# Why does everyone blame GWB for everything? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 4, 2012, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197 "2012-07-04T09:28:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/121 "2012-07-05T19:04:05Z")
> [@greenslime1951](#): > > You aren’t giving us any citations for that, are you? I would expect that you, as a moderator, wouldn’t transgress the expressed standards of this board by offering an unsubstantiated opinion. Man, that post just went straight over your head, didn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/122 "2012-07-05T19:08:34Z")
I could hear the ‘Whooosh’ all the way here in Canada, Damn! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/123 "2012-07-05T19:09:05Z")
To be fair, this thread is in IMHO, not GD. But that only means we’re might have a discussion boiling down to: Does not! Does too!! Does not!!! Does too!!! Which isn’t particularly interesting. But if that’s what we got, let me give my humble opinion of the OP: Does not! ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/124 "2012-07-05T19:09:14Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Man, that post just went straight over your head, didn’t it? You were expecting something else? ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/125 "2012-07-05T19:10:32Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m only seeing one person in this thread who seems to be having trouble with that distinction. Look, I understand how all this works—jump on the newcomer. It reinforces the sense of “community” to gang up on outsiders. Every bit of flung mud makes it easier for the next person. The same dynamic occurs in a stoning: people are hesitant to throw the first one, but once that is done, it makes throwing the next stones OK. Nothing new here. NONE of you conform to the so-called standard of backing up all YOUR assertions with cited facts. None. The hypocrisy is breathtaking–you only demand that standard of others, not yourselves, and then only when you disagree with the speaker. I’ve learned one thing, which I suppose I should have expected–you can’t talk about politics or religion without getting gang-banged. Here or elsewhere. I’m going to go have some Chinese food for lunch. I like Chinese food. Though I must be lying about that because I didn’t give a citation. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/126 "2012-07-05T19:11:59Z")
> [@greenslime1951](#): > > Shouting someone’s opinion down on the pretext that it isn’t supported by “evidence” is EXACTLY the same as saying they’re not entitled to it. In actual, real human discourse (as opposed, I know, to that which occurs on the internet), people who offer opinions are not immediately interrupted by someone saying “Give us some proof of that, or you shouldn’t continue,” or “Shut the %$%# up unless you have some proof” (as at least one poster has said to me on this thread already). > > Do none of you understand the distinction between a stated opinion and a stated fact? The latter might indeed need a citation; the former doesn’t. Note that I could not state my contention that GWB is blamed for the current economic ills without a quantifier that would be subjective, i.e., “always,” as I used in the title of this thread (and no one seemed to realize it was mild hyperbole rather than a statement of fact), or “often,” or “constantly,” etc. > > And by the way…who says you are required to give my opinion any credence? Required by whom? If I supplied the “required evidence” (and I’ve already noted elsewhere how difficult that would be), would you all be “required” to change your minds, and admit it as well? > > Look, I’m very very familiar with the “dogpile the newbie” internet trope. I don’t expect it not to happen here–why should this board be any different? You need a new word - go with meme, though in this instance behaviour might work better. Well then let me retract my request for a cite and simply say opinions such as yours with no ready access to evidence to validate them tend to be so much bullshit. Your posts are my cite. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/127 "2012-07-05T19:14:04Z")
> [@](#): > > The guy wasn’t a great president. But the current mantra, from everyone from late night comedians to newspaper columnists, is “It was Bush’s fault.” Obama has spent the last four years blaming GWB for everything, including his own failure to fix what he said he would when we elected him. Which of these definitive sounding statements is opinion? ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/128 "2012-07-05T19:14:37Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Man, that post just went straight over your head, didn’t it? Not at all. Though if I took anything you said at face value (as in, you were making any honest attempt to discuss the issue ostensibly at hand), I guess I was mistaken. Let’s close this thread. Nothing of value is being accomplished here. You all have done an adequate job of “beating up the new guy.” You no doubt all feel an almost visceral satisfaction, very much like that enjoyed by the club-waving apes in the opening scenes of “2001.” Repel the outsider! Oop eep! ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/129 "2012-07-05T19:15:46Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Which of these definitive sounding statements is opinion? Which of those statements did I ever represent as anything other than an opinion? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/130 "2012-07-05T19:15:49Z")
It is a trope that there are internet tropes. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/131 "2012-07-05T19:17:23Z")
Dude, climb down off that cross, we need the wood! ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/132 "2012-07-05T19:20:31Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > You need a new word - go with meme, though in this instance behaviour might work better. > > Well then let me retract my request for a cite and simply say opinions such as yours with no ready access to evidence to validate them tend to be so much bullshit. Your posts are my cite. No, memes are self-replicating. “Jump on the newbie” doesn’t move from internet board to internet board (or from ingroup to ingroup) so much as it occurs when a critical mass of members is formed. In any case, it’s pretty much a constant. I certainly hope that you hold yourself to the same standard about your OWN opinions, i.e., that those for which you have no “evidence” are just “so much bullshit.” ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/133 "2012-07-05T19:24:26Z")
