Nationality = Scottish
Dislike, distrust, fear and loathing, that sort of thing.
Dane here.
GWB’s personality aside, count me in with the ‘dislike what he’s done so far and anxious what he might do next’ crowd.
Canuck
I resent and fear his policies, foreign and domestic. I really resent the repeated attempts to fiddle in our domestic policies, (see marijuana). I’m distinctly unimpressed that he has the lowest I.Q of any president since 1945 (though this list is hard to believe at times - http://english.pravda.ru/usa/2001/08/07/11985.html - btw, it was sent to me by an ex-pat American in Canada).
I agree with all the “it’s not the man himself, it’s his policies” and extend it to it’s his puppetmasters, and really, the entire administration.
Liberal living in Conservative Ontario (I have my own problems)
As an American, I just wanted to remind everyone that Reckless Humor should not be taken as a representative example of what everyone in this country thinks. Not everyone here thinks “Hey, he’s ours, who cares what you think” is an acceptable position to take.
Heck, I personally find it laughable that Reckless considers Bush “refreshing” and “honest,” given the headlines currently in the newspapers.
American
Did not trust him when he first came to the running, even more so after the Florida debacle, and especially after the cabinet appointing.
The only time I ever felt ok with him was after the State of the Union on 9/11 where he reassured calm. Even then though, it was unease.
I believe him to be a puppet to his inner circle who have their own agendas (mostly greed), think they will continue to burn this country while painting it gold on the outside, and will try to spin up something positive to get him re-elected or even go as far as to ‘suspend elections’ for a few months or so.
I believe no one wants to stand up to him in Congress or elsewhere due to his labeling and bullying tactics and believe we are under terrible crisis as his foreign policy has set back relations for years, if not decades.
In short, he scares the hell out of me.
English, conservative voter here:
I think he’s alright. There are things that I could do without, but he’s a gazillion times better than tha hypocrical fraud clinton (who bizzarely is very popular here).
He was groovy about Afghanisatn
He’s right about Iraq
He’s right about Iran
He’s making good noises about the middle east
He’s actually doing domething about sub-saharan AIDS
Can you imagine a president Gore? (actually for us Brits it’s not that hard - it’s pretty much what we’ve got here).
A lot of what people outside the USA don’t like about him are actually things they don’t like about the USA in general, and they are personalising eg gung-ho military, insularity, death penalty, religious fundamentalism, naked capitalism etc.
It may not be perfect, but better him than Gore or Hilary bloody Clinton.
Australia. I dislike him intensely. I have no doubt that he belives he is is doing what is best for the U.S. and its people, but his complete disregard for the rest of the international community is frightening, as is his hypocritical rhetoric regarding the concepts of “freedom” and “peace”. The man just scares me.
I am scared of him having access to as much power as he has. I worry about how easily he’s influenced by his advisors.
I find him pathetic as a person and a sad sad excuse for a ‘world leader.’
On a personal level, he scares the crap out of me. People who agree with him (like owlstretchingtime on the grounds that he could be worse scare me even more. I’m sorry to see the bar has been lowered so low, that anyone who doesn’t openly commit atrocities is considered acceptable.
Oh, I’m sort of American. I’ll call myself an Iranian-born, US-raised, currently-living-in-Irelander.
Awaiting his next move wrt Iran. Could be a major decision in my own future, regarding my US nationality.
Canuck
He worries me. I think that is about the best way that I can sum it up. Count me as a strong negative.
Denmark.
I’m with the kind of scared/disbelief group - GWB’s display of diplomacy and rhetorics has not impressed me this far - and I doubt that will ever be the case.
Tikster
GarniGal
Pravda? Might want to be a little more careful with your media input. They have a really bad habit of printing spam and calling it news.
The theoretical population cap for the earth with current technology ranges between 2 and 40 billion, depending on average standard of living. See http://www.sunpath-designs.com/maxpop/ , section entitled Maximum Global Population Guesses.
They have a projected population cap of 20 billion if everyone in the world lived at Mexico’s current prosperity level. Now, I live less than an hour from Tijuana, and I can tell you from experience, it’s not a good average prosperity level to have. At 6 Billion things could stay pretty much the way they are. 2 Billion and everyone on earth could live like Americans (and wouldn’t that be nice.)
It appears that if we all intend to keep or improve our standard of living, we have already reached the population cap. At 9 billion we will probably have a slightly lower standard of living than we do currently. If we want to globally improve the standard of living, population gotta go down, mon.
Personally, I’m shooting for 1 Billion. Nice round number.
Ahhhh!!! Too many windows open.
Admin, please delete.
Sorry sorry sorry
Ireland (duh)
I don’t like him, I don’t trust him, and I don’t understand him.
UK here - I don’t know enough about his domestic policies to comment, with regards to foreign policy though his administration must rank as one of the worst ever.
The Indeoendant Democractic State of Berkshire,
The man is an idiot, his failings with his foreign policy comes mainly from his ignorance of the world at large. Don’t care about his domestic policies, but the Patriot Act and abolishing iheritance tax were both short-sighted, which I think is one of his main failings.
If the elections had been held in some Third World country then there would have been foreign investigators poking around tut-tutting the process, which was extremely poorly organised and conducted. Especially for a role model democracy that has sufficient collateral and resourcing to afford efficiency and transparency of process.
Right now the Bushes are like a dynasty in the US. What are the odds of father and son both being president material?
I think Bush has cynically ridden a tragedy to erode freethinking at every turn. He promotes the “If you ain’t with me yer agin me” line, which may be fine for an ‘Axis of Evil’ leader but ill befits the leader of the Free World. I think most people personally know of someone who would have a better grasp of diplomacy and greater integrity in observing global concerns and the need to be a good world citizen. Bush is that loud boorish American with his thumbs in his beltbuckle sayin’ “It’s much bigger/better back in Texas”
And why are the Americans so pleased with his performance? ‘Acting tough’ is something that Hitler and Mussolini did, does that make them admirable? This might just mean he’s a callous sociopath who mocks inmates on death row and has upset the Pope, who is reported to have wished he was younger so he could take him on!! It’s one thing to upset Jacques Chirac, quite another to get the Pontiff offside. You have to be a scary fuck to achieve that.
The thing that most marks Dubya out as a jerk is the way he doesn’t listen to anyone. Okay, he’s hardly likely to listen to peace protestors if his agenda dictates that ‘Iraq must be liberated’, he accepts Green opprobation for tearing up the Kyoto Protocol like any lover of vested interest would be seen to do, but why did he allow the sacking of antiquities when he had been warned by archaelogists beforehand? If he is against the care and concern for a shared history that is irreplaceable and invaluable then he is not fit to hold his position. Not that that’s any surprise.
UK/Bedfordshire.
I think Bush is much under-rated. He seems to be a straight-talker which confuses people who expect politicians to double-talk. His verbal mistakes don’t help.
Like Reagan, he’s the right man at the right time. Just as Reagan had the guts to stand up to and so initiated the fall of the Soviet Empire, so Bush has had the guts to and so initiated the fall of radical Muslim culture.
Now, when America speaks, the world will listen. Just like the UK after the Falklands War.
Vote Bakunin, Bush hasn’t just acted tough, he’s followed through. He has shown that he and America are worthy of respect. And if the worst you can throw at him is that a museum got looted - by Iraqis, not Americans - then that speaks for itself.
American popping in - why does there seem to be an opinion that he is ‘short’? He seems tall to me. Unless this is just a baseless insult because there’s nothing better to use…
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UK. Think the man’s a dangerous nitwit.