOTE]

Compare that to the Iraq war, which is 100% Bush. He chose to go in, he chose the strategy (or approved it thru his adminstration), and he set the funding (thru his requests to Congress).

29

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Compare that to the Iraq war, which is 100% Bush. He chose to go in, he chose the strategy (or approved it thru his adminstration), and he set the funding (thru his requests to Congress).
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that’s the most obvious instance, which is why I qualified it the way I did. I’m honestly asking; as I said, I’m torn. Sometimes I think it really doesn’t matter who’s the president; most of the time I don’t.

Beyond the Iraq escapade – and perhaps direct political appointments – is there any general thing (e.g., education, social policy, etc.) that we can legitimately lay directly at the president’s feet? (And in this case, I’m asking about the president in general, not Bush in particular.)

Oh, and I didn’t mean to imply that you in particular were biased, in case it came across that way. It just seems to me that the amount of credit/blame a person assigns to the president generally matches their political stance.

30

[QUOTE=John Mace]
This is something I simply don’t understand. I certainly can see how you could come to the conclusion that foreign policy has been terrible, but the economy is doing pretty good and I can’t see that he’s had much affect at all on social or educational issues. As for the Supreme Court, I’m not sure what you mean by “pro-Federal”. If you mean pro-federalism, as in more state authority, then I agree, although I see that as a plus, not a minus. But pro-Federal in terms of fed power over the states… how do you figure that?
[/QUOTE]
I think Bush (like all Presidents of any flavor) have had relatively little impact upon the state of the economy; Clinton got undeserved kudos for having the good fortune to be in office during the tech bubble, Bush the Elder had the misfortune to inherit the result of Reaganomics, Nixon and Carter both got screwed by the oil crisis, and in every case the executive in question had relatively little culpability for the state of things. Bush the Younger, however, has saddled the nation with a massive debt increase to pay for an increasingly unpopular and inextractiable war effort.

His impact on social (faith-based federal aid) and educational (No Child Left Behind, Intelligent Design) initiatives has been manifest and, IMHO, detrimental. And while his Supreme Court appointees have been toward the literalist (and therefore limiting on Federal power) view, his actions (again, NCLB among others) have been to impose unfunded mandates and burdens upon the states. I’d like to distance myself from those who would spew invective at Bush simply because he’s a conservative Republican, but the reality is that he is increasingly living up to every worst expectation of all but the most vitrolic detractors.

[QUOTE=vinniepaz]
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. This is just a disengenuous and offensive joke. It’s not funny in the least, and has no place in a serious discussion. People make jokes like this all the time, and it’s ridiculous and completely unneccesary.
[/QUOTE]
What makes you believe I intended it as a joke? Bush has supported racial profiling, interning (in violation of both Constitutional authority and international law) alleged “enemy combatants” without access to legal counsel or impartial representation, and failing to differentiate between repressive regimes and the peoples who are oppressed by them. This is, I think, an accurate representation of the Administration’s view of Them; dark-skinned people with funny headgear.

I’d like to call for moderation among apocalyptic and exaggerated criticism, but every time I do I find my position to be tenuous at best. Bush has become athe characture of what his greatest detractors would make him out to be; an igonorant, unpopular, devisive, self-aggrandizing, anti-intellectual demogogue, and the best argument for term limits since Ted Kennedy. I say this as neither a die-hard opponent of the Republican Party, nor a booster of Bill Clinton or his would-be successors. I just find, as a politically-disaffected American, his actions and statements to be galling in the extreme.

Stranger

31

Well said, SoaT.

32

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Well, I didn’t way “nothing”, and crticism of NCLB had not been as one sided as you seem to imply.
[/quote]

Well, you did say that “Blaming Bush for problems with education is just another throw-away snipe.” A throw-away snipe, I think, implies lack of merit.

Moroever I’m not sure what educational journals you read, but when I was getting my MEd I literally had to read hundreds of articles on NCLB and not one single one was positive. While there may be a few positive articles out there, by far, the reaction and the research has been negative. Research on lower SES districtits has been especially harsh.

Even a cursory glance at ERIC shows virtually all the articles and research projects are neutral or negative.

[QUOTE=John Mace]

I read mixed reviews of the program-- some people like it and some people hate it. This NYT* editorial from last year is, I think, tyipcal. It has some good things and bad things to say about NCLB.
[/quote]

Eh… that’s an editorial. Kinda like citing a NY Times editorial to “clear up” a matter as to which school of theoretical physics has the most legitimacy. I’d recomend ERIC.

And even when the reviews are “mixed”, it misses the point that there are still substantial negatives from NCLB. And I will repeat, it was based upon the Houston Miracle (which was a fraud), and done with virtually no lit review.

