137 Comments

1. vivo:

Will Bush-bashing End?

NO

Nov 30, 2008 - 3:25 am 2. vb:

I read the Fulford piece and found a myth that goes uncontradicted in the public forum: that Bush’s inept diplomacy damaged our standing in the world. I live in Germany. I remember a phone call from a friend right after the election (and before the recounts and court cases) that was almost like a condolence message. I hadn’t been a Bush supporter, but I tried to assure her that a Bush presidency wouldn’t mean the end of the world. She wasn’t quite convinced. You see, she was responding to the conventional German wisdom transmitted through the media.

That wisdom says that Texans are some sort of primitive beings. They won’t give up the death penalty, and George Bush had allowed executions to continue in Texas. (Every execution in the US is duly noted somewhere by German media–executions in China not so much.) That wisdom also makes a fuzzy comparison between American conservatism and National socialism. Again, it is primitive, retrograde thinking that not only questions the superior European socialist progress, but also may be a first step on the slippery slope to a 1930s repeat. After all, Reagan, another Republican, wanted the Pershings in Germany. Few recall that Helmut Schmidt wanted Carter to respond forcefully to Soviet missile deployment.

That was the image of George Bush even before the inauguration. He then committed the mortal sin of not fighting the Senate over Kyoto. Democrat senators who opposed it were forgotten, and Bush took the entire brunt of environmentalist hatred. His second failure was in not pursuing The Peace Process. Clinton’s failed efforts were reported, but Bush was resented for refusing to bang his head against that same wall. Naturally, this figured largely into the post 9/11 analyses.

Bush is obviously not a great orator. He was obviously blunt in his diplomatic dealings post 9/11, but how could one be otherwise when so many stuck their heads in the sands muttering things about Palestine and root causes. On November 20, just six days before Mumbai, Der Zeit’s front page article bore the headline, “Das Ende von 9/11: Sieben Jahre nach den Anschlagen: Der Zeit der Hysterie is endlich vorbei.” I don’t know how one can practice successful diplomacy when your counterparts live in Fantasyland.

Nov 30, 2008 - 3:28 am 3. SAF:

Obama is the only one one who could stop it and he won’t for this one reason: He needs a scape goat for any policy initiative of his that fails. This way he can blame it on Bush.

Nov 30, 2008 - 5:09 am 4. misanthropicus:

Re #11/vivo: “Will Bush-bashing End? NO.”

Vivo: the Soetero-mocking & ridiculing will soon and powerfully replace the Bush-bashing.
By the way, did you hear that Donald Rumsfeld is considering Soetero’s offer for a White House special adviser? It is quite remarkable the team Soetero’s put together – a conservative’s dream.

Nov 30, 2008 - 5:25 am 5. susan:

just by reading vivo (morto by brain) comments you realize that the idiots of this world are so many that bush will be vilified even after his death.

People like vivo are such a waste of space that they have to do something in their poor lives.

Nov 30, 2008 - 5:48 am 6. Kevin:

Bush-bashing will only fall from acceptable behavior when History comes by to vindicate him. History though, isn’t a very popular topic with non-republicans; History shows them to be racist fools at the very least.

Sure, there will be a few die hard’s who continue on with it past the point of relevance. Even if their idols turn out to do the same things as Bush, their worship and condemnation will never change.

Nov 30, 2008 - 6:12 am 7. Gina:

No, it will not stop. Bush will be the convenient scapegoat for every Obama mistake.

Most of what happened to Bush had to do with the constant villifying, bashing and ridiculing done to this president by the press and twisted views of pundits and so-called comedianes with a political agenda. He became something to be made fun of. IMO that is what hurt us most in the world. If Americans made fun of their president, posing him as a stupid buffoon why would the rest of the world not do so? How could they trust him?

