I could NOT come up with a witty thread title for this. I’m sorry folks, that one is BORING AS HELL.
Anyhoo, I’m sure I’ll suffer all sorts of flaming slings and arrows for this one, but I have to say, with head shaking;
Boy do I feel bad for George Bush. I don’t like him particularly (nor do I feel he’s the antichrist), I didn’t vote for him, but the fact is he IS the president, and in the first couple of months in office he’s had to deal with some NUTTY SHIT.
Sure, if you want, you can probably loosely thread and link everything together and eventually wind them back to Republicans or Bush Sr or whatever, but in the end he’s had to deal with THREE ridiculous, incompetent military accidents involving foreign nations, crazy Middle East-ness and the madness of market fluctuations all while just trying to settle in and get a few people to see that he’s worth something.
I’m not saying “let’s give Bush a break”, but you’ve GOT to admit, regardless of the stupid abortion move he made on day one, this has been a shitty way to start the term.
I was just thinking the same thing. As much as I want to say “Look at all the stuff Bush has screwed up so far!” none of it’s his fault! If you want to find something to fault him for, there’s always his “California’s power crisis is their problem” remark. Ok, then. Guess next year’s shortage and/or skyrocketing prices of computers, movies, wine, etc. won’t be your problem either. :rolleyes:
I don’t feel sorry at all for Dubya. But putting those feelings aside…
I think the market fluctuations are partially his own fault – he was pessimistic on the economy since Day 1, which only helps to make investors more nervous. It certainly doesn’t help any that Greenspan originally disagreed with Bush’s tax cut proposal; Wall Street respects Greenspan’s intellect a lot more than they respect Dubya’s, after all.
The Middle East flareups are bad luck, but Bush’s relative silence towards the whole thing can’t be helping.
As for the military screwups … yeah, they’re accidents, but Bush could’ve handled them a lot better. How long did it take before we apologized for the submarine incident, for instance? Two weeks? As for the downed spy plane, I still think it was a major screw-up from Dubya; yeah, we want to get our troops back ASAP, but playing “macho cowboy” and making threats towards an already-P.O.'d China was not the way to do it.
Call it a combination of bad luck and incompetent handling, if you will. Overall grade so far: C-
Remember the flogging his dad got from Carville and the boys when he kept the ole sunshine flowing, as the media reported the downturn in the economy? “It’s the economy, stupid.” Remember that? Quite apart from being disrespectful, it was inaccurate. Note that I said “…as the media reported…”. In fact, there was no recession. This is public record, and it’s now clear that the SLOWING of the economy is not the same as a RETRACTION.
Or maybe you’ve forgotten how Clinton et al bashed the hell out of the economy both before he got in office, then after. Was there ever any suggestion that HE brought down the economy? NO. Because it just don’t happen like that.
As for Greenspan’s opinions and intellect, most people on the Street DO NOT have the respect for his policies that you seem to think. Check out the market talk shows, and see how many AG fans there are.
Now then, as far as the back-handed slap at Dubya’s intellect goes…He’s bilingual, a successful governor and politician, a sucessful businessman, and a graduate of Yale Law. How Gore got to be seen as “the smart one” is a tale of media bias.
Another terrible idea. This is what every cop hates, a domestic squabble, and we’re the big, dumb Mick flatfoot of the world. Do you think we could help more by getting in the middle of it? If so, why didn’t the ultra-engaged policy wonks of the Clinton administration do a bang-up job of cementing that darn ole elusive peace?
What do you think is a good interval? Immediately, before anybody knows what really happened? Or should he prudently wait until the investigators get the truth? And it was NOT two weeks.
It is not a spy plane. And China is not “PO’d”, they’re posturing, trying to get the most mileage out of this as they can.
“Playing macho cowboy and making threats” is not what I’m seeing as the policy. Three US destroyers were in the area, but instead of going on station RIGHT THERE, they were ordered on their way. What do you as see as the sabre-rattling? What threat? What do you believe to be the provocative action by the US?
So, what do you think IS the right policy? You stated, with no proof whatever, that being forceful is NOT how to do it. So, what is? Let’s hear the solution, Kissinger.
Dubya’s doing fine. He sure as hell isn’t stepping on his crank like the last guy in HIS first 100 days.
This is expanding beyond a simple swap of opinions about events. Looks to me like it’s morphing into a full-fledged political debate so off to Great Debates it goes.
I agree with Bluesman about the economy. Absoultely no one cares what Greenspan or Bush thinks. They only care what Greenspan does. Wall street looks to companies and decisions that deal with wallstreet. They don’t look to Bush because he was elected to tell them what to do.
