# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/81 "2010-02-12T22:34:56Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > But he gave through most of his term economic prosperity . . . :dubious: You want fries with that? ---
**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 12, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/82 "2010-02-12T22:46:27Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Not only did Nixon have “some noteable successes” - in many ways, he was the anti-Bush. Yes, he was an evil bastard - but he was an evil bastard who _built_ many of the institutions that Bush spent his administration tearing down. The EPA was Nixon’s baby, as was much of the modern administrative state. Moreover, Nixon’s policy of detente with the Soviet Union probably made us genuinely, legitimately _more safe_ - he reduced the risk of nuclear war. Bush has no such achievements to his credit. I’ve heard a number of leftish people I know comment that after Bush, they appreciate Nixon a lot more. > [@The\_Tooth](#): > > People won’t be as angry over his being a scumbag, sure. But I don’t think they’ll see him as less than a scumbag. Not as long as there are video archives. And probably Iraqi terrorists seeking revenge and a hostile Iraqi government, and who knows what other continuing fallout from Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/83 "2010-02-12T22:55:29Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Saying that someone was the absolute worst President in the Republic’s history is an extraordinary claim. Not really. One of them has to be, right? What’s so extraordinary about it? > [@](#): > > In order to establish that it is true, we must:[…] > > In short: We take pains to admit that Bush is _not_ the very worst President that the Union has ever had because saying otherwise would make us look like liars or fools. However, we can still say - and do! - that Bush was a very, very bad President. And that statement has greater credibility, because we haven’t first tried to convince our listeners of absurdities. Wow. What I think is foolish is the idea that you could describe a protocol by which you could demonstrate that an opinion is “true.” Saying someone is the worst president is expressing an opinion, right? Why is it necessarily foolish? ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/84 "2010-02-12T23:09:45Z")
To some extend, this argument suffers from “Citizen Kane” syndrome. Citizen Kane was considered the best film for long enough that standards of filmmakng have changed substantially. So it’s position at the top is now unassailable; no film can be plausibly compared, so no film can ever beat it. In the same way, Buchanan has been at the bottom for so long and the standards of the presidency have changed so much that–no matter how bad GWB was, he can’t really beat Buchanan. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/85 "2010-02-12T23:10:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Amazingly, I actually find myself largely in agreement with **xtisme**. However, I’d make one further distinction: Not only is it difficult to fit such a recent president in the historical context, but I would say that even within a historical context, it’s not possible to compare presidents precisely enough across a span of centuries to definitively say which one was worst. A hundred years from now, it still won’t be resolvable whether Bush or Buchanan, say, was worse, because the circumstances under which they held office were so different. The only fair test would be to have them preside over the exact same circumstances in mirror universes. So I suppose you have a point. But we are shooting the bull here. Either get with the program or let the slightly drunken adults talk. If we were told that we would get a President from the past at the start of his Presidential career and it could be any past President, but we get to bump only one, my bump would be for Bush. I could cheerfully endure four or eight years of any other bozo who occupied the office if I knew I had kept W out. ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/86 "2010-02-12T23:34:01Z")
I would argue Bush was elected in 04 largely due to the turnout of anti-gay voters in various states. I would also argue he was connected with the people in charge of these amendments to ensure his victory. While this may appear hyperbolic now, his [proposal](http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/bushvgays.htm) for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage will be seen in 50 years in the way we now view Jim Crow era policies. History does not look kindly on basic civil rights violators, and for that alone, he will be disgraced. ---
