George Bush's legacy

"The Bush legacy will not be peace in the Middle East nor an end to conflict in Iraq, but it could be a political earthquake among voters so dismayed by the mess he has made of America's foreign policy and fearful of economic recession that they are deserting his party in droves. " Leonard Doyle in New Hampshire and Andrew Buncombe in Islamabad
Monday, 7 January 2008

www.independent.co.uk/

So, what is George Bush's legacy?

His legacy, what he leaves behind, will be the fact that he ran the most secretive and uncooperative Presidency this country has ever seen. While doing so he squandered our wealth, took us into a war that spent billions of dollars and got thousands of people killed, and drove the economy down while allowing the oil industry and certain wealthy people to benefit beyond their wildest expectations. His legacy will be the world wild distrust of America, and growing a gap between the haves and the have nots that will never be bridged.

He will go down in history as perhaps the most ineffectual CIC we've ever had.

Bush’s Legacy:

His questionable election to office.
Lowest IQ of any president
Took a surplus and turned it into the worst deficit this country ever had.
Turned a nation dedicated to defense into an aggressor nation.
Sacrificed our service men and women needlessly.
Told the most lies.
Destroyed our prestige and credibility as a nation.
Our most unpresidential President

In summary: He took a strong country and turned it into a debtor nation. He took a country of prestige to one now lacking in credibility. He placed the status of America as a super power in jeopardy.

Does anyone think the damage can be undone?

I think you all read too many newspapers and watch too much television

Are you trying to tell us to lighten up with the gloom and doom, George?

Do you like George, George, for any specific reasons, or simply because he has the same name as you?

Hi Don, I've never met the guy and don't know much about him. However I understand the media and who runs it and know a little about their agendas.

So do most of us, my friend.

It seems there are agendas everywhere you turn. Some are obvious and some are not. It probably depends on how you perceive things and whether they are immediate attention grabbers. Many young people have not been around long enough to have any wisdom about it, and yet, they vote.

Zada,

Agreed that many young people have not been around and may not have the wisdom of their elders. Yet they are ones on the front line and they are ones who will be paying for the debt left behind. I have known many people in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's, quote conservative talk radio announcers as if they were speaking the only truth.

It's entertainment, not fact, spun to garnish ratings. In candid interviews when asked about certain things they have said on radio, these conservative talk show people take that back position of saying, "It's entertainment"

Yeah, George, I agree media spin does pay a major role in our opinions, that is why I read news from domestic, foriegn, conservative and liberal sources and the make up my own mind.

Lynn

Some people make an attempt to keep themselves informed on current events and on the issues that might play a part in keeping our quality of life near where we want it. We do not take on blind faith very much of anything that we hear, read, or see in the media, and many of us try to find as much information behind the stories as possible.

It has been a very long time since I fully believed what I saw on television news, as I have enough sense to know that most political stories are slanted to the benefit of the network that I am watching at the time.

To make this statement:

"However I understand the media and who runs it and know a little about their agendas."

Implies that none of the others posting here have a clue about the media, and that is just a bit offensive. I think for the most part we have a well informed group of people posting here, and I'm reasonably sure that we can make up our minds about most things.

Some see things one way, some another, and we form our opinions. I believe that we all have a bit of truth as well as a bit of falsehood in those opinions, and that the real truth lies somewhere in the middle.

For instance. There are those who like George W. Bush, and those who don't. There are those who favor giving more and more to the wealthy thinking that it will somehow trickle down to the economy, and those who believe that it only trickles down to their bank accounts.

All of the stories about men drinking and farm animals baking will not change the fact that there is a tremendous gap between the most wealthy and the working men and women, and that most of our politicians do the most for those who paid for them to be elected.

The office of the President is for rent every four years, and the people who make the payments get taken care of first.

The media reports whatever side they are told to report.

By the way, I fully support the right for everyone to post their opinion, and I know that mine carries no more weight than anyone elses.

I don't get angry over a discussion on a message board because there is just no reason for it.

We can be friends even if we don't agree, and so long as all of us know that disagreement is a necessary ingredient in finding as much of the truth as possible, we will all be fine.

I've written a 271 page book that documents my over 8 years and thousands of pages of research. I'm not going to rewrite it here.

My main concern here Don is that your comments are basically estranging the majority of our American visitors because, after all, President Bush is your President, elected by your fellow countrymen to office, which puts you in a minority. Everyone is welcome here, even President Bush supporters, of which I am one even though I'm Scottish.