It is a a sad state in this nation when you punish a President or anyone for that matter for having old fashion, conservative values and a code of honor…

Nov 30, 2008 - 6:15 am 8. grampa guy:

I’ll take a shot at justifying Abu Ghraib. A few misguided troops out of 150,000 were caught, and punished, by Bush, in the finest traditions of a military that is exemplary in this world. The NY Times, and their allies, focused on the few instead of the policy and willfully aided our enemies. Also, Ron, to which excesses in interrogation do you refer? Which sanctions of actual torture? Which “problems” at Gitmo? The problems at Gitmo are the inmates. I have a one-word answer,undoubtedly to be supplemented with optional words in the very near future: Mumbai.

Nov 30, 2008 - 6:23 am 9. Julio Jurenito:

If you consider who writes history textbooks, it is not realistic to expect Bush ever portrayed in a positive light.

Julio

Nov 30, 2008 - 6:36 am 10. Rick:

Bush bashing ends january 20th. Riding Obama like a stolen bicycle starts January 20th. Sitting presidents always get the credit when things go right, whether they had anything to do with it or not, gonna get the balame also.

Nov 30, 2008 - 6:39 am 11. R a Z o R:

GOOGLE :

500 tons of YELLOW CAKE found in Iraq that

just arrived in Canada . George W. Bush

keeped the secret even as the press hounded

and critized him . History will be very kind

to W .

Thank you president George W. Bush .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJGHQA0aizQ

R a Z o R

Nov 30, 2008 - 6:54 am 12. Mike:

Will Bush bashing ever stop? The left and the media will never stop bashing Bush. It suits their ends too much to do so. After January 20 every failure of the Obama administration will somehow be laid at Bush’s feet. They have too much invested in hatred to stop now.
—————————————-
By the way, I hope all you rich liberals out there are going to pay a bunch of taxes because Joe Biden said it’s your patriotic duty to do so and I am waiting for my share of the free stuff Obama promised me.

Nov 30, 2008 - 7:02 am 13. Lieberman Dem:

as a history instructor, I call bs on anyone judging W’s legacy right now. Any historian worth their reputation as legit knows that W has yet to be determined. WE ARE TAUGHT THIS IN COLLEGE !!!

But I can tell you that the education depts of most universities are drowning in self-righteous libs.

I’m a lib, but I’m not stupid. To me Bush 43/Obama is going to look more like Truman/Eisenhower meaning a continuance in policy with a revamp in historical analysis later. Only high schoolers would consider this transition to be Hoover/FDR.

Nov 30, 2008 - 7:06 am 14. Thinking Person:

I can almost hear the desperation in Vivo’s “NO” response. I think now that Dear Leader Obama is almost at the helm the libs are starting to realize that he will be held accountable after Jan. 20 and they are hoping against hope that even though he didn’t have a clear plan then, he’s come up with one since. That little bit of panic that starts when one realizes that the statement — be careful what you wish for — might just come back to haunt them. I, for one, will do my American part to be sure that in my corner of the world, Obama is held accountable for Obama’s decisions. Should we not all use our voices to assure this or will we be jellyfish and let the libs shout over us as they did in the election?

Nov 30, 2008 - 7:11 am 15. Bill Carson:

Starting next January, leftists have to start playing defense, while conservatives get to attack Obama for every single decision or statement he makes. Yeah, the left’s messiah will have the media to protect him but that will only go so far. Personally, I want him to fail and will do everything possible to bad-mouth Obama and everything he does. I learned this from liberals. You just keep attacking and attacking. Eventually you draw blood.

The left now is begging the right to “give him a chance.” Why on earth should we do the opposite of what the left did? No, we must start to attack the left’s false messiah every time we get the chance, frankly, whether the attack is justified or unjustified. We just gotta follow the lessons learned from our leftist friends.

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:29 am 16. kozanne:

It will take time and events for history to vindicate GW Bush, which no doubt will happen. As 0bama stumbles and stutters thru his ‘administration’, the neoliberals will use Bush at every opportunity to cover the failures [mainly through inaction/no change] of their dear leader.

