I am always intressted why people believe they dont like thier presidents. Some people hated Clinton, some loved him. Some hate bush, some love him. on a recent post, Stoid said:
I this time ill ask those desenters (descentors?) out there waht they dont like about Bush Jr. and i hope stoid stipulates on his comment!
personally i really am apathetic twoards whos running my country especially cause I cant vote yet. But what i hate is when people say they love/hate a president, but cant really find a reason. THOSE are the people taht SHOULDNT be allowed to vote
I recently asked a good freind of mine about it and he said that he loooved clinton and cant stand bush. eager as always, i asked why. after a few momments of stammering he shrugged and changed topics :wally I hope u bush descentors have better explanation, id be glad to hear it!
There are lots of reasons, but I’ll just give you #1 for me: It is Bush’s utter capitulation to the agenda of the wealthy and the corporations. This is a man who will almost never support the environmental position over that of industry, will almost never support the labor or consumer position over that of industry. (When he does endorse things like an HMO bill of rights, prescription drug plan, or corporate reform, it is when it has become inevitable due to intolerable pressures for reform and then he usually pushes for the industry alternative to a more meaningful bill.)
He is a man who seems to feel that [to borrow phrase a slogan from the “Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)” parody website] inequality isn’t increasing fast enough and therefore we have to cut the tax burden on the rich. As Robert McIntyre (who writes on tax issues) noted in a recent column in The American Prospect, some of Bush’s policies are so extreme that even Reaganomics looks mild by comparison.
So, there you have it in a nutshell…The Bush agenda is the agenda of the rich and economically powerful.
I’ll let others get into other reasons: the restrictions on civil liberties after 9/11, the military-adventurous policies, …
I don’t hate George W. I liked Clinton and I agreed with his position on most issues.
I think George W. may have some problems when compared with his dad. His dad had so many more quality experiences that made him more prepared for the task.
I have great respect for the Bush family. I love to hear George Herbert Bush speak. He has a good sense of humor and he seems like such a wonderful person. I am certain that he is a man of integrity.
George W. strikes me as the kind of guy that would really, really struggle without his circle of advisors. I am sure all presidents depend on staff, but he seems to be “out of the loop” on a lot of foreign affairs issues.
I don’t hate him either, but as if the cowboy boots with black tie aren’t bad enough, the cowboy boots with the whitey-tighties just do not work for me.
Also, his approach to environmental issues: voluntary regulation! If only he’d apply this innovative tactic to marijuana laws, maybe I’d vote for him.
Also, his (lack of) diplomacy: Public opinion of the US in virtually every country with a free press has plummeted since he took office. Why? Kyoto, steel tariffs, ABMs, WHO funding cutoffs, military unilateralism, etc…
Also, his erosion of the separation between church and state: In case you didn’t notice, organizations that discriminate based on religion are now eligible for federal funds.
Also, energy policy : during the California energy crisis, he declared that it was caused by excessive environmental regulation, and urged that ANWAR drilling commence at once to ameliorate it. (Never mind it would take ~12 years to take effect, or that Enron et al were fixing prices)
I wish he’d insist on lower taxes, free trade, be more of the economic conservative I thought he’d be when I voted for him. I wish he’d drop this social conservatism (faith-based programs) and police state crap. Of course, I never saw 9/11 coming back then, I figured economic policy would be our focus over the course of his term.
And people need to lighten up. No 4-year presidential term can really be considered “terrifying”. No president will ever have the power or ability to ruin this country single-handedly…well, I guess Abe Lincoln did, but no power-mad war-mongering tyrant since Lincoln has made it into the White House and ruined this country. No president will ever have the power Lincoln was able to exercise, since he managed to end up President at a time when the entire opposition party dropped out of the Congress to form a new country. These days, there’s always somebody there to keep any President from doing anything too stupid or extreme.
Oh, foolishmortal, why are we concerned what other countries think? They want to ridicule us for not signing on to Kyoto, when most of those countries didn’t sign it either, I think that makes them look like fools. Let 'em think we’re idiots, we’re the most prosperous country on the face of the Earth, so we know we’re right.
Lincoln as a “power-mad war-mongering tyrant”?..That’s an interesting historical interpretation.