Regards

You missed one George -- it is the opening quote to the first chapter of The Power of Persuasion:

I know I keep mentioning by book and it fails to show up. I apologise for this. I am on the final edit and I have promised myself that, this time, it will be final. I only hope I can stick to it!

~Shelagh

Shelagh, my feelings tell me that my dollar buys much less than it did a few years ago. I have formed an opinion that this is true. When I use my intellect to corroborate that this is true and that my dollar does indeed buy much less than it did a few years ago, I would say my feelings reached a pretty accurate conclusion.

George, not being familiar with either your research or your book, I have no idea what either is about. I do know, however, that anyone can use research, no matter how long it takes or the pages they go through, to prove anything they wish to prove.

To m, then, your opinion is just that, your opinion. As such it is worth pretty much exactly what everyone else’s is.

I'm quite sure you think the way you see everything is the only one true way, but I doubt that many of us would agree.

I have no doubt that your 8 years of research has given you a wealth of information, which you have used to form your opinions, and I have to respect that. I think that makes you very well informed, but it doesn’t mean that the opinions you have formed are necessarily correct. Only that from what you have learned you believe them to be correct.

I’m quite sure that had a different person performed exactly the same 8 years of research that you did, they may not have reached the same conclusions. Surely you know that?

I am not a supporter of George W. Bush, I didn't vote for him either time, and I am one of those who think he was not legally elected at all. The Electoral College, with the backing of the Supreme Court, awarded the election to Bush. If you will do a bit more research you’ll find that in 2000 Al Gore got the majority of the popular vote, so I’m not in the minority at all.

It matters not how many quotes you post, nor whether I believe them or not. What matters is the perception each of us has about our own quality of life under any given administration. I am not alone in thinking that Bush has hurt that quality of life, and in wanting to see a change.

There are those who see thousands of jobs leaving the country and don't believe the administration when they tell us it's a good thing. We hear the administration saying that it has created thousands of replacement jobs, and yet when we actually stop and look, we find that those jobs are, for the most part, low paying service jobs and we know we are being lied to.

We don’t believe the administration when they say that allowing millions of illegal immigrants to cross our borders is a good thing, or that their “guest worker” program is anything but amnesty. We don’t believe them when they say these illegal immigrants are doing jobs “American’s won’t do” because those jobs have gotten done ever since this country was formed, and would still be done without the illegal immigrants doing them. The only thing is that the American laborers would want a fair wage for their labor, and the large corporations who now own the majority of the farms don’t want to pay that. They have seen their profits go through the roof because of this cheap labor, and yet American’s are seeing the price of produce go up every year. If they aren’t paying for American labor, and they keep raising prices, exactly where do you think the money is going?

We don’t believe we should have gone to Iraq, and we don’t think we should stay there. We don’t think there were WMD in Iraq or a delivery system in place. We know that there are no leading Democrats who are calling for us to surrender in Iraq, but we still hear the Republicans saying that at every opportunity. We know that many large corporations are profiting tremendously from the war, and we don’t believe a lot of our politicians when they say this isn’t true.

The fact is, that we don’t believe the media when they tell us these things are so either.

I could go on and on with this, but quite simply it doesn’t make any difference. Our country has been taken away from the people and sold to the highest bidder, and we’re too far down that road to turn back.

I don't want to argue this point. I don't want to take part in a useless discussion of the many vastly different viewpoints on the merits of George W. Bush. To many of these discussions lead to harsh words and feelings, and I just don't have the time for all of the negativity. I will then leave all of you to your own very well formed opinions, and I will remain with mine. Again, I doubt that any of us are all right or all wrong, but I know that many don't feel that way.

I'll just drift away into another board where opinions about politics is not discussed.

I appreciate that everyone has their own viewpoint, I'm glad we have the freedom to disagree with each other, and believe me when I say that I have nothing but respect for each of you.

Please don't drift away Don. If George had not taken an opposing viewpoint, we would have been denied the great post you just made. I started this thread to read opposing views in the hope that someone would take the time and effort to write the kind of explanation you just did.

If you stick around, we will learn a great deal from you and, hopefully, you might find information here that will be helpful to you.

~Shelagh

Shelegh, my love, there is information everywhere if one keeps an open mind.

I don't intend to get into a political discussion that may end with people saying things they shouldn't and resulting in feelings being hurt.