**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 12, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/87 "2010-02-12T23:50:26Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Not only did Nixon have “some noteable successes” - in many ways, he was the anti-Bush. Yes, he was an evil bastard - but he was an evil bastard who _built_ many of the institutions that Bush spent his administration tearing down. The EPA was Nixon’s baby, as was much of the modern administrative state. Moreover, Nixon’s policy of detente with the Soviet Union probably made us genuinely, legitimately _more safe_ - he reduced the risk of nuclear war. Bush has no such achievements to his credit. You didn’t even mention perhaps his greatest accomplishment, opening China, which I think contributed greatly to improving the life of billions of people. I think Nixon was more paranoid than simply evil. Someone is going to do a great tragedy based on his life some day. The whole Watergate thing was not an attempt to get information to swing a close election, but was done when Nixon was going to win in a landslide anyway. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/88 "2010-02-12T23:51:46Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > The only fair test would be to have them preside over the exact same circumstances in mirror universes. So I suppose you have a point. But we are shooting the bull here. Either get with the program or let the slightly drunken adults talk. > > If we were told that we would get a President from the past at the start of his Presidential career and it could be any past President, but we get to bump only one, my bump would be for Bush. I could cheerfully endure four or eight years of any other bozo who occupied the office if I knew I had kept W out. Eisenhower knew what a problem corporate influence in policy would soon become. It would be very interesting to drop him in a meeting full of lobbyists who know no other way. Or maybe he’d be awful. All I know of his administration is roughly when it was in power and the speech he gave on leaving office. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/89 "2010-02-13T00:19:23Z")
I disagree with the Citizen Kane comparison. Each man can be judged by the standards of his own time. Just as many lists also name the Godfather movies as the bestk, so can we say that W did a shitty job just like Buchanon. Buchanon literally stood by while the country tore itself apart. W contributed poisonous vitriol to figuratively tear the country apart, but his vices aren’t at Buchanon’s level yet. If Palin becomes president and lets Texas sucede or some dumbass thing like that, then I will judge her worse than Buchanon. Lots of bad presidents have accomplished some things and have successes to their credit. Other than the AIDs thing, I cannot think of one for Bush. But his mistakes and incompetence are masked by the fact that we’re generally in a safer time than during the Cold War, during the 2 World Wars, and or when we were still a weak nation attacked by the British. For the circumstances W inheirited, it would have been almost impossible to screw up as much as some of the other bad presidents ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/90 "2010-02-13T00:21:25Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I think Nixon was more paranoid than simply evil. Someone is going to do a great tragedy based on his life some day. [Nothing says “tragedy” better than opera](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tv3hrZmcEk) note: I’ve not seen any of this. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/91 "2010-02-13T00:58:15Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > In the late 1970s inflation was out of control and interest rates of over 20% were the norm, a far cry from today. It happened on Carter’s watch. > > \ > > Note the repetitive theme there. Great stock is placed on that phrase around here. 9/11 happened on Bush’s watch, so it’s his fault. Fine. So, to be fair, stop trying to exonerate others for things that happened on their watch. This is an inaccurate picture and hideously unfair to Carter. The inflationary pressure was well under way by Nixon’s time in his spending for the Vietnam war. Eventually, the pressure on gold convertibility was too great to sustain Bretton Woods, and Nixon moved to drop the gold standard. [He did this unilaterally, without consulting members of the international community.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock) That happened on _Nixon’s_ watch. Now understand, I’m not blaming Nixon overmuch for this. He inherited the problem of the war, too, and it was Nixon who finally stopped it. But Carter was elected president shortly after the introduction of our fiat currency system, when we had little experience dealing with that system and how to control inflation under it. To that we must add the oil shocks of the time, which were completely out of the power of any US administration. Some economists were resigned to possibility that it wouldn’t even be possible to bring inflation under control. But it was Carter who took the genuine first step to stop it, by nominating Paul Volcker head of the Federal Reserve system. Volcker is a hard money guy, which happens to be exactly the sort we _don’t_ need running the Fed right now. But he was exactly the guy for the job at the time. And it was likely this very decision that was a key factor in costing Carter re-election in 1980, as Volcker started putting the screws on to get prices back under control. It took him a while, but Volcker eventually succeeded under Reagan. Today, Volcker is lionized and Carter is disparaged. I’m not going to argue that Carter was a great president, but he was certainly a better president than he’s often given credit for, and much of the blame that’s attributed to him is for things that he was not only not responsible for–which is unfair enough on its own–but also for things that _only Carter_ was brave enough to try to fix. And what’s his reward for these good decisions? Years of scorn heaped upon him from the Reaganites. But the truth of the situation can be seen in the fact that Reagan reappointed Volcker when he had the opportunity, thus completely affirming Carter’s original trust in the man. And then it’s Reagan who gets re-elected, even as he undermined the fiscal situation of the country. Urgh. Politics. ---