They have spent at least 8 years blaming everyone else but themselves for the divisions in this country. Yet, they are the ones that have done much to divide this nation and little to nothing to save it.

And now, the time is coming when they [in the person of their president] will be equally scrutinized, villified and criticized. The Oval will belong to them and they will be 100% accountable for the welfare of this country and her people for the next four years. And we will be watching them.

They know that what goes around comes around. And it’s coming around.

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:30 am 17. Jeff Weimer:

…and as a person “who first and foremost, did not sell his soul to accommodate the political process.”

Even I have to disagree with that. Bush didn’t find a veto pen until Republicans lost Congress – that’s how we got Abramoff and the other corruption scandals. He helped the GOP lose power by not reining in the excesses of his party, and we’re here now with people like vivo rubbing our noses in our truly earned failure to stick with our principles.

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:32 am 18. katiejane:

As lomg as the foamng left coninues to bash Pres Bush I figure it authorizes nitpicking each and every action/nonaction Obaa takes.

A Pres Obama administration deserves the same intense scrutiny, the same Monday morning quarterbacking, the same ridicule that the Bush adminstration got.

I sincrely hope Obama rises to the situation but not failing on his part should go unnoticed, no misstep not attributed to his personal lack of character. To treat him otherwise would be racist.

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:33 am 19. katiejane:

Please excuse the poor spelling – keyboard is acting up.

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:35 am 20. JFP:

Lieberman Dem: Absolutely right. I’m always amazed that people who have made it their life’s work to study history and who therefore ought to know that the general assessment of a person fifty or a hundred years after their time are quite different from their contemporaries’ assessment will nevertheless make an assessment of a sitting president. Sheesh! How dumb can you get?

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:39 am 21. Clioman:

With apologies to M. Voltaire, if Bush didn’t already exist then the Left would have been forced to create him. True Believers need a Devil in order to stay focused–otherwise they’re just noisy prigs.

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:46 am 22. sherlock:

The article sounded reasonable until the end when theauthor starts repeating liberal talking points as fact. Probably feels he has to do that to keep getting invited to the right cocktail parties. I guess he should be commended for not bringing up Cheney’s hunting accident as evidence of the VP’s innate evilness! I guess that makes the author one of today’s more learned commentators.

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:56 am 23. TexEd:

The Bush hatred will never end but the bashing might if Lord Obama is perfect. Any flaw in Lord Obama, his policy or it;s implementation will be ignored and explained away by blaming Bush.
This will be especially so if Lord Obama continues to move to the center. The fruitcakes and tinkerbells of the extreme left want what they want and thought they were promised. When (if) Lord Obama doesn’t deliver to their expectations, they won’t turn on Lord Obama but will rationalize their delusions by stepping up their blame/hatred of Bush.

Nov 30, 2008 - 9:04 am 24. ksk:

depends on who is writing the history. New Deal historians like Schlesinger made sure Hoover and Coolidge unfairly get ranked with the worst presidents. Hoover’s legacy has actually recovered slightly over time, but the Coolidge presidency still awaits redemption from the lies and distortions of presidential historians. Start with the fact that it was Coolidge who pioneered the radio address, and was more popular than Will Rogers. Coolidge pioneered personal press conferences, but made the press cover ’senior White House source’. He swiftly restored confidence in government with the aftermath of the Harding scandals. He kept us out of a war with Mexico. Sole nominee to Supreme Court was Harlan Fiske Stone, whose persuasive logic later enabled the New Deal, and a grateful FDR made Stone Chief Justice. Coolidge’s most infamous quote was actually made to the American Newspaper Publishers Association during which Coolidge suggested that business be covered as news because “the business of America is business”. To calm down the resurgent, anti-immigrant Klan, Coolidge reminded the country that, ‘regardless of whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower or in steerage, we are all in the same boat’. Yee gads, Obama quotes Calvin Coolidge!

