Now that the inauguration of President elect Obama is so close, people are looking back on President George W. Bush's term in office. Most people believe that He didn't do that good of a job as president.
The first sentence in this article on the CNN website is that "President Bush admitted mistakes but defended his accomplishments in the final White House news conference of his presidency Monday." a fair representation of this article. Most people in general always look of only the bad when thinking about the person.
Bush seems to realize that the war in Iraq had it's flaws, not fully willing to call them mistakes but what person in power would willingly do that.
He mentioned his failure in social security as one of his failures as well. He went into the office when there was economic hardship (Nothing to what it is now,) so legislation on cutting taxes seems in my mind unreasonable. Though he tried.
But there is a flip side to this coin. During times of crisis such as Hurricane Katrina the Bush Administration went quickly to those effected by the crisis.
There is no doubt in my mind that President Bush was not the best President of the United States but he was not the worst in my opinion.
With the Benefit of Hindsight, what do you think about the Bush administration?
Monday, January 12, 2009
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3 comments:
First of all, I am not sure how Katrina can be considered a Bush success. Thousands were left stranded without aid for days as the director of FEMA idled. Never mind that he was an ill-qualified appointee who had no idea what he was doing.
Though there have been many failures I could go on and on about, one that I find interesting is that Bush and his supporters have cited that fact that we have been safe from terrorism since 9/11. True, but 9/11 did happen on his watch. While I strongly supported his initial response (Afghanistan), and there is a good chance 9/11 could not have been prevented, there were warnings Bush nonetheless ignored. Since then, he has made us less safe by enraging much of the world over American policies, bungling the War in Iraq and the one against al Qaeda. Finally, while homeland security has improved, there are still many ways to kill many people (ports, airport cargo, private planes, rail lines, water supplies, etc.) that have been all but ignored.
My favorite part of the press conference was when bush used the term "misunderestimated." Apparently, he repeated this “bushism,” having mistakenly used it in an early press conference. Personally, I think that the term “misunderestimated” sums up how I feel about Bush. Just when I think I have underestimated his policies and abilities it turns out that I was in fact misunderestimating them, as I was actually overestimating them. I am really looking forward to having Obama as president, as I am prety sure I have not underestimated him at all.
Well, i think Bush was just very unlucky. Not many presidents had to face the number of national crises that he had to... from Katrina, 9/11, Iraq, etcetcetc.
But that said, it is pretty clear that he made many decisions and failed to act upon information that could possibly have prevented some of these catastrophes. Had we never experienced these disasters, there may have been a decent-ish chance that Bush would have left office with an image at least somewhat similar to the man he was when he first ran for election.
Comparing Bush when he defended himself during that recent press conference (saw it on the news, not really sure when it was) to his past self (as we saw in that documentary...with the reporter... my memory isn't very great...).
It feels like he has aged. Literally i guess, but maybe even in a more spiritual sense. With so many people out there against him, I'm not really surprised. Hmm. I think I started rambling incoherently the moment I said "spiritually". Well. Whatever. Might as well go on a tangent and quickly point out that, in my opinion, Hilary and McCain both look much much older these days than they did before the election. But that's stress for you.
We may judge him now, but most presidents do leave office with lower ratings ( much lower, in Bush's case)... Give it a few years and we'll probably have a better view of his presidency's long term effects. Maybe some miraculous turn of events will make him remembered as a great president, though I doubt it...
Not the best. Not the worst.
Somewhere from a D+ to a B-...
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