Just wanted to point out that this was not aimed at Bush but at themselves as an inspirational message to keep them on message. I am almost certain it paraphrased something but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. I don’t see it as disrespectful.
As for he topic, I have no sympathy, Bush ran for an office that he was woefully unprepared to handle. He has had a few minor problems to deal with as have pretty much all presidents.
My post though, wasn’t about whether he was handling things well. I’m saying that any president, even “THE BEST PRESIDENT…EVER” doesn’t walk into the white house, unpack his underpants and then get a call,
“By the way, we just killed a fishing boat filled with Japanese people, can you come down here?”
“Oh, and we bombed ourselves by accident,”
“OH…and the stockmarket fell 6,000,000 points,”
I can’t say what I would do in these situations, but man, I’d like a week or two to figure out how the phones work before I had to deal with them.
Well he ain’t facing the worst of it. IIRC one A. Lincoln was elected President of 33 states (+ free Kanasas) and was inaugurated as President of 27.
Any comments on which other (new) Presidents have had a magor domestic or international incident(s) blow up in the first couple of months of their term?
Has everyone forgotten the Bay of pigs, the rapid expansion of american involvement in Vietnam,the energy crisis, the Iran hostage crisis ?
Every presidency has it’s early challenges.
With regard to external, uncontrollable events, Bush has had a fairly gentle baptism. As for all the troubles he’s brought on himself…
Bluesman: *Now then, as far as the back-handed slap at Dubya’s intellect goes…He’s bilingual, a successful governor and politician, a sucessful businessman, and a graduate of Yale Law. *
Oooh my. While I don’t believe in blaming Bush for every single bad thing that’s happened since January (though I do feel he’s done a number of things to be blamed for) and I have no patience with portraying him as a drooling loon the way many satirists on the left seem to do, I think that this statement paints decidedly too rosy a picture of his real abilities and accomplishments. Point by point:
Bilingual? Barely. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose in their biographyShrub: the Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (which is admittedly not pro-Bush and often played for laughs, but is also very thoroughly documented) discuss Bush’s so-called mastery of Spanish. Pointing to the much-hyped press conference in Spanish that Bush held during his campaign, they note that the questions and answers were “so Spanish II it was pitiful”; in other words, Bush’s Spanish (at least as he has demonstrated it in public) is about up to the level of simple conversational sentences, but very far from fluency. Now I’m certainly not knocking that, as far as it goes—it’s more Spanish than I can speak, but let’s face it, it ain’t exactly Fulbright Scholar material.
Successful governor? Well, he did succeed at getting elected governor of Texas twice. Considering whose son he is, I don’t think that we can conclude that this says a whole lot about his abilities as an individual, any more than Joseph Kennedy Jr.'s election to Congress here in Rhode Island should count as a pure tribute to his personal qualities. As for his performance as governor, according to Ivins and Dubose,
Successful politician? To some extent. Ivins and Dubose speak favorably of his political skills, and he is well known for being personally persuasive and able to get along with people. However, as was noted often during the campaign, his people skills are not backed up by much deep knowledge of the issues. And it is highly debatable whether he even succeeded at getting elected President.
Successful businessman? This is the real howler. As has often been pointed out, Bush’s oil exploration efforts were mostly failures, more than once bailed out of overwhelming debt by rich family friends and political connections. Some of the same supporters brought him into the Texas Rangers deal, which massively increased the team’s value mostly by building a new stadium with taxpayers’ money on land cheaply acquired via government intervention. Trading on political influence and taking advantage of the taxpayers: that appears to be how Dubya succeeded in business. You can read the “Public i” story here.
Graduate of Yale Law? Nope. BA Yale University 1968 (and remember, he was a “legacy” student AKA “alumni brat”, most of whom get admitted to their elite colleges more easily than peons like you or me), and MBA Harvard Business School 1975. How easy or difficult it was to enter or graduate from HBS in the mid-seventies I cannot say, but certainly many other rich and powerful people have been able to earn prestigious MBA’s without being unusually intelligent or well-educated.
Well, um, I don’t want to give anyone the willies, but the Presidencies of Van Buren, Buchannan, Grant, Cleveland and Hoover were all faced, within the year they took office, with the depressions of 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, and 1929, respectively. Only Grant was entering his second consecutive term when the depression hit; Cleveland was entering a second non-consecutive term. I’ll let the economists argue whether or not that list represents every depression the United States has endured since 1837.
[/hijack response]
Random bad luck aside, Bush came in under perhaps the the darkest cloud since Rutherford Hayes. While I don’t know squat about the economy, I think it would be unwise to dismiss those circumstances and the pre-inaugural bandying about of the “R-word.”
