So says Helen Thomas, who has been a White House correspondent for 40 years and has covered eight presidents.
God bless this woman.
Doesn’t she have a point? She knows what she’s talking about, after all, and she has never been shy about going after Democrats.
Fire away with any and all opinions.
(I know this story is a few days old, but I just love the quote too much to ignore it)
If you love it so much, you could at least put it in the proper forum. Where’s the debate?
Is GWB the worst president ever?
That’s the debate. I say yes.
I suppose we should take the word of someone with an advanced degree in American history. Oh wait…
What is the criteria you are using?
Define “worst”. He has been very successful at getting what he wants, so at least in that sense he has been a very very good president. If it is his policies, then what in particular makes him the worst? If it is just the Iraq war, I would have to give a big no. There are many presidents that you could argue have got us into much more dubious conflicts. Give us some criterea, otherwise this will be boring. Actually it is probably to late for that. See the other 6,000 related topics. Luv ya anyway, 
Greenteeth
I dunno. Ronald Reagan really stank up the place and Richard Nixon actually had goons raiding DNC headquaters. AND an enemies list. When the name that should have headed the list was clearly his own.
Bush is certainly a contender though. I especially like his economic policy – “Why don’t you lazy poor people get some damn jobs?” and his health policy for the poor and the elderly – “Don’t get so sick that you can’t afford to get well.”
Decisions, decisions.
Was she a legacy ?
I am guessing Warren Harding may emerge from the morass of bad Presidents as somewhat worse. Just a guess.
-Ulterior
Well, I think that Thomas is implying that the Bush administration depends on fear-mongering and McCarthyism to an unprecedented degree. I would add that he has done more to undermine democracy and civil rights than any other president.
Well, Hitler got what he wanted, that’s not much of a criterion.
This guy cheated his way into office in the first place with a stacked supreme court. He then proceeded to bumble through his first year in office, accomplishing nothing of any significance, and paying back favors to corporate and political cronies.
9/11 was the best thing to ever happen to George W, Bush. It gave him the perfect unassailable shield for any self-serving policy he wishes to pursue. Anyone who opposes him is unpatriotic. We now live in a country where any citizen can have his phone tapped, his computer communications monitored, and his home searched without a warrant or any just cause. Not only that, but citizens can be arrested without charges, and held indefinitely without bail, without an attorney and without a trial. This is all done to “protect our freedoms,” Orwellian doublespeak at its finest.
This administration has also presided over an economy which has gone from being the strongest in American history into the toilet of recession, unemployment, and deficits.
This administration has also launched a direct assault on the SOCAS with his idiotic “faith based” initiatives.
It’s his fault 9/11 happened. The president’s first mandate is to protect the country and he failed.
He still hasn’t found the man who murded 3000 Americans and is instead pursuing a campaign against a “surrogate” boogeyman which will end in pain, death and suffering for thousands of innocent people.
He has yet to accomplish one single thing which is of any real benefit to the country.
GWB sucks like no other POTUS has ever sucked before him.
I say no.
This is the bestest debate ever!
The right’s demonization of Clinton was tiresome, and the left’s demonization of Bush is even more tiresome.
Andrew Johnson was the worst president ever. He vetoed every bill which came across his desk which granted black people the most basic human rights (such as owning land, testifying in court, and signing contracts). He refused to use the army to prevent the KKK from wreaking havoc with the 1868 election. He wrote a message to Congress describing the black race as “having a constant tendency to relapse into barbarism”. He was all-around bad news.
And don’t forget James Buchanan.
You make some good points, jklann. Perhaps worst ever is over the top. How about worst in modern history?
Reagan, Grant, Harding, Nixon. I don’t know if Bush II is the worst yet.
Commenting on the Columbia tragedy today:
(as he should since the honored dead are his people)
our dear leader intoned that:
“the same creator that named the stars knows the name of the seven souls we mourn today…”
Hmmmmm - pulling out my handy dandy King James…
Nope, no star names there…
perhaps the holy Torah or the holy Koran…
Nah
Looks like heathens and Arabs named most of the stars…
Walker-Bush, like Clinton, like HW Bush, and Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon, have kept NASA on such a shoestring budget that failures like today’s are inevitable.
With that policy, its a matter of when - not if.
But a “failure” , “worst ever”?
but now - and in 8 months when he puts that cheerleader boy smirk on his face as he holds up Saddam’s carcass to the world?
“We don’t have to worry about him any more” - ignoring the thousands of dead Iraqi toddlers we had to kill just to get Saddam.
so with his “I got Saddam” smirk in 2004, 56% of the vote and a landslide in the anachronistic electoral college.
dos centavos
Oh, my goodness. I came in here looking for a debate about George W. Bush – the current President of the United States – and stumbled into a meeting of the DNC. I just know Terry McAulliffe is in here somewhere. (Prob’ly peeing on the rug behind that chair over there… Here, Terry, here boy!)
Diogenes, you’re windy, that much is clear. Just how old are you, son?
I’m 36, why do you ask?
I say yes. 9/11 was like being dealt 4 Aces in terms of world wide sympathy and mandate, but he held out for a Straight Flush and now the US is more widely hated than Al Queda and our mandate against terrorism is crumbling. Meanwhile the stock market is in an unprecedented 4th consectutive down year. The economy is suffering from an excess of capacity, yet Bush is pushing supply side solutions. The US government’s web sites contain absurd propoganda that condoms are not effective against AIDS and that abortion raises the chance of breast cancer. He is blurring the line between church and state and civil rights are being eroded.
We are less safe, worse off economically, and have less civil rights than when he was “elected”. My god, what couldbe worse?
Well, I’m with you on a lot of that, Dio. Except the part about 9/11 being his fault. Theres a whole lot of blame to spread around, so its really not fair of us to blame a mediocrity for being a mediocrity, since we didn’t rise in open rebellion when he was installed. And besides, our complacency and naivete had a lot to do with it. I mean, c’mon, the cockpit doors were open? Guys are going to flight school and asking to be trained in flying a plane but want to leave off the part about landing? And boxcutters! Boxcutters! Jesus Horatio Christ, its like we were had by the Keystone Kops of Terror.
So, no…not on that one. He gets a pass from me on that one.
As to the truly worst…gotta go with Tricky Dick. Truly a pustule on the rectum of the body politic. Warren G. would maybe be second, but with the proviso that best evidence is he was a well meaning doofus totally screwed by everyone he trusted. A pretty virulent racist as well, from what I understand.
GeeDubya? Worst unelected president, hands down, but then who even remembers Hayes? Not Gabby, the President.
On the other hand, he’s still got a couple years to go. Unless he’s caught in bed with a live boy or a dead woman.