Opinions based on no evidence are worthless. Opinions presented to the public with no backing are worthless. Only a jackass would do something like that. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/134 "2012-07-05T19:24:46Z")
Dude, you’re not the first newbie to this board. Check it out for yourself. We do not do anything evil to newbies, we like them and welcome them. Now go have your Chinese food, enjoy your lunch, take a little break. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/135 "2012-07-05T19:25:51Z")
Your thread title asks why everyone blames GWB for everything. You’ve now narrowed that down to Obama, but what you really asking is why does Obama blame anything on GWB, because there is no way he even remotely blames “everything” or even “most things” on GWB. All people are asking you to do is be more specific. What do you not want Obama to blame GWB for and why? And if you can’t back up what you’re saying with a cite, then what’s wrong with everyone else saying: Does not! Is that what you wanted to accomplish when you opened this thread? A bunch of people yelling past each other with their unsupported opinions? What did you open this thread for? ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/136 "2012-07-05T19:27:23Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It is a trope that there are internet tropes. It is a truth that the vast majority of people’s behavior–especially in a group setting–is imitative. As it is here. I realize now that my suggesting that GW Bush may be criticized to an unfair extent struck directly at the viscera of those on this board who consider themselves intellectuals and therefore deem it obligatory to wrap themselves in liberal regalia (they learned this in college). I consider myself a liberal, but the behavior of the liberal establishment in this country is at times sickening to me. Demonizing the last administration and the opposition party only serves to hide the failings of the current administration–in that, it apparently works quite well. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/137 "2012-07-05T19:30:44Z")
> [@greenslime1951](#): > > The guy wasn’t a great president. But the current mantra, from everyone from late night comedians to newspaper columnists, is “It was Bush’s fault.” Hey, he’s easy to blame. When you have a dry drunk in the White House who can’t utter a single sentence without trippiing over his toungue, what do you expect? > [@greenslime1951](#): > > Obama has spent the last four years blaming GWB for everything, including his own failure to fix what he said he would when we elected him. Obama certainly blames a conservative Congress, but not Bush directly. A far greater stumbling block to Obama’s progress has been the Republicans’ stated primary goal of making him a one-term president. Mark that! Their primary goal, according to Behner and several others, is to remove Obama from office. Those congresspersons took an oath to do the people’s business, but they have done nothing but play politics from the outset. I call that treason. > [@greenslime1951](#): > > The economy is being blamed on GWB even though there’s no rational reason to do so (his fiscal policies may have angered liberals but the current/recent economic mess had very little to do with those policies; there are/were larger forces at work). And GWB blamed the economy on Clinton, even though it had improved under Clinton. It actuall did go into the toilet under GWB. > [@greenslime1951](#): > > Heck, they even blamed him for Hurricane Katrina (including criticism for not leaving emergency equipment in the city center, where it would have been destroyed). Blamed him for the hurricane? Really? The criticism was for his handling of the aftermath. > [@greenslime1951](#): > > He’s blamed for global warming, global cooling, and insect plagues. GWB has never been blamed for global warming. Rather he’s been rightly taken to task for denying that golbal warming exists, or that humans might have had anything to do with it. He blocked any government efforts to do anything to halt it. > [@greenslime1951](#): > > He’s blamed for burned grilled cheese sandwiches and for bringing about the total collapse of human civilzation. Now you’re just being silly. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/138 "2012-07-05T19:31:43Z")
> [@greenslime1951](#): > > Which of those statements did I ever represent as anything other than an opinion? By their simple construction you present them as fact- that what you state _is_. That what you describe is the situation, not just your opinion, or your interpretation, but it _is_ the situation. The fact that the majority of the posters in this thread are responding the same way, perhaps I’m not the one who is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/139 "2012-07-05T19:33:18Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Dude, you’re not the first newbie to this board. Check it out for yourself. We do not do anything evil to newbies, we like them and welcome them. > > Now go have your Chinese food, enjoy your lunch, take a little break. I think the tipping point was that I challenged a liberal mantra (“GWB is the cause of all human woe”). Most of the people on this board consider themselves to be intelligent (true, I believe, although I don’t have a citation so my opinion on that is worthless), but also, sad to say, intelligentsia. This self-applied label compels not only an orthodoxy of thought but an obligation to attack those who challenge it. I do think that you’re essentially correct, in that I probably wouldn’t have been dogpiled had I posted a thread entitled, “I Like Fluffy White Bunnies.” Then again, you never know. ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197/140 "2012-07-05T19:36:39Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > By their simple construction you present them as fact- that what you state _is_. That what you describe is the situation, not just your opinion, or your interpretation, but it _is_ the situation. > > The fact that the majority of the posters in this thread are responding the same way, perhaps I’m not the one who is wrong. No, it’s just dogpiling. It’s that much easier to attack when you see others attack the same target. No one here qualifies every statement they make with “it is my opinion that…” Thank God–it would sound like an 18th century French court if they did. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-everyone-blame-gwb-for-everything/627197.md?page=8)