Worst President Ever?

[Jingus 0]

To me, it's a matter of the level of complaining versus the actual harm that's been done. The economy has been better before than it is now, sure. But while there are big problems, it's not like we're headed for another Great Depression. Unemployment is low, productivity is high, and the stock market is still breaking its own records on a regular basis. It's hard to go into nitpicking detail about a lot of this stuff, because I'm not an economist, we'd need Popick back in here to thoroughly explain a lot of this stuff.

 

I just don't understand why people feel the need to invent or exaggerate stuff about how evil and incompetent Bush is, when there's any number of real, proven examples out there of massive failures under the current administration's watch. We've got the failure to capture Bin Ladin, the bungled handling of the Iraq occupation, the mistakes or lies about WMDs, the neutering of the CIA, the castration of the EPA, Bush's awesomely awful public speaking skills, the illegal immigration debacle, the subprime mess, gay marriage bullshit, Haliburton, Enron, Citigroup, the airlines, Plame, SCHIP, the 2000 election nightmare, continuing to support assholes like the Saudis, and my very favorite, Dick Chaney shooting a guy in the face and then bungling a pathetic attempt at covering it up. I mean, that's not ENOUGH? We still need to invent bullshit conspiracy theories about how we murdered thousands of our own citizens in apparently the only government coverup which ever managed to work, and pissed off the entire world in order to lose money on oil?

[EricMM 0]

Because, to a point, they're not making it up, Jingus.

 

It actually happened.

[snuffbox 0]

How is record-eclipsing profits losing money?

[Jingus 0]

Yes, the oil companies and the others like Haliburton which managed to profit off the war aren't hurting. But I think it's more a case of them jumping on the opportunity that came their way than any kind of master plan which involved dragging us into a prolonged armed conflict for no possible economic upside. The government spent so much on military expenditures that it's overall a big financial loss for America. Warfare does tend to have a negative effect on economies, y'know. People say "well Bush is from an oil family so all he cares about is oil", but that's nonsense, it completely ignores the much larger political picture. Bush certainly has his biases, some of them so extreme that I have to shake my head in amazement, but his opponents tend to characterize him as being legit retarded, which is not the case for anyone savvy enough to become president. If the Republicans wanted nothing more than to line corporate pockets, there are many other methods which would've been much easier than starting a war. I'm not saying that it's inconceivable that some of the people involved were thinking of paying back a campaign contribution or two, since that's the nature of politics and it likely played a role. But it's simplistic bull to say that we went to war just to get oil, since it would've been a hell of a lot easier to just buy more of it and spend much less than invading and occupying another country costs.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Warfare does tend to have a negative effect on economies, y'know.

 

Incorrect.

 

Also, *ahem*.

[NoCalMike 0]

Based on what I've read in Imperial Life in the Emerald City, the ideal goal with Iraq was not so much collecting oil, but rather setting up a secular free market that they could get American corporations to invest in. Iraq was supposed to a capitalist paradise (15% flat tax, little government involvement in the economy), but well we all see what happened there.

 

So in otherwords, the opposite philosophy of Post-WWII Germany. Conservatives out to prove their system is better?

[Jingus 0]

Incorrect.

What are you trying to say there? WWII didn't magically end the depression. It helped, with the government handing out phat deals to contractors and unemployment falling to damn near zero in order to cover the massive industrial effort. But the finances involved were a huge gamble, with the USA borrowing unprecedented sums of money and selling endless reissues of war bonds in order to make ends meet; if we hadn't so decisively won the conflict, we would've been up shit creek. A war can only possibly have a longterm positive effect after it's over, and then only on the winners; we had to rebuild the economies of Germany and Japan from the ground up with Allied money before they could stand on their own two feet again. Meanwhile, to further the comparison, it's clear we're neither ending nor winning the Iraq conflict any time soon, it's a money pit, which makes the theory that we're doing it to make money dubious at best.

 

Also, *ahem*.

Okay. Hadn't seen that one before. I could buy that as one of the motivations.