So, I think we can agree that Bush’s impact on education is not a “throw-away snipe”, nor is it strictly positive. I think if you do the reasearch into how lower SES districts are being hit by NCLB, you’ll see that the advantages (whatever they may be, and they are few) do not outweigh the negatives.

33

[QUOTE=Digital Stimulus]
Yeah, that’s the most obvious instance, which is why I qualified it the way I did. I’m honestly asking; as I said, I’m torn. Sometimes I think it really doesn’t matter who’s the president; most of the time I don’t.
[/quote]

I can’t say I disagree with that. It’s very hard to tell what specific thing a president did or didn’t do that affected the economy one way or the other. Hence, I don’t see the merit in the original statement that Bush’s economic policies have been an “unqualified disaster”. Especially since the overall economy is pretty damn good. That’s all.

Good question, and that might make a good GD thread.

Yep.

34

[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
Well, you did say that “Blaming Bush for problems with education is just another throw-away snipe.” A throw-away snipe, I think, implies lack of merit.

Moroever I’m not sure what educational journals you read, but when I was getting my MEd I literally had to read hundreds of articles on NCLB and not one single one was positive. While there may be a few positive articles out there, by far, the reaction and the research has been negative. Research on lower SES districtits has been especially harsh.

Even a cursory glance at ERIC shows virtually all the articles and research projects are neutral or negative.

Eh… that’s an editorial. Kinda like citing a NY Times editorial to “clear up” a matter as to which school of theoretical physics has the most legitimacy. I’d recomend ERIC.

And even when the reviews are “mixed”, it misses the point that there are still substantial negatives from NCLB. And I will repeat, it was based upon the Houston Miracle (which was a fraud), and done with virtually no lit review.

So, I think we can agree that Bush’s impact on education is not a “throw-away snipe”, nor is it strictly positive. I think if you do the reasearch into how lower SES districts are being hit by NCLB, you’ll see that the advantages (whatever they may be, and they are few) do not outweigh the negatives.
[/QUOTE]

Your original statement was that Bush’s educational policies have been an “unqualified disaster”. We’re probably not going to get a full debate on that subject here, but if you want to defend that specific statement, you’ll probably need to open a GD thread to do so.

35

JFC, just STFU and GBTW, link.

36

Sorry, Finn, that was Stranger on a Train who made that statement, not you. However, I stand by my original characterization of it as a thow-away snipe.

37

[QUOTE=John Mace]
However, I stand by my original characterization of it as a thow-away snipe.
[/QUOTE]
And I’ll stand by the statement that Bush’s economic policies are an unmitigated disaster, albeit one he is leaving for his successors to clean up, the current moderately-strong economic situation notwithstanding.

FWIW, I think that Helen Thomas is a bit of a gadfly who has a personal grudge against Bush for being the first President to exclude her from questioning. Not that she’s wrong, but she’s an axe to sharpen. Unfortunately, I am also increasingly forced to agree with her characterization of the executive in question. Nixon’s malfeasence can at least be attributed to inheriting a mess and his oft-deteriorating state of mental health (which makes for amusing, if possibly apocryphal Kissinger anecdotes). Bush, on the other hand, lies firmly in the bed that he’s made.

Stranger

38

[QUOTE=John Mace]
However, I stand by my original characterization of it as a thow-away snipe.
[/QUOTE]

I’m just curious… but why?

I’ve already linked to the ERIC database, and I’m sure it’d only take me an hour or so to give you a list of at least 100 articles which detail how NCLB is hurting low SES schools. What, exactly, would it take to convince you that Bush’s impact vis a vis his NCLB policy is neither negligable nor able to be handwaved away? What evidence would you require to prove to your satisfaction that it’s a valid concern and not just a throw-away snipe?

I’m asking honeslty here, because I can’t figure out how, even when the evidence is produced, you refuse to see it as a serious issue… or at least an issue more worthy than those that are “throw-away snipes”.

39

Oh, I see that my link above failed to work. Hrmm… here’s one to ERIC’s main page. If you do a search for “NCLB” you should get around 400 articles. “No Child Left Behind” yields about 1000 articles. Most, in both categories, are peer reviewed and many have the full text available. Hopefully they should at least provide a basis for any future research and, perhaps, you’ll understand why it’s truly not a throw-away snipe to talk about the impact of NCLB.

40

[QUOTE=mrrealtime]
All things being equal, of course. But America in 1819 was very different from America today. James Buchanan did not have anywhere near the tools of convenience that Bush currently has at his disposal to do a “good job”, not to mention a much lower rate of literacy and education among his constituents.

I would tend to think Helen’s claim stands your rather cardboard critique.
[/QUOTE]

Of course, you have a cite that the American electorate has a “much lower rate of literacy and education” in 2000-2006 vs. 1859-1861, right?