# Was George W Bush That Bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 12, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740 "2010-02-12T18:02:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/241 "2010-02-18T03:26:21Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Hillary Clinton and a whole lot of other Democrats voted for the Iraq War in the beginning. And what makes you think that they do not deserve criticism also? However, AFAIK most of the information allowed to be seen by congress by the White House was tainted before hand by the efforts of Cheney & company. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/242 "2010-02-18T03:28:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You realize, I hope, that if the Roe v. Wade decision ever is reversed, it will be the worst electoral disaster for the GOP since, well, since George W. Bush. Depends on how the Republicans are doing on other other issues. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Do you remember an episode of Jimmy Newton (From Nickelodeon) where he saves the city from an alien invasion? He was going to get a trophy by the Mayor when the bad girl points out that it was Jimmy with his invention that caused the invasion in the first place. The mayor breaks the trophy, and gives the top part to the girl and the butt part to Jimmy. > > Now, regarding Bush, he does not even deserve the butt trophy even. He still did not finish cleaning up the mess he started, hundreds of thousands are dead, and on top of that he funded all the war on credit. -And it would have been a total disaster had Bush decided to withdraw from Iraq. > [@](#): > > So he failed, that is an example of not a disaster? The Great Society did not work out as planned either-is that a disaster? > [@](#): > > After telling us for years everything was ok. Yet at the same time the Iraq war was going, the warnings were already there regarding the weapons of mass financial destruction. > > [BBC NEWS | Business | Buffett warns on investment 'time bomb'](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2817995.stm) > Talk was cheap, that effort was pathetic and insufficient, just putting a tenth of the effort to get us into war in Iraq would had made a difference. And are the Democrats (who opposed it) any better? > [@](#): > > And this is also an example of success? Repealing Roe V Wade now is just a return to the state laws that abuse the rights of women and even doctors, and nowadays IIRC there are laws in the state books ready to go into action if Roe V Wade is repealed. And those laws are usually so draconian that are not used now because Roe V Wade overrules them, for the time being. It will prevent the murder of fetuses-but if we get too into this it’ll end up being an abortion debate. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Iraq is on its way to becoming an Iranian puppet **now.**](http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/530944/odierno_chalabi_lami_tied_to_iran) There are no Iranian troops stationed in Iraq nor can Iran gain too much influence as long as the US keeps a watchful eye. > [@](#): > > 😕 > > :dubious: > > **SO FUCKING WHAT?!!** Complete crisis of confidence-neo-isolationism may become dominant in foreign policy. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/243 "2010-02-18T03:33:21Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Hillary Clinton and a whole lot of other Democrats voted for the Iraq War in the beginning. Sure, their sin was to attempt to engage in bipartisanship with a liar. They gave Bush the benefit of the doubt, and he came up nine yards two feet and 11 inches short. Those democrats _should_ have shown better judgement, but they’re not the one’s who put Americans in harm’s way for bullshit. Bush did that. With 4376 Americans dead as a direct result of his folly, it’s hardly to Bush’s credit that he implemented some policy within that same folly that wasn’t an utter disaster. To be a decent president, he’d have had to keep the nation’s collective dick out of the sausage grinder in the first place, not just teflon coat the tines. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/244 "2010-02-18T03:34:30Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > -And it would have been a total disaster had Bush decided to withdraw from Iraq. As Spain and other nations demonstrated, Iraq was not supposed to be the target, Afghanistan was. Once again, it is really silly to congratulate the re-builder of a home (Half finished) if he was also the one that bombed that home under false pretenses. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/245 "2010-02-18T03:37:46Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Depends on how the Republicans are doing on other other issues. I really doubt that. Women ARE half the population, you know. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > -And it would have been a total disaster had Bush decided to withdraw from Iraq. Iraq IS a total disaster, and was doomed from the start. The moment we attacked, disaster was the only possibility. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > The Great Society did not work out as planned either-is that a disaster? No, because it left society far better off than before. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > There are no Iranian troops stationed in Iraq nor can Iran gain too much influence as long as the US keeps a watchful eye. They have plenty of influence, and don’t need to have troops there. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Complete crisis of confidence-neo-isolationism may become dominant in foreign policy. Which would be better than the self immolating, mass murdering disaster of Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/246 "2010-02-18T03:51:06Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > And are the Democrats (who opposed it) any better? Aha, so now that is clear that you are referring to the democrats opposing those efforts, then one can say that you are really an ignorant, that was not the main reason for the collapse. [http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44419](http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44419) > [@](#): > > Ellen Seidman, director of the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision under President George H.W. Bush (the current president’s father) and now an official at the New America Foundation, told IPS, “In the 30 years since its enactment, CRA has generated major changes in the manner in which banks and thrifts view and serve low- and moderate-income communities and consumers.” > > Federal housing data shows it was the unregulated private sector - not the government or government-backed companies - that was responsible for the explosion of subprime lending at the core of the crisis. According to the Federal Reserve Board, more than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private unregulated lending institutions and private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year. > > Nor does the timing correspond. Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height from 2004 to 2006. > > Conservative critics of the CRA also claim that the Bill Clinton administration pushed industry giants Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to purchase risky sub-prime mortgage loans made to people with known poor credit histories. > > These entities have operated since 1968 as government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). This means that, although the two companies are privately owned and operated by shareholders, they were assumed to be protected financially by the support of the federal government - and now, both have been taken over by the government. > > Fannie Mae was created in 1938 as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The collapse of the national housing market in the wake of the Great Depression discouraged private lenders from investing in home loans. Fannie Mae was established in order to provide local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages in an attempt to raise levels of home ownership and the availability of affordable housing. > > But Fannie and Freddie aren’t lenders, to minorities or anyone else. They purchase loans from private lenders who actually underwrite the loans. In an effort to promote affordable home ownership for minorities and rural whites, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families. > > But these loans, and those to low- and moderate-income families, represent a small proportion of overall lending. Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding 48 percent of the subprime loans to holding about 24 percent. Among the reasons is that Fannie and Freddie were supervised by far more robust standards than most of the unregulated players in the private sector. Most of these unregulated players have now gone bankrupt or are in serious legal trouble. > > During the same three-year period, these same unregulated private investment banks dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. According to McClatchy News Service, in 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitised almost two-thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/247 "2010-02-18T03:56:57Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Complete crisis of confidence-neo-isolationism may become dominant in foreign policy. 😕 :dubious: **SO FUCKING WHAT?!!** ---
**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:** [February 18, 2010, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/248 "2010-02-18T06:24:26Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > T > Why I Don’t Think George W. Bush was a total disaster: > > -He launched the Surge Strategy which stablized Iraq in defiance of Congress and popular opinion which proved correct. **He** launched the surge? The generals told Rummy before the invasion that they needed more troops to be effective, and Rummy told them no. And Bush did? Diddly. Iraq was a disaster for 4 years, with even Republican columnists saying Rummy should be fired. And Bush did? Nothing. He only finally fired Rummy after the Dems took over Congress. Bush could have and should have done the surge years earlier, but he was captive to the Cheney/Rummy cabal. So, wrongo. > [@](#): > > -He tried to launch an immigration reform plan that was defeated by his own party. He was on the right side here, for sure. But he couldn’t even get enough of his own party to support him to get this true, even with Democratic support. Just shows he was incompetent. > [@](#): > > -He created the Department of Homeland Security and strengthned the National Security structure. Strengthened? Not clear yet. DHS is a gigantic bureaucracy - its long term effectiveness is far from clear. > [@](#): > > -He took tremendous action to minimize the recession when it broke out such as bailing out the banks. Ha, ha, ha. Well, I suppose you haven’t had econ yet. The best I could say about him is that he shut up and let the people who knew what they were talking about handle things. Leadership? No way - remember how hard it was for the bailout to get through. Input? Nope. He did make one or two uninspiring speeches. Hell, the picture of Washington in the cabinet room probably had as much input as he did. > [@](#): > > -As mentioned above Republicans tried to lessen the liberal loan terms for buying houses which caused the meltdown. The Republicans had a majority. The Dems opposition was weak at best. No threats of filibusters or anything