US Presidents

[Balta1701]

Yeah but the effects of 9/11 (credit crisis, the wars, domestic liberties) were more than enough to overwhelm patriotism-induced ratings.

None of the 3 things you cite were 100% guaranteed responses to 9/11, since you made the word "War" plural.

[lostfan]

None of the 3 things you cite were 100% guaranteed responses to 9/11, since you made the word "War" plural.

"War" was pretty much a guarantee. "Wars" plural didn't have to be. That was a choice. And a very, very bad one.

[DukeNukeEm]

9/11 caused the credit crisis? That's interesting, haven't seen that before.

Money was made so 'cheap' because there were so many fears after 9/11 that the attacks would cripple us. Hence you get all these homes where people pour all their equity when they had no business having those homes to begin with. I'm definitely not the first person to say this.

 

And I think you are missing that "the wars" are, again, political gold, AT FIRST. Wartime Presidents are bulletproof usually. Iraq didn't become an albatross until the majority of the nation figured out it wasn't a cake walk, which unfortunately just started happening right before the 2004 election.

We were attacked and we responded with military action against those we deemed responsible. The Bush Administration probably got it wrong on the responsibility part and their biggest justification for Iraq turned out to be a lie, but not reacting with any public display of military force would've looked very week.

Edited September 22, 2009 by DukeNukeEm

[DukeNukeEm]

Bush did a lot of s*** wrong and was a bad president, dont get me wrong. But to call him worse than Reagan or Carter is a little overboard.

Edited September 22, 2009 by DukeNukeEm

[GoSox05]

He was pre-1976, but I think Ford was a solid president. He came in at a tough time and really didn't do anything too stupid.

 

The worst of the bunch is Reagan. See Central America.

[Balta1701]

He was pre-1976, but I think Ford was a solid president. He came in at a tough time and really didn't do anything too stupid.

And yet, which President gets remembered as a bumbling fool for falling down the air force 1 stairs?

[Texsox]

And yet, which President gets remembered as a bumbling fool for falling down the air force 1 stairs?

 

President Chevy Chase

[GoSox05]

And yet, which President gets remembered as a bumbling fool for falling down the air force 1 stairs?

 

 

Ford must have hated Chevy Chase.

[bmags]

Bush did a lot of s*** wrong and was a bad president, dont get me wrong. But to call him worse than Reagan or Carter is a little overboard.

 

Not really.

I mean...policy wise both Carter and Reagan did some good things (tax reform, civil service reform)

 

I literally can't think of a policy that Bush put forth that was wise.

[CanOfCorn]

But...you are the company you keep...and as far as personnel around him I can't think of a worst top to bottom administration in my lifetime.

 

Even the ones that seemed promising (Cheney) turned f'n crazy after 9/11.

 

I haven't voted because I don't really know enough to compare all of them...but I'd have to agree with this point. Clinton surrounded himself with people he respected, not necessarily agreed with.

 

It's a little too early to say yay or nay on Obama. But I will say that no one left the office with a system in shambles more than Dubya. I'm not saying he's the cause, but I can't think of anything he fixed.

[DukeNukeEm]

Not really.

I mean...policy wise both Carter and Reagan did some good things (tax reform, civil service reform)

 

I literally can't think of a policy that Bush put forth that was wise.

1) The tax cuts. Hindsight 20/20 these were pretty stupid due to the price of the wars, but when a Republican is handed a budget surplus he lowers taxes. He'd be a bad president NOT to have passed those 2 pieces of legislation.

 

2) He kept the country safe. His methods were questionable but the results are fairly clear.

[kapkomet]

1) The tax cuts. Hindsight 20/20 these were pretty stupid due to the price of the wars, but when a Republican is handed a budget surplus he lowers taxes. He'd be a bad president NOT to have passed those 2 pieces of legislation.

 

2) He kept the country safe. His methods were questionable but the results are fairly clear.

I gotta say I might disagree with some of your premises and conclusions here, but thanks for looking at this somewhat objectively. I think you have had some very good thoughts in this thread.

 

[lostfan]

I said this before in the Dem thread, but on substance Obama's CT policies aren't much different from Bush's. To believe this you would have to think Bush was wrong on everything and Obama came through like some holy crusader to reverse everything. In reality a lot of these things are cookie-cutter.

[kapkomet]

I said this before in the Dem thread, but on substance Obama's CT policies aren't much different from Bush's. To believe this you would have to think Bush was wrong on everything and Obama came through like some holy crusader to reverse everything. In reality a lot of these things are cookie-cutter.

It's because CT policies can't be that much different if you want to be effective. However, the soundbytes phenomenon has created a situation that he has to sound all left-wing "we won't do what BushCo did" or he gets his balls hung.

 

[lostfan]

It's because CT policies can't be that much different if you want to be effective. However, the soundbytes phenomenon has created a situation that he has to sound all left-wing "we won't do what BushCo did" or he gets his balls hung.

Or that our intelligence services are all staffed by Jack Bauer clones, etc.

[kapkomet]

Or that our intelligence services are all staffed by Jack Bauer clones, etc.