**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 13, 2010, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/92 "2010-02-13T01:01:19Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > [Nothing says “tragedy” better than opera](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tv3hrZmcEk) note: I’ve not seen any of this. I know the opera, but I was thinking something more along the line of Macbeth. We had Macbird for LBJ before Nixon got in. ---
**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 13, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/93 "2010-02-13T01:49:06Z")
Bush may be the worst President ever because, unlike Buchanon or others, he created most of his own problems. Bush took over a country that at its peak of peace and prosperity and drove it straight over a cliff. Nixon is the only other President who was so self-destructive to his own Presidency. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/94 "2010-02-13T01:50:55Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Well, MMV and probably does, but my own reading on it is that it really didn’t matter who was in charge of FEMA in the immediate aftermath. The system was what it was, and it was going to take a major shock in order to get change to permeate through the organization…and it just happens that that shock came on Bush’s watch. Had Obama been president, or had Katrina happened this year instead of in 2005 I think the results would have been essentially the same. Obama wouldn’t have been focused on revamping FEMA from the top down either (without the example of Katrina and the lessons learned), nothing would have been done in New Orleans (except more corruption and graft where it came to the levees ), and the response would nor could have been any faster considering the damage to the infrastructure, the delays at the local level, the disconnect between the local administrators and the Federal Government, and a host of other things. > > While I don’t leave Bush blameless on this, I think that it’s the system itself that was (and possibly still is) at fault…a systemic problem that no one president could have mitigated, not without a crystal ball (or the shock of something like this that wakes up the public and the government together). > > -XT I disagree on this point. Clinton had appointed James Witt, a person with actual experience in emergency management situations, who worked through the FEMA organization eliminating patronage jobs, replacing those people with people with actual credentials and experience. One of Witt’s specific actions was the creation of Project Impact, a task group within FEMA that worked with numerous cities and states to establish disaster plans, several of which were successfully implemented during the later years of the Clinton administration. One of Bush’s first acts after restoring FEMA to a patronage sinecure was the disbanding of Project Impact with a note to the various states that they might want to consider going out and establishing their own miniature versions of the same thing, (without Federal support and during the period when the states were being dumped on to pick up more and more unfunded mandates from the Feds with the economy suffering following the 2001 recession). I actually give Bush credit for being more proactive before Katrina hit, when he actually sent word to the mayor and governor that they had better look seriously at evacuation, but the failure of FEMA following the hurricane is all Bush’s. Even if there was not yet a Project Impact plan in place for New Orleans in January 2001, the fact that there was a team in FEMA with hands on experience in dealing with such disasters would have been a tremendous step up over the SNAFU that occurred, and has continued, since September of 2005. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/95 "2010-02-13T03:07:06Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > This is an inaccurate picture and hideously unfair to Carter. > > The inflationary pressure was well under way by Nixon’s time in his spending for the Vietnam war. Eventually, the pressure on gold convertibility was too great to sustain Bretton Woods, and Nixon moved to drop the gold standard. [He did this unilaterally, without consulting members of the international community.