Well actually, most of them did sign it. They just hadn’t ratified it yet (i.e., as of when your source reported this). And, despite conservatives hopes and Bush’s best efforts to torpedo the treaty by backing he U.S. out of it, many if not most of these nations have now in fact ratified it, including the entire EU. See http://unfccc.int/resource/kpstats.pdf
IIRC the news around here regarding GW when daddy was the VP. Junior was given the Texas Rangers as a gift. It didn’t go over too well around here, especially since he had done poorly in his previous ventures. Poor college student, failed in the oil business, etc. It seems like the excuse was that GW had dyslexia, but was learning to overcome it.
This was years before he was governor and most assuredly the Whitehouse was not even a consideration. George Sr. wasn’t even the President yet!
I’ve tried to find some cites regarding this, but guess what?
Like I said, this is from memory, I’ll keep searching for a quote or source. I’ll be back later with something to add, hopefully.
(I think I’ll skip the part about how excessive drinking kills neurons.)
Lincoln was kind of an autocrat, but that’s for another thread.
…
Congratulations, you’ve described the Bush administration’s foreign policy much better than they have. Look out, Ari Fleischer!
We might be prosperous, but we wouldn’t be for long without the support and purchasing power of the rest of the world. We’re an export-driven economy (look at the balance of trade). The expanded EU has a greater gross production than we do. Exactly what would we do if they decided to use this leverage against us?
I agree with jacksen9 that I don’t hate the Bush. My main complaints with his policies:
Giant handouts available on demand to any industry that asks for them. So far he’s given bailouts to the airlines, tariffs for the steel industry, more tariffs for the lumber industry, yet more tariffs for others, handouts to agriculture, etc… And then there was the “stimulus package” that he pushed last fall that would have poured billions into the bank accounts of some of the richest corporations if it had passed. What’s worst about all of this is that there’s no accountability. None of the companies that are dragging in truckloads of taxpayer money (directly or indirectly) are required to show that they have a plan for returning to profitability, so they all know that if things go badly they can just start whining for yet another bailout.
Shortsighted foreign policy. He rolls out the red carpet for any country that gives us superficial friendliness. Our claims to support human rights and democracy in the Middle East look laughable as long as we continue to prop up the current Saudi government.
Dishonesty. He won’t give a truthful explanation of why he makes just about any significant decision.
Reasons to dislike (?) Bush…I think disapprove of Bush would be a better way to put it, but here goes:
His stand on environmental issues. Seems to me that we are actually losing ground here.
His too-close ties to the religious right. As an example, I am sure that he would support teaching Special Creation in schools.
His failure to disclose the real threat that Iraq poses to the U.S. I’m not saying that Iraq isn’t dangerous, but Bush has an obligation to justify his position regarding the evidence for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
His misuse of language. As a president he should be well spoken, but in my view, he demonstrates poor grammar and uses too many sound bite phrases. Seldom does he use logical and convincing arguments to support his position.
His lack of real performance outside of the war on terrorism. What would we think of him if there was no 9-11 or war on terrorism?
He has Cheney as a VP, and Wolfowitz (sp?) as a high ranking official in the defense area. Additionally, I am really scared by our Attorney General.
BTW, I am a fan of his father, and of several of GWB’s cabinet.
I’m not trying to be insulting, but I honestly believe that George W. isn’t very bright. I didn’t vote for W’s dad, but I still respected his intelligence. I thought he handled his own Iraq crisis very well.
I got nervous about W when he couldn’t pronounce the word ‘subliminal’ during the campaign. Intellectual snobbery? I don’t know. I’ve since read much worse things about his intellectual capacities, I hope they’re not all true. One does have to adjust for bias. But still…
It grates on me to hear his soundbytes on NPR each day. It might be just me, but he sounds like he’s always making an effort to “sound presidential”. Lots of important phrasing with dramatic pauses. The image of a high-school Shakespeare play always strikes me: “To be, or not to be (dramatic pause)…That is the question.”
Why is it that whenever we get a Bush in office, we have a war with Iraq? We had eight years of Clinton and no massive military mobilization, we get another Bush and it’s war all over again.
I can’t resist reposting from this NY Times Magazine article, as I just did in the environment thread, the view of the John Browne, the CEO of British Petroleum (you know, the oil company and 7th biggest corporation on the planet) on Bush’s leadership…or lack thereof…on Kyoto and the climate change issue in general:
