A Quick Review Of The 43rd President Of The United States

Those of you reading my first blog may be thinking that I'm somewhere to the left of Keith Olberman. That's simply not the case. In some respects I am more in agreement with the folks that ride the Elephant, rather than the Jackass (who thinks of these symbols is mystifying).

George W. Bush has always caused problems for me. I can't say one bad thing about his character. I can sit here and question his judgement, his leadership skills and his complete inability to be coherent for more than 5 minutes at a time, but I've never personally hated the guy (I can reserve THAT for his Darth-Vader Vice President).

I guess I will carve up the man's legacy into short digestible portions both for my sake and for the sake of any readers out there that don't have all day.

If we start with his judgement I'm of the opinion this is a guy who was in WAY over his head. And that isn't something I honestly expected when his dad delivered the Presidency to him, courtesy of his pals and appointees on the Supreme Court. I remember thinking at the time that although he appeared inept, he would "grow" into the presidency, much like Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy did back in the 50s and 60s.

I haven't really seen one depiction of Mr. Bush as a  particularly dedicated public servant. Although he was elected as governor of Texas, his term didn't seem to be anything special.  He did however have a lot of failed business and scholastic attempts in his past and pretty much acted like any other guy who had too much money, too much privilege and too much free time on his hands. A good contrast would be to compare him to his brother Jeb, who served as governor of Florida and certainly carried himself much better than the President did.

Much has been written about how poorly he reacted to the news of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. You know maybe he DID freeze a bit in the headlights but I don't know if I'd want a George Steinbrenner-type running the show at such a critical point in history either. Successful leadership means you absorb whatever information you're being given, giving yourself some time to understand what's happened and what needs to be done, then clearly communicating a preliminary action plan. I really don't have any issue with the way he handled this national nightmare - other than why we needed to given that Baboon Bin Laden a 3-month headstart before the bombs started to rain down around him and his network of caves.

The Iraq war is another issue entirely. When is the United states government going to stop the bullshit about caring about people's "freedoms" ? Why would the United States give a shit about an Iraqi's "freedom" in 2002 - that country had that demon in power for decades...all of the sudden Captain America is going to swoop in, find those WMDs and "free" the Iraqis from their despotic leader? Yeah right. As far as I know we still haven't found a damn thing - not even documentation. This whole thing was a farce and it's cost Iraqi civilians tens (or hundreds) of thousands of lives. I lay most of this at Cheney and Rumsfeld's doors but the man in the Oval Office must take ultimate responsibility. the body count of American service people is just under 4,500  that doesn't include the "official" count of over 32,000 wounded. I'd like to see the Bush supporters AFTER one of their sons or daughters ends up dead over this...let's see how tasty Big George appears to them. There are those who are convinced that based on their intentional deceit of the American public - many members of the Bush administration should be tried for war crimes or even treason - I'm only slightly less convinced.

The economic consequences of fighting two wars at once added almost 7 Trillion Dollars to the national debt. The debt now stands at a STAGGERING 14 Trillion Dollars...An insane amount of debt that no one on earth has even begun to try and address. Looking at it another way - the 309 Million people in this country EACH owe almost $50,000....and yes this is a totally legitimate way of looking at it since the government of this country will obviously need to get that money from US.

My issue with the Republican Party has always been their disregard for the middle and lower classes of people in this country. No one can convince me they give a shit. This party wasn't always like it is now. I specifically remember Richard Nixon pushing through civil rights legislation. plus (from wiki) sweeping environmental reforms, including the Clean Air Act and creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency; the launch of the War on Cancer and War on Drugs; reforms empowering women, including Title IX; and the desegregation of schools in the deep South.  You just could not imagine any Republican Party member today even bothering with any of these issues - W. included.

The housing/economic collapse in 2008 was NOT started by George W. Bush, although his actions during his two terms as president certainly crippled our ability to remedy it. The Clinton administration was just as culpable. It's one thing to lower standards so that more people could own their own homes. It's quite another to  eliminate any controls whatsoever. I remember when we bought our first house in 1986 - no bank would lend you anything unless you could come up with 20% of the purchase price. By 2007 homes were being purchased with 100% financing - even closing costs were financed!! Did no one (ESPECIALLY the President) not see we were heading toward a nightmare? The GAO knew the collapse was coming years before - thousands of adjustable mortgages were going to be converted to higher-cost fixed mortgages - and we've all seen (and felt) the results. Home prices are still down a third from the 2007 highs - in many cases they are still down by 50%

This has gotten a little more long-winded than I had intended. I want to close this by inviting dissenting views. As before - All I ask is that any replies stay on point. I don't want to hear criticisms of Clinton or Obama - They are not germane to this topic - What I would LOVE to read is an intelligent defense or supporting view of our 43rd President.  Thanks!