else. Bush used no political muscle to get this through. In any case, he could have leaned on Greenspan to regulate mortgages, which is the responsibility of the Fed. He didn’t. He was also for more home ownership, just like the Dems, which is not a sin. > [@](#): > > -Added two conservative justices to the Supreme Court replacing a conservative and a moderate paving the way to repeal Roe V. Wade So you agree he was a piece of scum. good. ---
**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:** [February 18, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/249 "2010-02-18T14:20:20Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Why I Don’t Think George W. Bush was a total disaster: > > -He launched the Surge Strategy which stablized Iraq in defiance of Congress and popular opinion which proved correct. > -He tried to launch an immigration reform plan that was defeated by his own party. > -He created the Department of Homeland Security and strengthned the National Security structure. > -He took tremendous action to minimize the recession when it broke out such as bailing out the banks. > -As mentioned above Republicans tried to lessen the liberal loan terms for buying houses which caused the meltdown. > -Added two conservative justices to the Supreme Court replacing a conservative and a moderate paving the way to repeal Roe V. Wade 1. The Surge Strategy, while a success in itself, would not have been necessary had the Iraq invasion been done properly - or better yet, not at all. If somebody runs you over, you don’t thank them for hitting your legs instead of vital organs. 2. Nobody gets credit for trying to do things, and the failed Bush immigration reforms were based on prior reforms enacted by Democrats anyway. 3. The Department of Homeland Security is simply a rebranding of existing bureaus within other departments. The DHS’ one “accomplishment” is the terrorism threat level system, which is about as meaningful in the grand scheme of government action as House Resolutions honoring deceased football players. 4. He took one action to minimize the recession: he bailed out the banks. I will give him all credit for this, since it was a necessary move to avoid complete financial meltdown. He took many that caused the recession, such as failing to veto the repeal of Glass-Steagal. The post-Enron reforms which helped minimize the fallout of the latest recession (Sarbanes-Oxley, for example) also had little or nothing to do with him. 5. See above. 6. Neither of Bush’s justices appear likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. John Roberts, for example, has indicated that he believes Roe is settled law. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/250 "2010-02-18T14:33:12Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > 1. He took one action to minimize the recession: he bailed out the banks. I will give him all credit for this, since it was a necessary move to avoid complete financial meltdown. He took many that caused the recession, such as failing to veto the repeal of Glass-Steagal. The post-Enron reforms which helped minimize the fallout of the latest recession (Sarbanes-Oxley, for example) also had little or nothing to do with him. W also passed a small stimulus. It was the early tax rebate thing, the one that was so small and insignificant that it’s easy to forget. And the provisions of Glass-Steagall that prohibited a bank holding company from owning different sorts of financial entities was repealed in 1999, under President Clinton. It passed the Senate 90-8. I said this before in the thread, but it’s worth repeating: **W is not directly responsible for the financial meltdown.** He is only responsible to the extent that he did not call for stronger regulation of the shadow banking system, and this particular piece of blame can be apportioned to many, many other people, including the US Congress and, most notably, Alan Greenspan, former chair of the Federal Reserve. W’s responsibility is not the meltdown itself, but the deficits he built up that have hindered our ability to respond as actively to the meltdown as we should have. And frankly, that is more than enough blame. He was, quite possibly, the most fiscally irresponsible president of all time. This was a recurring pattern for him. Though he possibly did not have any perfect 10 fuck-ups, he more consistently pegged 7s or 8s than anybody else, year after miserable year, thus putting him well in the running for the worst we’ve ever had. ---
**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:** [February 18, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/251 "2010-02-18T14:43:23Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > W also passed a small stimulus. It was the early tax rebate thing, the one that was so small and insignificant that it’s easy to forget. And the provisions of Glass-Steagall that prohibited a bank holding company from owning different sorts of financial entities was repealed in 1999, under President Clinton. It passed the Senate 90-8. You’re quite right. I was mistaken on the timeline on Glass-Steagal. The _original_ Bush stimulus doesn’t really count as anything, in my book. It was a thinly-disguised tax break for the top 90% of earners, which was fine with me, since I needed 300 bucks at the time, but seemed like a pointless gesture. In any case, if I recall correctly it was just an advancement on the following year’s tax refund, so all it really did was cost the Treasury a lot of interest. ---
**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:** [February 18, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/252 "2010-02-18T14:43:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Neither of Bush’s justices appear likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. John