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock) That happened on _Nixon’s_ watch. Now understand, I’m not blaming Nixon overmuch for this. He inherited the problem of the war, too, and it was Nixon who finally stopped it. But Carter was elected president shortly after the introduction of our fiat currency system, when we had little experience dealing with that system and how to control inflation under it. To that we must add the oil shocks of the time, which were completely out of the power of any US administration. Some economists were resigned to possibility that it wouldn’t even be possible to bring inflation under control. > > But it was Carter who took the genuine first step to stop it, by nominating Paul Volcker head of the Federal Reserve system. Volcker is a hard money guy, which happens to be exactly the sort we _don’t_ need running the Fed right now. But he was exactly the guy for the job at the time. And it was likely this very decision that was a key factor in costing Carter re-election in 1980, as Volcker started putting the screws on to get prices back under control. It took him a while, but Volcker eventually succeeded under Reagan. > > Today, Volcker is lionized and Carter is disparaged. I’m not going to argue that Carter was a great president, but he was certainly a better president than he’s often given credit for, and much of the blame that’s attributed to him is for things that he was not only not responsible for–which is unfair enough on its own–but also for things that _only Carter_ was brave enough to try to fix. And what’s his reward for these good decisions? Years of scorn heaped upon him from the Reaganites. But the truth of the situation can be seen in the fact that Reagan reappointed Volcker when he had the opportunity, thus completely affirming Carter’s original trust in the man. And then it’s Reagan who gets re-elected, even as he undermined the fiscal situation of the country. > > Urgh. Politics. I know all about the Nixon Shock, and I know all about the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks. That doesn’t change the fact that high inflation and high interest rates occurred under his watch. So, can George H.W. Bush take credit for the boom that Clinton oversaw? We were well on the way out of the early 1990s recession when Bush lost the election. It’s the economy, stupid, right? Well, Clinton rode the wave of huge economic prosperity, and he didn’t have to do much of anything because it was already in progress given that indicators lag behind performance. No. We don’t do things that way. A President gets the credit and the blame for everything they do in office, and everything that happens while they are in office. That’s the way it is. Take poor James Buchanan. Could he have held the Union together? Probably not. Yet he is almost universally considered the worst President of all time for not doing so. It happened under his watch, so he takes the hit. So it is with Carter. Bush got saddled with the dot-com bust as soon as he entered office. Should he take the hit for that? Should he take the hit for Enron? It collapsed under his watch, but the company rotted to the core long before that. I say yes, he takes the hit. Why? He wanted the job, he got the job, and he is responsible for what happens while he’s doing the job. Urgh, politics indeed. You don’t get to exonerate your favorites and condemn those you hate and expect everybody to go along with it. If the measure of a President is what he did from the time he entered office until the time he left, you have to take all of it, not just the good stuff while writing off the rest on someone else. Bush takes the hits that happened under his watch. So does Carter, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, et al. all the way back to the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/96 "2010-02-13T05:49:17Z")
You really can not compare Polk, and Bush. It was a vastly different world when Polk was in office. But Bush’s accomplishments will put him near the bottom of presidential ratings forever. But deciding who is worse is a waste of time. There have been some very good presidents. But Bush was definitely not in that group. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/97 "2010-02-13T06:36:33Z")
Yup. Damn, that was an easy one 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/98 "2010-02-13T09:41:20Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > So, can George H.W. Bush take credit for the boom that Clinton oversaw? We were well on the way out of the early 1990s recession when Bush lost the election. It’s the economy, stupid, right? Well, Clinton rode the wave of huge economic prosperity, and he didn’t have to do much of anything because it was already in progress given that indicators lag behind performance. > > No. We don’t do things that way. I agree entirely that HW was unfairly maligned, to the cost of his own re-election chances. Very good comparison with Carter, now that you mention it. It was HW who put the country back on the path to fiscal responsibility after Reagan’s excesses, with Clinton finishing the job. I disagreed with the man about a lot of things, but he was a fully competent president. > [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > A President gets the credit and the blame for everything they do in office, and everything that happens while they are in office. That’s the way it is. That doesn’t have to be the way it is _here_. If you want to blame presidents for things that weren’t their fault, you’re free to do so. I am then free to point out how asinine it is to do so, with the facts backing me up. I’d like to note, though, that I don’t disagree so violently with many of the other things you said. I simply took strong exception to the empty comment about Carter. > [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Take poor James Buchanan. Could he have held the Union together? Probably not. Yet he is almost