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:12 am 25. tom:

George Bush will be our first third term president in the 21st century. Whatever Obama does wrong will be laid at the feet of W, effectively assuming he still holds the reigns.

Unfortunately it will be hard to run on a hope and change strategy in 2012

given 4 years of Obama – W will look like a saint in comparison

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:15 am 26. Mudpie:

Bush bashing is about the same as I remember Truman bashing. Truman was so hated, Ike would not enter The White House until the Trumans had left. Truman is quite respected today.

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:29 am 27. fred:

No honeymoon to be granted to Oobonga and the collectivists in America from me. But, I will criticize POLICY and ACTIONS. I’ve never listened to an Oobonga speech and have no wish to alter that pattern, so I won’t focus in on his rhetorical skills and gaffes. We on the right would do well to not imitate BDS. I WILL concede to Oobonga and his advisers credit when they do something well or they do the right thing. I’m an American first and if he does well, then the country benefits.

But first, let’s make sure he really is a natural born American and not a Kenyan. And not an Indonesian who never reported his immigration status and then got naturalized. If he has the proof of his natural status as an American, then I WANT him to put it up and get it over with. If I were in his shoes I would do exactly that and shut up my critics. So, Barry, do the right thing and clear this up.

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:33 am 28. Glenda:

Bob Geldof chastised the American media for not giving credit to George Bush. He said that President Bush had done more to help Africa than any other American president. Sadly, that was the first I had heard of it. In other words, the media didn’t under-report it. They didn’t report it at all. How many other wonderful Bush accomplishments did we miss because George Bush doesn’t like to toot his own horn. President Bush will leave office with little love of the people, both at home and abroad. So be it. But there is a higher power that knows his heart, and that judge will be more forgiving than those judging him so harshly now. I pray that God will bless him. He deserves his rest. This generation will never understand the enormous sacrifices he has made on their behalf, nor will they appreciate the safety he afforded them after the greatest attack this country ever faced from a foreign enemy.

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:44 am 29. Kirk Petersen:

fred, your vow to give Obama credit where due would be more credible if you refrained from calling him “Oobonga”.

I believe historians would do well to let some history occur before they presume to speak for the ages.

Nov 30, 2008 - 11:02 am 30. DL13:

OK, I will be the first to say that I was not an avid Bush supporter, however, in light of what has recently happened in Mumbai and the 11,000 other terrorist attacks since 9/11, not one of the attacks was on US soil. Perhaps Bush was doing something right after all. Also, if we had adopted the tactics during WW2 that are now advocated by the Bush haters we would today be eating Sauerkraut or Sukiyaki and our history revised to look upon Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as just some vague myth of utopianism. The question we each must answer for ourselves is, “Is what we have worth defending, or, should we submit to the terrorists demands and convert to Islam?” They have apparently adopted an “anything goes” approach to fighting us and use our own rules, laws and moral standards against us, calling those of us that impede our war on terrorism, “Useful Idiots”. Perhaps it is time wake up and re-evaluate what we are doing for our own protection….

Nov 30, 2008 - 11:29 am 31. Mike_K:

Bush created some of his own problems, as pointed out above in the instance of his failure to veto spending bills. He was also almost defiantly inarticulate. The comment about Germans being negative about Texans is also right on. I was traveling with a group of British physicians during the Iraq invasion in 2003 and we had many long discussions. My daughter and I were the only Americans. What struck me was the negative image of anyone from Texas. They didn’t really know anything else about Bush but that was enough.

There was a good reason why Reagan hung Coolidge’s portrait in the White House. He was his favorite president. Bush needs an excellent biographer in about 20 years to write something like Conrad Black’s biography of Nixon. I hope he gets it.

Nov 30, 2008 - 11:30 am 32. Chris Jones:

I actually think the sanctioned torture is a big reason we haven’t been attacked since 9/11. I think the president’s willingness to do whatever it takes to keep us safe is something we’ll be thanking him for many years from now.

Nov 30, 2008 - 11:42 am 33. John Bibb:

We will get a chance to see what REALLY BAD LOOKS LIKE soon. I expect Obama’s presidency to look worse than Jimmy Carter’s did. However, Bush will still be given the blame by the LEFT WING MEDIA (not MSM)–they will continue to fly excellent “air cover” for the O’bummer and his ilk.

Rocketman

Nov 30, 2008 - 11:46 am 34. Leslie:

Bush bashing will end once this round of immature, hate-filled, thumb suckers in the media and Congress finally go away. Not until then. Any mistakes BO or new dem majority make will be blamed on Bush and the media will be more than happy to oblige them in reporting it as such. It’s the only thing they know how to do anymore.

Nov 30, 2008 - 11:58 am 35. Indepedant:

Bush has been the worst president since Harding. All history is going to attribute to Bush are failed foreign policies, executive fascism, and useless economic policies. You righties need to stop gripping your johnsons and get a grip on reality. Bush, btw, was really the reason Obama got elected. The Republican Party took a (well-deserved) whupping. Too bad there’s still some Republicans left in the Congress.

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:08 pm 36. Amy:

Glenda, well said. In fact, perfectly said. I could not agree more.

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:15 pm 37. Ursa Major:

It seems to me that the only purpose served by John Conyers, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, is to continue to persue Bush and all other members of his Administration in order to bring them “to justice” for a whole host of alleged crimes. So, yes, the hunting down of George W. Bush will continue until something very clearly sticks to Obama’s watch that even The New YorK Times has to admit.

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:15 pm 38. David Thomson:

“Also, Ron, to which excesses in interrogation do you refer? Which sanctions of actual torture? Which “problems” at Gitmo?”

This is a question that should not be avoided by our host. I suspect that he is trying to throw a bone towards his few remaining allies on the the center-left. How does Ron indeed define the term torture?

“Sean Wilentz wrote a cover story for Rolling Stone, in which he called Bush “the worst President in all American history.”

Did Sean Wilentz really say something so stupid? How did he ever overlook Andrew Johnson? This is truly an example of BDS. Wilentz is a complete fool.

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:19 pm 39. Randall J. Matson:

No , it won’t end. They still bash Nixon and Reagan don’t they?

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:26 pm 40. Mike:

13. Lieberman Dem:

“I’m a lib, but I’m not stupid. To me Bush 43/Obama is going to look more like Truman/Eisenhower meaning a continuance in policy with a revamp in historical analysis later. Only high schoolers would consider this transition to be Hoover/FDR.”

Good comment. I think you are right about the comparison in presidential transitions. I hadn’t thought about it that way but good point. Fortunately we are still a long way from the conditions of the 1930’s. We may still get there but let’s hope we don’t.

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:27 pm 41. Mandy:

Foolishness like this column insures that the very proper denigration of Bush has only just begun. And now that a legally elected President is about to take office and the reign of secrecy will end, the evil done of the Bush Administration will become more and more public. Sean Wilentz’ judgment soon will look, shall I say, conservative.

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:33 pm 42. Dark helmet:

President Bush is a great leader and a God loving man who was and is surrounded by the most corrupt and treasonous group of politician in the history of the United States of America.

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:43 pm 43. seven:

History will be kind. The liberal press doesn’t control the web so lies and misquotes will be scrutinized. We will be able to separte liberal spin from facts. It is hard to push proppoganda indefinitely if you don’t have absolute ways for blocking truth exposure.
Before the web, we had no access to Obama’s birth certificate and it marks of being counterfeit. Before the web, we had no access to Pastor Wrights filthy thinking.

Nov 30, 2008 - 12:51 pm 44. Deuce Geary:

Gina, you are dead on that the left undermined Bush’s credibility, then used their own dishonesty to frame Bush as a liar. But he could have done a lot more to defend himself.