 

Also, don't miss this key point:

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

That runs directly contrary to the theories proposed here, that Bush was building a C. Montgomery Burns Sideways Drilling scenario in order to steal the entire oil output of Iraq and run away laughing, which is ludicrous and not what happened at all. Greenspan's saying that Bush thought Saddam might attack other countries in the region. (Which of course he had a track record of doing.) So even if Greenspan's completely right, although it changes the nature of the motivation from a humanitarian crusade to an economic one, it's still the same thing in practice that the government has been saying all along, that they thought Saddam was a danger to other people. The lie was just how much the administration cared about the people themselves.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Shorter Jingus:

 

Stop calling bullshit on my sweeping generalizations and straw man arguments!

[EricMM 0]

If the Republicans wanted nothing more than to line corporate pockets, there are many other methods which would've been much easier than starting a war.

There may be simpler ways, but the other ways would be more transparent. In other words, for years this was was basically unquestionable. Even now it's still a national security matter. Is it so hard to understand that Bush's good friends in the military industrial complex and the oil production groups egged Bush on through his previous hatred of Hussein and convinced him to convince America?

 

If you ask the right questions, you'll get the right answers, and for Bush, the right answer was "Iraq" and "2B dollars" and "six months"

[Jingus 0]

Shorter Jingus:

 

Stop calling bullshit on my sweeping generalizations and straw man arguments!

I just find it somewhat odd that there are multiple people jumping on me for saying the factually true statement that we never stole Iraq's oil, while against the dude who thought the government faked 9/11 the only backup I got was friggin' Czech of all people.

 

Is it so hard to understand that Bush's good friends in the military industrial complex and the oil production groups egged Bush on through his previous hatred of Hussein and convinced him to convince America?

I'm sure that played a factor, of course. But that's ignoring all of Bush's other good friends in every walk of life which wouldn't benefit from this war. I don't think that the oil companies and the arms manufacturers together are such a strong force that they can direct this country's policy regardless of what the 99% of the other people in the country want to do.

[Corkscrew_Senton 0]

I'm sure that played a factor, of course. But that's ignoring all of Bush's other good friends in every walk of life which wouldn't benefit from this war. I don't think that the oil companies and the arms manufacturers together are such a strong force that they can direct this country's policy regardless of what the 99% of the other people in the country want to do.

 

Everyone in the nation was being told they were in grave danger of being blown up by WMDs, for months. People were pretty scared of that happening, and these "other good friends" were probably among the overwhelming percentage of the population afraid of being nuked.

[Jingus 0]

And I've been saying right from the beginning that the false claims about WMDs were worse than useless, they really hurt us in the long run.

[Corkscrew_Senton 0]

And I've been saying right from the beginning that the false claims about WMDs were worse than useless, they really hurt us in the long run.

 

That's very true, particularly since the public wouldn't have been behind an invasion without the claims, thus Congress wouldn't have so happily punched the ticket to war, thus we wouldn't be there. So yeah, I agree they hurt in the long run.

[snuffbox 0]

They made John Boenher cry like a bitch in public.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Glad to see El Presidente's top priorities for his last year in office:

 

As President Bush begins his final year in office, the White House is aiming for one last major domestic legislative triumph: permanent expansion of government spy powers, including retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that assisted in warrantless surveillance.

 

In an impromptu briefing aboard Air Force One, as Bush returned to Washington from his Texas vacation yesterday, White House counselor Ed Gillespie told reporters that an administration-supported bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is Bush's top priority.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8010201493.html

 

I know, I know, it's a cliche, but fuck Bush.

[snuffbox 0]

Congress will probably pass it, too.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Average Presidential Approval Ratings, FDR through current

President # Polls Approve Disapprove Unsure Average Net Approval

Kennedy 40 70.8 16.6 12.7 54.2

Eisenhower 119 64.9 21.4 13.8 43.5

Bush I 134 62.1 27.2 10.7 34.9

FDR 97 62.4 31.5 6.2 30.9

Johnson 83 56.1 30.5 13.6 25.6

Clinton 838 56.7 36.3 7.0 20.4

Reagan 136 52.2 37.3 10.5 14.9

Nixon 96 48.0 37.8 14.1 10.2

Bush II 1289 51.5 41.9 6.1 9.6

Ford 36 46.5 36.9 16.7 9.6

Carter 91 46.7 38.4 15.0 8.3

Truman 65 42.0 43.2 14.7 -1.2

 

This didn't paste well, but this is a table that shows the average of all approval rating polls for all presidents since approval polling began. Oddly, according to this poll, Bush I is the third most popular president of the modern era, easily edging out FDR & Reagan.

