I’m sorry, but what? If Bush started the war, what was the day it started? And what happened on that day to start it?
Regarding the Gulf War, of course it was about oil. The US economy still runs on it. I welcome renewables and less polluting fuels with open arms, but the U.S. had a strategic interest in protecting its sources of oil.
We can argue all day about how we got there and whether it was wise or just, but Saddam in Kuwait, with a dagger pointed at Saudi Arabia, was a situation the U.S. couldn’t tolerate.
Do you consider that an acceptable outcome? If so, why?
I’m glad he was president at the end of the Cold War, the Russian coup, and the reunionification of Gernamny. Clarence Thomas is one of the worst Supreme Court justices. Bush was horrible during the recession, he really could have cared less. I gave him a vote as above average because international affairs were so prominent during his term. I’d prefer a Michael Dukakis for domestic policy.
Clarence Thomas was and is a national blight. Souter turned out well though, I wish he was still on the court.
As a member of a community that was, through the 80s and into the 90s, absolutely devastated by AIDS, the Bush hagiography that’s been going on since Friday night has been annoying, at best. He ignored AIDS fully as much as his predecessor, because the wrong kind of people got it. He was better than Dubya overall, but that bar ain’t that high.
He was the last Republican candidate for president that I voted for in 1988, for his first (and only) term. I was disillusioned with him 4 years later and voted for my first Democrat at that point. I haven’t returned to voting for Republican presidential candidates since. (I did NOT vote for Reagan, but rather voted for John Anderson in 1980 (a renegade republican) and didn’t vote for President in 1984.)
Overall I respected Bush but didn’t think he was the best choice for the office in 1992
Thanks for that reminder. Oddly one of the few good things Bush 2 did was increase funding to fight AIDS in Africa, though with the usual no-condom bullshit attached.
I was inclined to vote “average” but someone posted his letter to the NRA, in which he resigned his lifetime membership, and told them to fuck the hell off after they referred to federal agents as “jack booted thugs”. That bumped him to “above average”. Can you imagine a Republican doing that now?
I say that as a longtime second amendment supporter and as someone that ditched the NRA 20-some years ago.
Man, have modern Republicans wrecked the curve.
He’s absolutely the best Republican president I’ve lived under, not having committed any major crimes and having taken us into fewer wars than his son did and displaying toxic racism that’s far outpaced by our current president. But good lord is that a low bar to clear. The hagiography is gross.
Even the “major crimes” part is debatable–Bush pardoned a bunch of the Iran-Contra plotters, a couple of them pre-emptively. The speculation is that one or more were about to flip on Bush, who would have been well-placed to aid and abet (or lead?). Reagan was half-senile by then, some say he never recovered fully from the assassination attempt, and remember Bush had been the CIA head. Some of the initial money illegally funneled to the Contras came from Saudi Arabia, and the Bush family is and was notoriously close with the Saudis.
I certainly don’t think Bush was perfect. But for me, the “preventing major conflict after the collapse of the Soviet Union” really outweighs his many, many faults.
His screwing around in South America earns my vote as a greatest monster. How can a President know that troops, woman, and children are dying because he holds an idea about the power balance is wrong?
The war between Germany and France was over on June 25, 1940 but the French were pretty happy that everyone just didn’t accept that.
Yes - “controlling” it in a factually accurate way. Like how smoking causes lung cancer or the bombing of Pearl Harbor led to war between Japan and America.
The US was providing material support to the Chinese, against Japan. The Japanese attacked, to convince us to stop.
It’s reasonable to say that the US initiated the process. The Japanese would have been quite happy, and never attacked us, had we not involved ourselves.
That quite definitely was NOT the primary reason for the surprise attack on December 7, 1941.
Remember that Bush’s waffling about US support for Kuwait was the reason Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion in the first place. Remember also that the Kuwaitis lied their asses off in front of Congress about what the Iraqis had done in order to get the US to come to their aid. Gulf War I wasn’t the clear-cut “US rides to the rescue” event it’s often portrayed as, and Bush could have prevented the initial invasion. That said, not driving into Baghdad was a smart move that many presidents would not have done, so credit is due there.
I voted “Average” - Bush was generally competent overall, good at international politics but not great on the domestic side of things as already noted. He oversaw the end of the Cold War about as well as anyone could have. He was elected basically on two electoral promises: - not to implement any new taxes and to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day; we know how the first one turned out and nobody cares about the second. His choice of VP was questionable and he had a habit of letting big business have a veto over any new regulations affecting them.
So yeah. Average. Not great, not horrible, overall decent but flawed. There are worse legacies to have as president, to be sure.
The closer one looks at Bush, the worse he looks.
He had the benefit of being a technocrat so he spent most of his time in the weeds and not on any grand crusade. So his administration was pretty boring in that regard.
What pushes him into the below average space is that:
[ol]
[li]He was head of the 1970s CIA and took their ethics into elected office.[/li][li]He carried on the horrific policies of the Reagan administration that demonized the poor and minorities that we are still dealing with today.[/li][li]He was at ground zero of the Iran–Contra affair, the worst illegal activity by a sitting administration.[/li][/ol]
ISTM one reason the media is covering Bush Senior so favorably after his death is that it helps push back against the conservative notion that the media is biased against Republicans, period. They have to draw a delineation between “good Republicans” and “bad Republicans.”