universally considered the worst President of all time for not doing so. It happened under his watch, so he takes the hit. So it is with Carter. Buchanan is blamed for doing nothing to stop the problem. Why? Because he did nothing to stop the problem. Carter is being blamed for doing nothing to stop the problem, when in fact his actions to stop the problem eventually led to the problem being stopped, even at the cost of his job. Not the same situation at all. > [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Bush got saddled with the dot-com bust as soon as he entered office. Should he take the hit for that? Should he take the hit for Enron? It collapsed under his watch, but the company rotted to the core long before that. I say yes, he takes the hit. Why? He wanted the job, he got the job, and he is responsible for what happens while he’s doing the job. This is just ludicrous. You blame people for what they actually do, not for what they inherited. Anything else is sheer intellectual laziness. > [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Urgh, politics indeed. You don’t get to exonerate your favorites and condemn those you hate and expect everybody to go along with it. It’s likely that you’re using the “generic you” here, and so are not referring to me in particular. If so, then I agree entirely with you. You don’t get to exonerate your favorites while condemning anyone you hate. (In the unlikely chance that you’re referring to me in particular, then I must assume that you have me confused with someone else. I have done no exoneration of my favorites in this thread, or (hopefully) in any other.) W deserves no blame at all for the dot-com collapse. Why? It wasn’t his fault. Blaming him for it is ludicrous. In contrast, blaming him for his _response_ to the dot-com crash is fair game. As his response was miserably incompetent, just like almost everything else he did, he deserves full censure for that. As I said before, I agreed with a lot of what you wrote in the other post. I simply took strong exception to the baseless smear against Carter. If I happened to miss someone blaming W for the dot-com crash (as opposed to the response to the crash), feel free to point it out, and I will be happy to give that poster a stern lecture on the unpredictability of asset markets and responding to recessions. Not only does W deserve no blame for the dot-com crash, he also deserves no direct blame for the housing bubble collapse and the subsequent recession. That was a failure of regulation and monetary policy, not a direct failure of the administration. The president is culpable only to the extent that he did not support stronger regulatory controls, and he was hardly the only actor on that score. It would have been difficult even for a Democratic president to call for strong regulation of the banking sector when the “Maestro” himself, Greenspan, was poo-pooing any calls for stronger controls due to the belief that banks could regulate themselves. Even further, W’s first response to the recent financial crisis (which is to say the response of Hank Paulson, appointed by W) was adequate, in the sense that we did not have a second depression. Paulson is… well, he’s like HW. I don’t agree at all with what he did, but it was clear he was pursuing his course in the honest belief that he was doing the right thing. He had a refreshing willingness to change his mind quickly when it became apparent that his first plan wasn’t good. (That his second plan wasn’t much better is unfortunate, but my point is that he was willing to listen and reconsider things on the fly. He wasn’t dogmatic, but was in an honest and active search for the right answer, even if he never found it. W deserves at least some credit for appointing such a person. Misguided but basically honest is a clear step up from the hackery we experienced in so many other quarters.) No, W isn’t to blame for the bubble, or even really for the response. He’s primarily responsible for the _deficits_ that have impeded Obama’s response to the crisis. And now, true to form, Obama is getting blamed for W’s excesses. It wasn’t right when HW got shafted by public opinion for a problem that wasn’t his fault, and the same is true of Obama and Carter. W is clearly one of the worst presidents we’ve had, and he’s definitely in the running for the top spot. None of his shitty decisions rate a 10 out of 10 on the historical presidential fuck-up chart, but he more consistently pegged 7s and 8s, year in and year out, than any other president we’ve had, not to mention that he has extremely few good decisions to balance out the mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/99 "2010-02-13T11:25:57Z")
This place is so fucking provincial. He killed a million Iraqis and displaced 4 million others - presumably ruining very many lives in the process. It doesn’t matter how he ranks in the Hot Or Not ratings, the man is an utter cunt and a disgrace to humanity. So yes, maybe he was “that bad”. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740/100 "2010-02-13T12:52:43Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Of course gutting regulation while announcing big money was self governing and needed no oversight. How did that work out? Cite? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-george-w-bush-that-bad/528740.md?page=6)