Is Bush the Worst President of the Past 50 Years?Follow

For any interested, you'll probably be able to catch this, tomorrow, on most any NPR affiliate station.

I wanted to make a one word post:

Yes.


But I don't really know enough to judge. I first became politically aware in the 80s. I could probably recognise all the US president's names from the last 50 years if they were mentioned to me, but I haven't studied all that much American history. I can only list Bush Junior, Clinton, Bush Senior, Reagan, Nixon, Kennedy and Carter? off the top of my head.

I would also have to add the rider that John Howard was the most damaging Prime Minister of Australia for the last 50 years, in that he took us backwards socially and in human rights terms, much more than any other. As an economic manager he was ok, in the usual right wing way. IE, he made short term savings that will really bite us hard in the long term.

I don't really think Bush compares with Nixon for sheer dodginess, but he's pretty **** at making his country liking him.

You could say he is a shoe in for the worst president in the past 50 years.

Edited, Dec 16th 2008 10:15am by Nyu

Haven't you noticed the global ecconomic meltdown?

FTFY

Right. Because the captain of the Titanic is responsible for it sinking, not the poor engineering that caused it to fail.

The captain could have swerved to avoid the iceberg, but the Titanic was bound to sink eventually. The economy was the same way. The packaging and selling of CDOs and poisoned debt which caused the investment banks to fail was so far removed from the office of the President that he can't be blamed for it. I know it's easier for humans to place the blame for everything under the sun on to one person because it makes it easier to cope, but you and I know better, right?

Correct. And it wasn't engineering that caused Titanic to sink so bad example. It could and should have been avoided, during the eight years of his predidency Bush's actions and inactions have direct controbuted to the ecconomic crisis.

At the end of the day, the office he holds is directly responcible for the safe management of the US ecconomy, if it fails, it's down to the Whitehouse, you can delegate authority but not responcibility, that is a basic fundemental of management.

Someone said :



Someone else said :



Dubya said :

George W. Bush, Fox News Sunday, Feb10, 2008


The man (sic) was, is, and will remain a complete moran.

The results of his previous endevours should have precluded him from being trusted with taking out the garbage. How he was allowed to, firstly, become POTUS, and then remain in the position for not one, but two terms is completely beyond comprehension.

Causes and Effects of the Sinking of the Titanic

Cliffs notes: the steel and rivets became brittle in the frigid water and thus broke easily when struck by the iceberg. Also, the poor design of the watertight compartments in the hull allowed water to seep into the ship faster than it should have, greatly limiting the chance of outside rescue.

Back on topic - how can you prove that Bush is responsible for the recession? I really can't see how he is personally responsible for the cocktail of causes that led to where we are now. Even if you blame "deregulation" that would be Congress's fault, not his.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Bush apologetic. I still think he's in the top 3 worst presidents of the last 50 years, along with Nixon and Carter. But to blame him for everything that is wrong with the economy is ludicrous.

Edit - Nobby made his post while I was typing this, but I could basically quote his post and give it a QFT.

Edited, Dec 16th 2008 6:00pm by Makaro

He may be a moron, but I gotta hand it to him, his reflexes are still sharp.

Seems the coke only damaged the language processing centers of his brain, not the motor cortex.

LOLDERAIL

Maybe my (limited) knowledge of the Titanic is a bit off, but I thought that they DID see the iceberg moments before impact and did try to swerve and avoid it, and in the process ended up tearing a gash on the side of the ship, instead of hitting the iceberg head-on.

I remember reading theories that had the ship struck the iceberg head-on, it would still caused heavy damage but possibly not enough to cause the ship to sink. The side gash ended up causing so many compartments to flood that the sinking was inevitable.

Upon looking at lolwiki, it seems to support this:



But yeaaaaah. Even if attempting to dodge the iceberg was the final mistake in the end that doomed the ship, it's hard to call them on it. That would probably be the same reaction of most people caught in the same situation with the same amount of time to react to it.

It's tough when they give you a non-invincible ship, label it as invincible, and send it into a scenario where nature is out to prove how NOT invincible it is. The disaster was great, but I think it really drove the message home to mankind about what can happen when you get too complacent.

That might be because Bush combines the worst features of Nixon (being a squirrely *******) and Ford (being an incompetent).