Ok, I overreacted. This would make for a short and boring thread.
Does “Also, maybe you agreed with Bush that an idea or strategy was sound, but if the following execution rendered the idea worthless or impossible to implement then I don’t think it should count” mean that I can’t bring up Colin Powell? That’s a good man who was, I think, an excellent choice for Secretary of State. I wonder if things would be even worse without his influence for those four years.
I will disagree with everyone who though Bush did the right thing with Tax Cuts or Social security. Like much this administration has done, both the tax cuts and the social security private accounts were based on lies.
I will say that Bush seems to genuinely believe in diversity and has appointed more minorities to higher office than anyone else. The mere fact that the minorities he appoiints share his point of view is not a criticism, no Democrat has appointed more Democrat minorities to high office (and there are lot more to choose from) and certainly no Republican has.
Roberts is about as good a nomination as we could have hoped for, Alito less so, Myers even less so.
The guest worker program is probably a good idea but the devil is in the details and I have all confidence that Bush would have fucked it up if given the chance.
The idea of promoting democracy is a good one, its one that has been around since the beginning of the cold war. The idea of bombing and invading a country to promote democracy is retarded.
Reform of class action lawsuits (this legislation has been floating around the hill for years and it finally passed, its the sort of legislation you would expect from a Republican president so its not really all that remarkable.
I give him no points for his response to 9/11, I honestly think that any president would have done just as well if not better.
We have to remember that the people we put in power are the same drug dealing, women-oppressing bandits and maniacs that made Afghanistan such a hell that the Taliban were welcomed by Afghans for the end to the anarchy and terror of the warlord’s rule.
And now heroin is cheaper than ever and flooding the UK market while the lot of the average Afghan - particularly women - doesn’t seem to improve.
Nitpicks:
“Miers.”
Since Alito replaced Miers early in the process it seems pointless to cite both.
Man you sure are wrong about 80% of the planet hating the USA.
I’m certain it’s nowhere near that figure, maybe around 20% tops.
Well, considering he mislaid his spine on the way to his office, he probably was not a good choice. Surely a good SoS would have the guts to fight his position and the nous not to serve a steaming crock of shit to the world (UN presentation)?
Insofar as he lent his (formerly) good reputation to Bush as a smokescreen for stupid, murderous and illegal policies he was a terrrible choice. Now he stands revealed to the world as a gutless fool of a dupe.
The Hawaii thing was a good thing.
And in 2002, Bush extended unemployment benefits by 13 weeks. That benefitted me directly.
That’s pretty much my take on things. I’d probably add that he at least tried to address Social Security reform, but bungled the effort and he couldn’t even control his own party on that one. Also, I think Alito was godd pick for the SCOTUS.
But Bush is always going to be remembered for Iraq. That was his baby-- his boldest move.
Hey, we agree on something! Cheers!
The speech with the bullhorn on top of the WTC rubble was I think his best moment. Of course, I think nearly any president would have done the same. (except maybe Reagan wouldn’t have been spry enough).
I also liked the little speech he gave at the Clinton portrait unveiling.
He did what a good President is supposed to do - he presented his worldview and got elected on its basis and then he surrounded himself with experienced people who shared that worldview. It’s just that his worldview is so wrong and his advisors were experienced but evil. And not as smart as they would seem to be on paper. If you agree with their worldview you still have to be disappointed with their execution.
He also managed to kill the once thought immortal absolute stranglehold of Republicans on all the reigns of power. That’s good.
There is not a single country (other than the USA) where there was a majority that supported the invasion of Iraq. The governments may have supported the US for other reasons but there wasn’t popular support for it anywhere outside the USA.
Of course this doesn’t mean people hate us, but it certainly hasn’t helped.
Really. Primary goal was the elimination of AQ training camps, supply camps, and command infrastructure, the overthrow of the Taliban, and the installation of a ‘friendly’ government in the region. Getting bin Laden was, IMHO, a secondary objective…a bonus if you will. I think that the plan was to catch him in one of those caves we bombed the shit out of and send him to Allah in very small bits. Didn’t happen. But we would have been complete idiots to launch a war to get one man as our primary objective…especially in THAT terrain. Again, one has but to look at an elevation map of Tora Bora to see it makes looking for the proverbial needle in a hay stack look like childs play.
As for why we didn’t attack sooner, military operations, even limited ones, don’t turn on a dime. Recall how long it took us to prepare for both of the gulf wars for instance. You can’t just send in troops, even Special Forces troops, without any kind of logistics support…and that takes time to set up. There of course we were in negotiations with the Taliban to try and get them to cave in without having to resort to a military option at all. I believe we DID have SF boots on the ground fairly soon after it became obvious that the Taliban weren’t going to back down.
-XT
Do you have a cite for this?
Cite? That may be so now (in fact, I don’t think there’s a majority in the USA that now support the war), but I don’t think that was true then. I suspect strongly that at least GB and Isreal has a majority in support. Or if not a majority at least a plurality.
It is complete nonsense to believe that a primary interest of the United States was the overthrow of the Taliban government. Of course our primary interest was getting rid of Al Queda, of which bin Laden is the leader.
Bush’s ultimatum to the Taliban said nothing at all about them having to give up control of the country if they complied with his demands.
I question the very premise: that the Taliban could have handed over ObL had they chosen to do so, that they held ObL in the hollow of thier hand and could have handed him up if they so chose. Sez who?
Well, how about somewhere in between (and probably also depends on how you define “hating”). Here and here are some attitudes regarding the U.S. one year after the start of the Iraq war. Here is a similar report 2 years after the start of the war. And, here is the most recent survey.
And, this site has Gallup Poll results about Iraq in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
Bush’s immigration policy was less wrong-headed than it could have been. Unfortunately, he was too weak to get it through congress. Let’s build that fence!
Perhaps I’m alone in finding his pep rally on the smoking ruins of the WTC (& the remains of those who died there) less than inspiring.
But we have come here to praise him…
I like that he has hispanic, black, and female people in positions of real power in the administration.
Ah…you probably missed this part of what I was saying:
Even so, I DON’T think it was COMPLETE non-sense that a primary goal of the US was to overthrow a fundamentalist islamic state, hostile to the US and know to support terrorists in the region…hell, known to have terrorist training and support camps IN their country. Why do you feel thats non-sense as a primary goal?
Again, I disagree that bin Laden was the focus or goal of our invasion of Afghanistan. Had the Taliban simply handed him over (not that this was likely), we STILL would have invaded most likely, unless they got rid of the AQ training camps in their country too. THAT was the goal. Once it was clear that the Taliban were going to support AQ and not get rid of them, then our goal was clearly the overthrow of the Taliban…else, why didn’t we simply bomb the shit out of the AQ training and logistics/command bases and leave it at that? Why bother invading at all?
Though we often disagree on stuff, I usually think of you as one of the more intelligent posters on the board. But this is just silly. Of COURSE we didn’t give the Taliban the ultimatum to turn over their whole country. I mean, duh. Even what we DID ask of them they weren’t willing to give up. But there was still a chance they MIGHT have turned on AQ if they felt threatened enough. Asking them to turn over the country and leave…well, they weren’t likely to do that, were they? I mean, even Bush isn’t stupid enough to think that this would have worked…and he has lowered the bar to new depths…
-XT