To have done so would not, as Glenda called it, be to “toot his own horn.” It would have been leadership, and we sorely needed it. I regret W did not do it, and — without taking any blame away from the Left — I’m angry that failure so damaged his presidency and the country.

vb, you might be interested in radio host Dennis Prager’s retort to claims that the world hated George Bush’s America. He would say, “The world doesn’t hate America . . .the Left around the world hates America.” I always thought that was right on.

Nov 30, 2008 - 1:18 pm 45. newton:

They’re not going to stop bashing him. They will even throw rocks at his funeral hearse.

But GWB’s count-on-it biography will be written by historians who have not yet been born. We will not see what they will write about him, because we will all be dead by then.

Cold comfort for Bush, though.

Nov 30, 2008 - 1:36 pm 46. Bugs:

If you want to find out some of what Bush has done to fight AIDS, try going to http://www.pepfar.gov. It’s the homepage of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. This was supposed to be a massive, highly-publicized effort, but it got overshadowed by the war on terror and the Iraq war. Check it out, then decide whether Bush is the spawn of Satan.

I’m not going to judge Bush personally – his advisers and military commanders were as much to blame for the Iraq fiasco as he was. The stuff we read about Bush from academics and journalists is not “history” – it’s commentary, written by participants in the midst of the events they’re writing about. As participants, they have a stake in the outcome of these events. They need to be “right” about Bush and Iraq. They need their opinions to be confirmed by reality. Emotionally and intellectually, they are too close to events to analyze them without introducing their own desires and fears. In short, they are biased. The millions of words written and spoken since 2003 will be the source material that real historians will analyze years from now when they try to understand our era. Being detached by time and an altered political climate, those historians may be able to judge Bush and his administration more accurately than our current, highly emotional cadre of chatterers.

Nov 30, 2008 - 2:00 pm 47. Jason S:

I love the way that people are becoming more and more confident in standing up and defending Bush, now that the shrill liberal hysteria seems to be dying down (libs – give them a piece of candy and they stop crying, bless their little cotton socks).

The atmosphere over the past few years has been such that even those who were confident about their support for the President have been weary of expressing it – because they knew that no amount of objective reasoning would penetrate the cacophony of hooting and braying which invariably followed. This is how the left has played out the Bush presidency – sabotage any kind of reasoned debate with a relentless stream of tiresome left wing bromides, melodrama and emotional outrage – what Ayn Rand called the “argument from intimidation” and described masterfully:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/argument.html

Getting Obama elected seems to have softened liberals a little – and I think they’re probably going to do their best to deny their eight year temper tantrum. They seem a little embarrassed about it now, like a 16 year old kid who slams doors and cries because his parents won’t let him borrow the car, then when they relent and hand him the keys he feels ashamed of his childish outburst.

Of course there are exceptions, as proven by the many trolls who frequent this forum with displays of infantile grandstanding and to inform us all that we’re “sore losers,” etc.

But overall, the atmosphere is changing. It’s going to be easier to talk about Bush in a positive light without having to worry about provoking a storm of hissy fits. If there’s one positive thing to come out of Obama’s rise to power it’s been his role as therapist to the left – although we all know that in reality, he simply diverted the delirium of the left away from Bush and channeled it toward his own worship instead.

Nov 30, 2008 - 2:31 pm 48. sydney jane:

Well, even in the past few weeks, post-election, Obama continued to bash the Bush administration, so I don’t expect things will change. But, does anyone remember, in a few of his post-election press conferences he continued to talk about how middle class families had “suffered” for the past “eight years”? First of all, eight years ago, Clinton was still president; but, secondly, I think families did pretty good under the first part of the Bush administration, perhaps even all of the first term. He reduced taxes for middle class families. Home ownership increased tremendously under the Bush administration; I saw many middle class families, including some members of my own family, increase their wealth and change their lives because of the real estate boom.