Bush also managed to anger the international community on at least two occasions. I think it was unwise for Bush to antagonize signatory nations by publicly dumping Kyoto instead of quietly sitting on it as his predecessor did. And his Day One attack on abortion has the potential to have lasting, detrimental consequences worldwide, according to that liberal screed Scientific American. Since the latter was an essential (fifth) column propping up his campaign strategy, I don’t know how much he could have done to avoid fallout from that.
Every new President faces problems, both internally and externally, and all make some mistakes. I’ll grant that Bush has had a particularly rough time of it, but I think that part of it is his own doing.
Kimstu – You are correct about Bush’s degree. Other than that…
Molly Ivans has written some very funny stuff, but, she doesn’t let facts stand in the way of humor. She simply isn’t a reliable source. W is described as bi-lingual. He held Spanish press conferences. You can’t independently evaluate his proficiency (nor can I). Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Successful politician? To some extent.” – Hello! Ann Richards is a very savvy politician. Beating an incumbant of that stature was an achievement. Being re-elected with 69% of the vote in such a large state goes beyond “some extent.” What would you consider full success? 100% of the vote? Being elected President against an incumbant VP during a time of peace and prosperity was no mean feat. Here’s man who sailed into the Presidency without ever losing an election.
Successful businessman. It is true that he had many advantages. It’s also true that he made millions of dollars as managing partner of the Texas Rangers. Many advantaged people have gone into business and failed.
You correctly credit Bush with educational improvements in Texas, which have been independently validated. For the record, he must share the credit with many others, incuding Ross Perot, who began working on Texas educational reform before W was in office.
Yale – I agree that he never would have gotten in without his background. However, he also got OUT – and in four years. I have read that only around 50% of college students today graduate within 4 years. Yale is one of the most demanding colleges in the country.
You wrote: “How easy or difficult it was to enter or graduate from HBS in the mid-seventies I cannot say,” Well, I can. HBS is generally considered to be the top B school in the country (although Stanford, Chicago, and Wharton might dispute that.)
You claimed, “…certainly many other rich and powerful people have been able to earn prestigious MBA’s without being unusually intelligent or well-educated.” Really? Please list 5 or 10 Harvard MBA’s who aren’t intelligent and well-educated? Can you identify any at all?
You wrote, “It’s not just that he has no ideas about what to do with government-if you think his daddy had trouble with ‘the vision thing,’ wait till you meet this one.” Kimstu, please check you e-mail for updated Democratic Talking Points. The smear of the week is that W does have definite ideas, but they favor conservative principles and business interests.
Bush wouldn’t mind your post. He appreciates being under-estimated by his political opponents. Suggest you practice saying the words, “President Bush…President Bush…President Bush…,” until it feels comfortable. Then you’ll be set for the next 8 years.
Well, whatever he is, this is how one person across the pond perceives him:
In his own inimitable words, let no one “misunderestimate” George W Bush. He is the most rightwing president in living memory. If this is compassionate conservatism, what does the other sort look like? In less than 100 days he has turned America into a pariah, made enemies of the entire world, his only friends the dirty polluters of the oil industry who put him there. His foreign non-policy is a calamity, brilliantly uniting Russia and China with gratuitous offence and threat.
The Republican leader of the senate environment committee’s last-minute cancellation of an urgent global warming meeting with the EU environment commissioner on Monday was like a cold war tactical snub from the Khrushchev era. Europe gets the message, so did an outraged Japan. The rest of the world draws instinctively together in its repudiation of the Bush Jnr White House. Through this strange global vandalism, the leader of the free world has become the rogue. Ungracious in victory, absolute power corrupting absolutely, the only super-power is morphing into an evil empire of its own.
…
It was at a press conference an insulting half an hour before meeting German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder that Bush spoke his heart on the Kyoto climate change treaty. Those words will become a classic clip, pursuing him through eternity. It was the way he thumped the podium and smirked as he said it, (even this was inarticulate): “We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America.” There we have it. Screw the world, Americans always come first.
december replied to me: *1. Molly Ivans [sic] has written some very funny stuff, but, she doesn’t let facts stand in the way of humor. She simply isn’t a reliable source. *
Evidence? I know that Ivins and Dubose play a lot of their stuff for laughs, including humorous sweeping generalizations, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be trusted when it comes to specific facts and figures. If you have evidence to the contrary, I’d like to see it.
*W is described as bi-lingual. He held Spanish press conferences. You can’t independently evaluate his proficiency (nor can I). Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. *
Why? He’s claimed by some (especially in his campaign literature) to be bilingual. The claim is described as exaggerated by others who’ve heard him speak Spanish. There’s no need to write off either side just because we don’t know enough at present to settle the issue conclusively.