And the reality of that is not very high, despite what the libs want to paint.

[bmags]

I said this before in the Dem thread, but on substance Obama's CT policies aren't much different from Bush's. To believe this you would have to think Bush was wrong on everything and Obama came through like some holy crusader to reverse everything. In reality a lot of these things are cookie-cutter.

 

So when I say policies I meant legislative...

 

but even so, Bush's use of Guantanimo killed us with support from abroad when we needed support from abroad to share the costs of 2 wars.

 

And this kept us safe memo. I just don't buy it. You may think this is bunk logic, but by going into Iraq I believe we emboldened Iran as well as put 4,000 Americans in caskets. If "us" is Americans, no, I think his misguided quests in the attempts to keep us safe put many of "us" to death.

 

I just, no, lets be objective here. The president is responsible for things. And Bush was the commander-in-chief. From what we now know, they knew this intelligence from Iraq was highly questionable, PUSHED for our intelligence agencies to find bunk links, and then invaded a country with next to no plan on what the eff to do with it after we were there. The articles on the corruptness of some of the people that profited in the rebuilding (building halfassed schools, painting old automobiles and charging the gov't as if they were new) and the use of Blackwater which, may, have committed a massacre on the people we were trying to save, but at the very least were very questionable in their methods.

 

Add on TOP of that Abu Ghraib, which recently we found out was not just a couple bad apples, but more influenced from the top than we were lead to believe.

 

Yes, 9/11 happened. But the above were things he could control. He didn't. He could've controlled hiring a head for FEMA who had a clue about emergency situations. He didn't. ANd it lead to people dying. He controlled going into Iraq, and it lead to thousands of Americans dying, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Iraqis dying.

 

And through the whole of this, he didn't do a thing domestically besides cut taxes while he spent billions out of the allotted budget.

 

We are talking about someone who was BAD, B-A-D at his job.

[lostfan]

And the reality of that is not very high, despite what the libs want to paint.

(generalization warning) Liberals tend to act like the intelligence community has a bunch of rogues in it that are allowed to do whatever they want like in the movies and that Bush authorized it. Conservatives also think this is true to some extent, but they think it's all good and that all you have to do to get a terrorist to talk is to treat him like s***, and that by disallowing this to happen that national security is being compromised.

[southsider2k5]

Or that our intelligence services are all staffed by Jack Bauer clones, etc.

 

Have you read this before? It makes it sound like we were the biggest idiots on the planet in our intelligence agencies during the cold war.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-CIA-J...o/dp/0761525629

[lostfan]

Have you read this before? It makes it sound like we were the biggest idiots on the planet in our intelligence agencies during the cold war.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-CIA-J...o/dp/0761525629

I haven't read that book but I've read a couple similar ones. If it makes you feel any better the KGB f***ed up a lot too. They would do stuff like select a target for assassination, then go hire an assassin and not properly vet him, only to have the guy get cold feet and confess to the target what he was supposed to be doing. Then shrug that off, and have the exact same thing happen on the very next mission.

[WilliamTell]

I think it's too early to vote for W Bush or Obama, but I knew W Bush wouldn't get any votes, so I voted for him. As a Republican, I didn't mind Clinton at all so props to him.

[southsider2k5]

I haven't read that book but I've read a couple similar ones. If it makes you feel any better the KGB f***ed up a lot too. They would do stuff like select a target for assassination, then go hire an assassin and not properly vet him, only to have the guy get cold feet and confess to the target what he was supposed to be doing. Then shrug that off, and have the exact same thing happen on the very next mission.

 

That's good to know. I haven't read on the CIA before, but that book did have the tone as a bitter dude who got fired.

[bmags]

This story halfway sucks because I don't remember the names...

 

Anyway i had this teacher Stu loory who used to do CNN world report in Moscow, he said you'd hear a lot of stories never reported because this and that.

 

one was this german technician who knew would clean out the german embassy of the KGB spy s***...and rig it against them but I'm not exactly sure how. it was something as simple as shocking on the other end other transmissions I don't remember.

 

Anyways the guy wanders out of the embassy and into a church. A kgb assassin blows a poison dart into his dick. Not lethal, he manages to get to the embassy, where the US arranged for a helicopter to lift him out of there.

 

How bout that, poison dart to the junk.

[lostfan]

That's good to know. I haven't read on the CIA before, but that book did have the tone as a bitter dude who got fired.

It looks like a couple of the negative reviews were just America fanboys (and the positive ones had some people that just like to read about America f***ing up) but there are a lot of bad reviews and they go after the author really hard on the merits. It looks like he isn't too big on fact-checking. Just based on that I wouldn't waste my time reading it.

 

There were periods where the CIA really was clown shoes but you really have to get a historian to tell the story for you, someone who doesn't get into politics.

This book is much better:

http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Eyes-Only...9040&sr=8-2 (he is talking about Bush 41)

 

John Prados is another good author but he is really, really boring.

[lostfan]

Right now I'm reading Leaderless Jihad by Marc Sageman, for my last class. Awesome book.