This is a good board, but I've seen many good boards go downhill quickly when the discussion gets too heated. Too many people take the comments personally, and usually nothing good comes from it.

We all have our own opinions, and to me one is as valuable as another. I'm never completely right, even though most of the time I think I am, and I'd like to just leave it at that.

I'm not going anywhere, other than into the other room where my laptop is calling my name. Seems it thinks I need to be working on my latest novel.

Don,
I just re-read what you wrote and find myself agreeing with most of what you said.
I agree that everyone has an opinion and whatever those opinions are should not be forced on anyone else. If one states their case they may find that others may agree or disagree.

Living outside the United States makes me especially aware of how others react to my views. If I as an American criticize the actions of the government or their representatives, it is not appreciated. The same is true of how Americans feel about someone not American making statements about their government. Even if what is said is true, it is still resented especially if it is negative. In the case where the statement is positive but an opposing view, it is resented.
That's just the way it is.

Abe, I fully understand that.

I think George is a very intelligent man, and I honestly believe we'd like each other if we took the time to get to know one another. I suspect he is a very good writer, and I would be very interested in reading the work he was talking about here.

It seems I don't agree with him on some topics, but that is only natural. So long as some of us don't agree, we can be sure that more than one side of an issue will be brought up.

I am not against fighting wars. I served in the US Air Force in the 60's when there was another war going on, and there has been a Harpe in every war this country has ever had. Even if my GGGGGF did fight as a Tory at King's Mountain in the Revolutionary War, he was still very much in it. I lost a brother, an uncle, and a cousin in WWII, and I have my brother's Purple Heart hanging on the wall among my photos.

I wrote a letter that was published in support of us going into Iraq a few years ago, because I believed as others did that we were being told the truth about the WMD and the delivery system. I was concerned that we were deciding not to go after the true terrorists that struck us on 9-11, but I actually thought this might be the correct course of action. When I learned, as did everyone else, that Bush has acted on bad intel I became more and more convinced that if he were not being forthright about that, then he was probably not telling us the truth about very much of anything else. The final straw for me was when he gave billions of tax dollars to the wealthiest people in the country, who didn't need it at all, and sent the working men and women enough crumbs to make us think we were getting something.

I don't want an all out move out of Iraq. But we train our guys in a matter of months to go over there and fight, and I think the Iraqi's have had plenty of time to train their own. I think they should take the same basic training we take, and for every Iraqi soldier that finishes the training, send one of our guys home.

So, I'm not against war, Abe, just this war, because we not fighting it for the reasons we were given.

I don't think the world is ready for my views on anything. However . . .

Don't know about the world, George, but I am. I think we'd see eye to eye on many things, and I never let political differences enter into a friendship.

I think we see eye to eye on more than you realise Don.

The couple who are the Godparents of our two youngest children (who are grown now) are very dyed in the wool staunch Bush Republicans. We have been best of friends for about 40 years, and we occasionally have the old political discussion. We agree on about 90 percent of everything else, but just have no common ground in politics. But, we have never had a cross word, and we've been through a lot of good times and bad times together.

I think, George, that you are right, and that we do have much in common. And I think that's good. At least we'll get both sides of an issue into the open, won't we?

The Bush legacy is not going to be publish the next day after he leaves office , nor the year after , all that is being printed now are peoples opinions about his legacy , and How insulting him on his intelligent will get you published in the next New York Times best seller.
Please the truth about his legacy will be historians to find and print out after Bush and many of his critics are dead and buried, I found out that they were many critics of FDR saying how foolish he was to send young men to fight in Europe’s world war.

Everyone has there opinion and someday someone will print out this BB and say whoa , This Bush guy was not well like and yet he was reelected again. No matter what the out come the bottom line is he is not running for office next year and yet people believe he is going to proclaim himself Emperor of America, because they heard it on there radio station.

I love it when I ask my friends who hate Bush , if I asked them If Bush was a Democrat President and did the same thing would it get as much scrutiny now? And I get otter silence.

Of course they would point out that a Democrat President would not do that , and I would give the examples of President Clinton bombing another Country and killing innocents for no reason I’E Bosnia.

No matter the out come of the legacy of any president , you will have to wait for that one person who would study history book after history book , all newspapers and recordings and also archives from government buildings to know what really the legacy of that President was, We are only part of the history , a small one sentence of a minority that hated Bush or admire him.