2. “Successful politician? To some extent.” – Hello! Ann Richards is a very savvy politician. Beating an incumbant of that stature was an achievement.
To some extent. Remember, that was during the “Republican revolution” in '94 when a lot of Democrats lost office. Also, you can’t overlook the huge advantage Bush had in Texas from being the son of a favorite-son ex-President.
Being re-elected with 69% of the vote in such a large state goes beyond “some extent.” What would you consider full success? 100% of the vote?
Again, it’s not that he didn’t succeed in getting elected, it’s that his election doesn’t really count as a pure tribute to his individual qualities rather than to his “heir-apparent” status.
Being elected President against an incumbant VP during a time of peace and prosperity was no mean feat.
And, of course, it’s a feat that many people argue that Bush didn’t actually achieve.
*Here’s man who sailed into the Presidency without ever losing an election. *
Wrong, actually. Bush lost his 1978 race for the Congressional seat in Texas’ 19th District to Democrat Kent Hance.
*3. Successful businessman. It is true that he had many advantages. It’s also true that he made millions of dollars as managing partner of the Texas Rangers. Many advantaged people have gone into business and failed. *
Including Bush. His oil ventures from 1975 to 1988 were largely expensive failures, more than once bailed out, as I said, by wealthy friends and political connections. And he made millions off the Texas Rangers mostly by sticking the taxpayers with the bills. In my book, it takes more than that to make a truly “successful businessman”.
4. You correctly credit Bush with educational improvements in Texas […]
You’re mixing up my remarks with those from the Ivins/Dubose excerpt I quoted. I didn’t say anything about Bush and education in my post.
*5. Yale – I agree that he never would have gotten in without his background. However, he also got OUT – and in four years. I have read that only around 50% of college students today graduate within 4 years. Yale is one of the most demanding colleges in the country. *
If fifty percent of college students graduate within four years, it’s not all that unusual an achievement, is it? And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that many students take more time because they have to combine getting an education with earning a living. Among privileged students like Bush with no financial worries, the four-year graduation rate is even higher. As for Yale’s selectivity, you rather undercut your argument by conceding that Bush “never would have gotten in without his background.” In other words, Bush succeeded in getting accepted to one of the most demanding colleges in the country—just not on his own academic merits. I’m still not particularly impressed.
*6. You wrote: “How easy or difficult it was to enter or graduate from HBS in the mid-seventies I cannot say,” Well, I can. HBS is generally considered to be the top B school in the country (although Stanford, Chicago, and Wharton might dispute that.) *
But that doesn’t tell us how easy or difficult it was to enter or graduate from HBS in the mid-seventies, any more than noting that Yale is one of the top undergraduate colleges tells us how easy or difficult it was for a rich and well-connected student to enter or graduate from it in the sixties.
*You claimed, “…certainly many other rich and powerful people have been able to earn prestigious MBA’s without being unusually intelligent or well-educated.” Really? Please list 5 or 10 Harvard MBA’s who aren’t intelligent and well-educated? Can you identify any at all? *
What I said was that some holders of prestigious MBA’s aren’t unusually intelligent or well-educated. Prestigious MBA programs are like prestigious undergraduate colleges: many people are admitted to them on the strength of outstanding abilities or achievements, while some less impressive applicants get in because of wealth and influence.
7. You wrote, “It’s not just that he has no ideas about what to do with government-if you think his daddy had trouble with ‘the vision thing,’ wait till you meet this one.”
Again, you have mistakenly identified a sentence from the Ivins/Dubose quote as being something I said.
Bush wouldn’t mind your post. He appreciates being under-estimated by his political opponents.
Any politician appreciates being under-estimated by his opponents: it doesn’t take a lot of brains to see the advantage in it. But I don’t think my remarks underestimate Bush. Although, as I said in my first post, I have little respect for attempts to make the man out to be genuinely stupid or dull-witted, I think his record shows that he’s fairly undistinguished intellectually (at least by the standards of the best of the SDMB) and his personal achievements are pretty mediocre for someone with his socioeconomic advantages. His political success is the result not so much of his own individual abilities as of his family connections. Attempts to “defend” him from such reasonable and unmalicious criticisms as these are IMHO not very convincing.
I described Bush’s successes in a number of areas: bilingual, graduated a top college, graduated top B school, made millions in business, elected Governor with huge vote, elected President. You minimized each of these achievements, mostly by alleging that his fortunate family background deserved the credit.