 

If you want a better look at the table, go here.

[snuffbox 0]

Averaging out the approval ratings is probably the worst way to gauge a President. In the case of the Bushes, for examples, the averages will be badly swayed to the higher end by their one-time spikes at times of national crisis.

 

Looking at his second recession, on top of all else (internationally & domestically), it will be very hard for any intelligent observer to places Bush Jr. anywhere but the bottom five.

[Guest Cock Ring Warehouse]

Taking into account the exponential growth of the presidency since stinkers as recent as Warren Harding, Bush may have the bottom of the list locked up.

[NoCalMike 0]

I was watching Hannity & Colmes last night(i know, i know) and everyone was arguing about the economy, and Sean Hannity way out of left field tries to get in his usual pissy last word before they cut out for commercial break and yells out "Are you kiddng me the economy is doing GREAT"

 

If they go by things like GDP and "productivity" then that kind of skews it. Say I am working in a warehouse for a major retail big box store. Every year their productivity numbers rise, so I am going to have to work harder and push more product out, which makes the numbers at the top look better on a piece of paper, but how has the economic status for the guy pushing out more product on his assembly line improved? True, someone somewhere is definately benefitting when productivity rises, but it is not necessarily the people responsible for pushing the higher productivity through.

 

The economy is a tricky thing because the media often only goes by the numbers that show a bigger, better bottomline, which means in all honesty that the people at the top like CEOs are doing better because they are squeezing more work and productivity out of their workers, but at the same time these workers are falling behind inflation rates, have less take-home money, and the overall value of the dollar decreases.

 

So when asking yourself "Is the Economy doing well" I think it is equally important to ask "WHO is the Economy doing well for?"

 

[Guest Cock Ring Warehouse]

For whom.

 

It's okay, Mike. Sometimes I watch MSNBC! Why do we do this to ourselves?

[Nightwing 0]

Uh... No offense, Mike, but stay away from economics. o.0

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

As conservatives, we believe in a government that takes up a smaller share of the national income, that treats tax dollars with respect and restraint. And we believe in a government that keeps to its limits under the Constitution, never expanding beyond the consent of the governed...

 

The United States is a country that takes human rights seriously. We do not torture -- it's against our laws and against our values.

Dick Cheney, yesterday at CPAC

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, just retire already, Dick.

[snuffbox 0]

The saddest part about that is how many Americans still believe people like him (and the Republican Party almost entirely) are for anything but the largest government imaginable.

[BX 0]

we'd need Popick back in here to thoroughly explain a lot of this stuff.

 

No, we don't.

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

Uh... No offense, Mike, but stay away from economics. o.0

What was wrong with what he said?

[Nightwing 0]

Uh... No offense, Mike, but stay away from economics. o.0

What was wrong with what he said?

Mostly because the entire statement is sort of an ambiguous "What-If" using very simplified examples for something that's fairly complex. I understand his argument, and honestly agree that something like a GPI would be better, but his examples just made me roll my eyes. Yes, you can do that for a little while, but not for too long, let alone indefinitely without improving something like the workplace, wages, etc. Diminishing returns sort of guarantees that. It's not a good reason to put a lot of doubt on the numbers.

 

Overall, I suppose the entire post sort of struck me as a "Watch out for the fat cats!", and the evidence presented was "Meh" by my standards. I understand that Corporate America takes its cut before anyone else, but his little economic discussion left a lot to be desired. That explain much?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

This doesn't really belong here, but I thought this was amazing.

 

In a 1945 Gallup Poll, 28% called Franklin Roosevelt “the greatest person, living or dead, in world history,” compared with 15% for Jesus.

 

Also:

 

Back in 1999, the New York Post – hardly a dispassionate political source, of course, but stay with me – ran an online poll that asked, among other things, about the most evil people of the last millennium. The winner? Adolf Hitler, followed by Bill Clinton. Then, after Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and Josef Mengle, came Hillary Clinton.

 

http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/03/post_63.html

[snuffbox 0]

When will FDR get the credit he deserves for keeping capitalism afloat in the US?