And carried out during Bush’s term after he dismissed all the intelligence left to him by his predecessor.
Piffle.
The rules regarding loans to the poor preceded Clinton and the choices by banks to abandon their own guidlelines for bad credit–beyond what was sought by the Feds–was not part of any “idealism,” just routine greed on a huge scale.
Well, nothing stopped him from running for dogcatcher instead of the presidency.
But it’s true in this case. Most of the bad things that happened during Bush’s second administration were the result of bad decisions made during his first administration.
Anyway, perhaps a little controversial, but didn’t 9/11 actually help Bush in a number of ways. To my mind, he managed to persuade people all around the world to support his causes based on fear of terrorism - something that would have been nigh on impossible without a major catastrophe to highlight an international problem.
And in the end, he squandered the most tremendous showing of international good will that I’ve ever seen by invading Iraq.
Following, 9/11, America was the world’s widow, and we received nigh-bottomless offers of support and friendship from other nations. The world grieved with us. The world resolved to help us find who was responsible and deal out justice, no matter what it took.
And Bush took that support and trust and used it to invade a nation that was no credible threat to the United States within the foreseeable future. In a few short years, Bush pissed away all the good will that had been given to us freely. Now, we’re an international joke. We’ve overextended ourselves and caused the Middle East to become more unstable than ever. We’ve lost the trust of fellow nations. Bush’s Iraq adventure has resulted in America having less security, less safety, and less privacy than anyone would have thought possible just a few years ago.
Try to blame Clinton if you wish, but the groundwork for the Department of Homeland Security was laid by him, before Bush even debated Gore. Bush stalled the follow-through on creating the department until after 9/11, when it became a priority. That Bush would claim credit for it is laughable.
Very good post Max Torque. Hard to disagree with any of it.
All I’m saying is that:
9/11 would have happened regardless of who was in office.
The financial mess also was imminent, and was not the making of the Bush administration.
Come to think of it Katrina would also have taken place, and the federal department tasked with the rescue effort would have been equally ineffective under any administration.
Iraq is a different story. Had the U.S. not gone into Iraq you might have been better poised to weather the other crises. But the other crises would still have happened.
Look, you can blame all of the current problems on Bush or you can look at the situation realistically and know that it’s going to take a lot more than one change in the executive branch to clean things up.
All my best to Obama, but don’t be too disappointed a year or two from now.
Sometimes I’ll click on a link at Google News, start reading and go “What the bleep is this bleep? What sort of idiot thinks like this?” Then I see that it’s a WSJ article.
Yes – while he probably did ignore some warning about possible terrorism, it would have been pretty hard to stop the 9/11 plot, and very few blamed him for what happened that day. What he got blamed for, after squandering the massive sympathy and support that US got for the attack, was the unjustified attack on Iraq: ad that is purely a decision of his administration.
I have very strong doubts on this particular point. FEMA was a dumping ground for political appointees pretty much up through the administration of George Bush Sr.
Bill Clinton appointed Witt, a man who – for the first time in many previous administrations – had actual disaster recovery experience. To quote the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “FEMA has developed a sterling reputation for delivering disaster-relief services, a far cry from its abysmal standing before James Lee Witt took its helm in 1993. How did Witt turn FEMA around so quickly? Well, he is the first director of the agency to have emergency-management experience. He stopped the staffing of the agency by political patronage. He removed layers of bureaucracy. Most important, he instilled in the agency a spirit of preparedness, of service to the customer, of willingness to listen to ideas of local and state officials to make the system work better.”
So FEMA during the Clinton administration is lead by someone who knows what he’s doing, has adequate funding, and even pilots programs in 7 cities for disaster planning and preparedness so that in the event of a catastrophe, the damage would be less. Studies (I’ll find a cite for this in a bit) showed that for every dollar invested in planning/preparation, 3 were saved when disaster struck.
Along comes W., Witt leaves for the private sector, and W. appoints Joe Allbaugh and then good ol’ Heckuva Job Brownie, both political appointees with (again) no disaster recovery experience. Oh, and combines FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security, AND slashes FEMA’s budget by something like $80 million to support other areas of DHS. Simulation and planning for a hurricane of Katrina’s strength hitting New Orleans (called “Hurrican Pam”) were never completed.
No doubt Katrina would have been devastating no matter what. No doubt FEMA would have fallen down on some aspects of assistance and recovery. But to think that it would have been as incompetent under anyone’s administration ignores who was in charge of the organization and why they were selected for the job.
That’s a problem I’ve always had with conservative political figures. Mayn of them have the attitude that private businesses have all the answers and the government is incapable of doing anything right - and then they voluntarily seek out a government job. What kind of results would you expect from people who look for work in a field that they believe shelters incompetence? If government services are going to exist and we’re going to pay for them, we should be hiring government employees who believe their job means something.
It’s really a shame that Bush fought so hard to “win” that election in 2000. If only Gore had won, Bush would not have been blamed for any of this. So, it IS his own fault after all.
As I said above, he should have let Gore “steal” the election from him. His bad.
As for the rest of your post, YES. Thank you.
Well, he WAS bi-partisan in this regard. He expected the same from the Republicans he “hired”.
Dad bought him a college education. He did well with that.
Dad bought him a sports team. He did well with that, too.
Dad bought him oil interests. He excelled there as well.
Dad bought him a country. I’m noticing a pattern all of a sudden.
Bingo has been called.
As I may have mentioned, it’s too bad he didn’t let Gore win the election. But then again, he wouldn’t be able to avenge Bush 41 for his Middle East adventures.
That whole Pubbie talkilng point about inherent government incompetence is a load. It looks like ideology, something you would expect from a political party, but it really isn’t. Why should competent people, who’ve proven their mettle in the private arena, suddenly turn into doofi simply by changing who signs their paycheck?
They don’t want regulation sticking its nose into their business. If you’d rather make money than breathe, EPA is an intrusion.
As far as trashing Mr Bush goes, you ain’t seen nothing yet. With all branches in Dem hands, subpoenas will fly like never before. We are going to know, for a fact, who turned the Justice Dept. into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Amongst other things. Many other things.
I have personal experience with FEMA pre-Bush, but for personal reasons I would prefer not to say in what form. I will say the experience left me with no confidence whatsoever in FEMA no matter who is president and no matter who is in charge of FEMA.