Two questions for you:
Given W’s fortunate background, are there any achievements that could lead you to think well of him? Nobel Prize? Richest man on earth?
I’ve provided 6 reasons for believing in W’s competence. What are your reasons for doubting it?
Well you may not be qualified to judge his spanish, but I am. I grew up in El Paso, TX. In my hometown, nearly everyone upper middle class or better had a Mexican maid and enough Spanish to tell her what to do. Dubya’s spanish is in that category, just barely good enough to talk to the help. Also is his accent is awful. The man has no ear for the language. (Actually his accent is pretty typical of Texan’s-who-know-a-bit-of-spanish)
As for giving speaches, This is absolutely meaningless. Spanish is an extremely regular language phonetically. It would be quite possible for someone with a good ear and a few hours of pronunciation lessons to ‘read’ spanish from a teleprompter even if he didn’t understand a single word.
Anyone who grew up in wealthy in Texas and didn’t end up with passing familiarity with spanish would be very unusual. The help speak spanish, or they cost a LOT more. It’s as simple as that.
On the other hand, to qualify as Bilingual (at least in El Paso), you would have to be fluent in both English and Spanish. Since just about everyone has a least a little of both, only people who are very good in both are considered Bilingual.
If, when Bush went to visit with Vincinte Fox, the conversed in Spanish. Then you could call him bilingual.
From what we’ve seen so far, he isn’t. And I think that’s telling. Because if he TRUELY was bilingual, he would have been using the language rather than just staging a couple of media events.
Her book is well researched and factual. Unless you care to demonstrate its mistakes, then it is presumptively a more reliable a source than you are.
The general belief among teachers that I know in Texas is that his educational policies are mostly harmful to schools and education. (My mother and the mother of my best friend in high school are both teachers in the El Paso school system). In this area, a few things in Texas education changed for the better under his watch, many more things changed for the worse. ‘High stakes’ testing was (and remains) one of his worst mistakes. It sounds good on paper, but suffers badly from the law of unintended consequences. This policy ultimiately does far more harm than good.
Also, if ‘validation’ that you speak is the supposed improvement in assessment test scores. This has been discredited. Texas school children only did better on Texas assessment tests, they didn’t improve on national tests at all in most areas of the state.
The one great Gift that Dubya has is getting elected. The negative campaign that he ran against Ann Richards was a thing of beauty. I personally think that if she was a man, he would have lost anyway. A female Gov just never set well with the people in El Paso, even though she was recognised as very good at her job.
As for getting re-elected. Who was running against him? If he got the Republican nomination, then he was in. There is no way a democrat could win Texas at this time. All he needed was a heartbeat and the Republican nomination to win re-election. The nomination was guranteed by the fact that his ideology is in the right place and he had no major fuck-ups while in office. And since the Governer of Texas is a pretty weak office, a fuck-up big enough to do the job would be pretty hard to manage.
Frankly, given the facts on the ground in Texas, his re-election is far less impressive than his first term election.
It is now, but back in the day of guranteed access for Legacy children, it wasn’t. Think about it, they couldn’t very well accept Legacies and then flunk them out could they?
He did. many times.
The fact’s do not support your beliefs.
Bush’s success as a businessman (and his many bail-outs from failures) are entirely based on connections. It has nothing at all to do with his ability to manage a business. In fact, the only business he’s ever been attached to that was successful was the Rangers, and he didn’t ‘manage’ them in any meaningful sense. His job was to know people and schmooze. He was, in effect, the teams politician.
You should actually follow and read the links that Kimstu supplied. The Rangers (and his stake in them) increased in value (thereby handing him a fortune) because the state build them a ball field using land taken from citizens (right of emminant domain). The land taken was about 10 times what was actually needed. The excess was given to a PRIVATE company to build hotels etc.
This is the source of Bush’s fortune: A legal, but morally corrupt transfer of real-estate from citizens to he and his partners, and subseqent sale of said real-estate (and improvements) for about 20 times what was paid for it.
Face it, the man and his partners are the moral equivalent of a thieves. The just used technically legal methods.
Was he successful at his theft? YES.
So I guess you could call him a successful businessman, if you like.
I’m inclined to believe that he actually didn’t have that much to do with the shady dealing that handed him his fortune. My guess is that he just went along for the ride, but either way it says very little good about the man.
The facts of his time with the Rangers show that he is at best, lucky and clueless. At worst, an underhanded back-room deal maker who was involved in a legal theft and resale of someone elses property.
Too true, It is best to remember that however inept Bush is at so many things, he EXCELLS at working the old-boy network to his own advantage.
Governer Bush, Governer Bush, Governer Bush
after all, it is the last office to which he was properly elected…