Roberts, for example, has indicated that he believes Roe is settled law. The last thing conservatives want is to have Roe v Wade overturned. Right now they’re in the perfect position - they can promise anything they want about abortions because they know their promises are meaningless. So they can tell the pro-life people what they want to hear without risking being held to it. Roe v Wade protects them from having to actually do anything. But what if Roe v Wade were overturned and it was genuinely possible to prohibit abortions? The pro-life people would no longer settle for talk - they’d want results. And what would happen if the conservatives tried to give them results? Here’s a hint - Nancy Reagan has said she’s pro-choice. So if the conservatives try to actually ban abortions they’ll lose every female voter to the left of Nancy Reagan. One election later and the Democrats hold a 300 seat majority in Congress. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/253 "2010-02-18T18:47:27Z")
If you don’t mind murderers and liars, then no, I suppose he wasn’t “that bad.” If, on the other hand, you do… ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/254 "2010-02-18T19:27:17Z")
[This](http://www.theonion.com/content/video/bush_tours_america_to_survey) may put things in perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/255 "2010-02-18T19:38:04Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > As a homeowner (though not one who has been in trouble… yet) I would have liked to see that happen too, but the problem is that it’s (a) unfair to people who didn’t buy more house than they could afford, and (b) effectively an attempt to prop up the roof of the bubble. Ah, I phrase it quite tightly so that only those who were currently okay with repaying their mortgages were affected; if you were in arrears anyway, it wouldn’t have helped. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Let’s say we had followed what the Democrats had advocated and withdrawn from Iraq. Iraq would have collapsed and it’s Shia areas become Iranian puppets while it’s Sunni areas become dominated by Al-Qaeda. Plus America is utterly traumatized (like Vietnam). On what do you base that? What if we’d pulled out almost immediately? And would the disintegration of Iraq have been a bad thing? The north would have split off into an independent Kurdistan, for instance. Read up on your history of Iraq, and compare it with Yugoslavia. ---
**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:** [February 18, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/256 "2010-02-18T19:40:36Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Ah, I phrase it quite tightly so that only those who were currently okay with repaying their mortgages were affected; if you were in arrears anyway, it wouldn’t have helped. Wait, what? Why would people who didn’t need help paying their mortgages need help paying their mortgages? The point would be to help people who couldn’t pay their mortgages to avoid a rush of foreclosures and the resulting glut of homes - which depressed prices, forcing people to stay in homes they didn’t want and sharply cutting into local tax revenues. > [@](#): > > Let’s say we had followed what the Democrats had advocated and withdrawn from Iraq. Iraq would have collapsed and it’s Shia areas become Iranian puppets while it’s Sunni areas become dominated by Al-Qaeda. Plus America is utterly traumatized (like Vietnam). How would an organization with perhaps 200 surviving members dominate half a country? They’re not the Illuminati. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/257 "2010-02-18T20:37:44Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > How would an organization with perhaps 200 surviving members dominate half a country? They’re not the Illuminati. Actually . . . Well . . . Erm . . . No. They’re not the Illuminati. They have **nothing whatsoever to do** with the Illuminati. That is all. You will now emerge from trance state. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/258 "2010-02-18T21:43:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Actually . . . Well . . . Erm . . . No. They’re not the Illuminati. They have **nothing whatsoever to do** with the Illuminati. That is all. You will now emerge from trance state. Where was I? The Illuminati are the 200± wealthiest assholes on earth. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/259 "2010-02-18T23:35:50Z")
Apparently in Curtisland, Iraq is a rousing success. We put up concrete barriers ghettoizing Baghdad. The area is split up with no one knowing what kinds of ugly will follow. The sad fact is ,is that Iraq was no threat to the US. We attacked a country that did not attack us. That was a principle we always bragged about. Now Busk/Cheney come up with pre-emptive war. How much farther from longterm American values can you get? We spent incredible amounts of money destroying an acient and beautiful country that was not our enemy. We killed lots of Iraqi men women and children and thousands of Americans. We spent over a trillion dollars, none of it paid for. It is a big part of our deficit. Yet you find it a rousing success and a moral victory. Such a young kid to be so full of fear and hate. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/260 "2010-02-18T23:54:22Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > On what do you base that? What if we’d pulled out almost immediately? And would the disintegration of Iraq have been a bad thing? The north would have split off into an independent Kurdistan, for instance. Read up on your history of Iraq, and compare it with Yugoslavia. Well Turkey, at least, would hate the idea of an independent Kurdistan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740.md?page=14)