I can’t remember when the economy started to take a turn for the worse, but for Obama to continue to say that American families have been suffering for as long as Bush has been president is just not true, nor is it fair to Bush (and I’m a Democrat saying this). Yeah, there were things that could have been done differently, and I wish he’d done something to fix health care – but, I could say the same things about Clinton. No president has been perfect…and this won’t change with Obama, although, I expect his supporters will believe him so.

Nov 30, 2008 - 2:40 pm 49. fred:

I think it will be many, many years before the true and significant achievements of President Bush are acknowledged. Furthermore, knowing the Left as I do (I used to be one of them thirty years ago and until 1987)they will continue to blame whatever bad things that occur under Obama’s administration on President Bush. Bank on it. Bet the farm on it. These people are craven in their dishonesty and malice, as is evident by posts like #41 above. He is not the worst president in our history. Not even close. He was not a great president, because I can list off a handful of things that I think he messed up on badly, but they are typically very different from the things that the Left likes to croon about.

They are going have the baton passed off to them shortly. The media will continue to carry the water for Oobonga, as he will become the teflon man that President Bush was never able to be. But here’s the difference between us and the Leftists: WE put the country ahead of ideology. Those people were so enraged that Bush was president that nothing was out of bounds and no means was spared, including rooting for our enemies.

Screw them all. I don’t want to get along with them. I’ll be fair with the new president, but I will never be nice to Leftists. Not after all the crap they’ve pulled.

Nov 30, 2008 - 2:46 pm 50. Lieberman Dem:

I can’t remember when the economy started to take a turn for the worse, but for Obama to continue to say that American families have been suffering for as long as Bush has been president is just not true, nor is it fair to Bush (and I’m a Democrat saying this). Yeah, there were things that could have been done differently, and I wish he’d done something to fix health care – but, I could say the same things about Clinton. No president has been perfect…and this won’t change with Obama, although, I expect his supporters will believe him so.

I agree, sydney jane. I never voted for W but even I knew some things were beyond his control. And most likely they will be beyond O’s control too. Like Social Security and health care.

Nov 30, 2008 - 3:35 pm 51. venividivici:

Mandy:

Sean Wilentz’ judgment soon will look, shall I say, conservative.

Mandy,

And I’m sure you’ll be the first to retract this statement as it proves false, right? I mean, this is the sort of accusation that requires evidence, not guesses, to be proven. I only wish there were some way YOU could be made to face the consequences of your innuendo and baseless accusations (ultimately, that you have to live as yourself is a form of punishment, but it still seems “de minimis”). Alas, there is no such law and your likely shamelessness means you won’t do the honorable thing and be quiet where you have nothing of value to add.

It’s going to play fantastically with the moderates who were Obama’s margin of victory (Google it!) if Obama and Congress waste time while Rome burns going after Bush’s alleged “evil”. If there is a God, that’s exactly what they’ll do while the market craters yet even more. The 75% of the country that isn’t Obama Kool-aid drinkers will not be amused watching a split screen view of Congressional hearings trying to criminalize policy differences and the Dow Jones Industrial Average going down thousands of points. Good luck with that, Mandy.

Nov 30, 2008 - 3:45 pm 52. Michael DeLong:

While I was still a teenager at the time Bush assumed office, I believe I’ve read and experienced enough over the past eight years to form a judgment about him. The Iraq War was launched on a false premise, the idea that Saddam Hussein had WMD and was such a grave threat that we had to take him out immediately(although Rumsfeld and other neoconservatives assured everyone that the war would nevertheless be a cakewalk). While he may have had noble intentions, many of the worst things in history have been done with the best of intentions. And the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq and disregard for sending enough troops and aid to secure Afghanistan has been criminally incompetent.
However, I think people who closely examine Bush’s record will rank him as one of the worst presidents, especially for two reasons. The first are the Iraqi refugees. The war has displaced millions of Iraqis to flee their homes and eke out miserable existences as refugees in other countries. Yet the United States has kept its doors almost barred to them-only about 17,000 out of millions are going to be admitted, and that is only because of constant prodding of the administration. Before it only admitted hundreds, abandoning the very people in Iraq who trusted and worked with us.
The second reason is the Bush administration’s torture of thousands and its quiet endorsement of murder. Under the direction of Bush, Cheney, Addington, and Yoo the government has seized thousands of people all over the globe and kidnapped them to secret prisons where they are tortured. Over 100 people have died during these “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the vast majority of detainees have had nothing to do with terrorism. Despite the constant statements of the administration that everyone at Guantanamo Bay is “the worst of the worst” hundreds of people have been released (after having been tortured and imprisoned without the right to challenge their imprisonment for years) because it has become obvious even to the Bush administration that they’re innocent.
Maher Arar was kidnapped by the Bush administration and flown to Syria to be tortured even though he was no terrorist. When the Syrians released him, the Bush administration refused to admit it had done anything wrong or even remove his name from a terrorist watch list.
Sleep deprivation, stress positions, waterboarding, and other practices are torture, pure and simple. Alexander Solzhenistyn eloquently dennounced such tactics in the Gulag Archipelago. Moreover, many of these torture methods were taken directly from Chinese Communist torture techniques during the Korean War, which WERE NOT designed to get information but were designed to elict CONFESSIONS. Is it any wonder that most of the information gained from these abominable methods is total bullshit?
Finally, John Yoo has argued-I’m not making this up!-that the president has the power to torture anyone he wants in order to safeguard national security. He can even torture someone’s children if he thinks it’ll help the state! The dangers in this approach of giving the president unlimited power are so obvious as to require no explanation.
A couple of days before the election I came on something that helped clinch my support for Obama. It was on National Review-and it was a link to an article that described Obama’s support for giving Guantanamo detainees the right to habeus corpus-he worked with a liberal organization to promote that. If our country is so fragile and weak that we can’t even allow terrorist suspects (innocent until proven guilty) to ask why they are being imprisoned, then we might as well replaced our democracy with something else.
This has been a really long post. I hope that some of Bush’s policies will turn out to be less damaging then they appear at this moment. I think he meant well. But Socrates said that everyone does what they think is good. And at this moment torture and exclusion seem to be his most enduring legacies.

Nov 30, 2008 - 3:57 pm 53. anthea wray:

Bush also supported Mobutu, who was responsible for killing more Africans in his sector than aids ever did! The Bush children played with Mobutu’s children in overnight sleepovers in the White House! For every good thing he has done, he has done equally dispicable bad.

Nov 30, 2008 - 4:05 pm 54. Joshua:

re: Bush-bashing.

People on the right are still bashing Bill Clinton, and all he did was cop a blowjob.

I think Bush will be “bashed” in sort of the same way that Hoover is “bashed”: history will simply recognize him as a bad president who failed utterly in the face of unprecedented historical crises. The venom may go out of it, but I don’t think anyone will ever forget what a profound disappointment Bush has been in nearly every conceivable way. The more interesting question is, when will the pro-Bush minority on the right stop perceiving that description as malicious and come to recognize — as McCain and others implicitly have — that it is simply factually accurate.

Nov 30, 2008 - 4:20 pm 55. Rachel Peepers:

Ron, I looked at your handsome picture, and decided you were deserved of a mister.
So here goes.

Mr. Radosh,

In the past couple of years, I’ve felt like a girl on a deserted island, the only one around who believed President Bush was a great man and a great President.

In fact, when I say,”Great” something tells me that even you would disagree. If I’m going to fly solo in this single engine mindset, though, surely you deserve my reasons for taking such an unpopular position.

You hear people saying someone in government should have blown the warning whistle on the economic meltdown we’re in the midst of.

Well, to my way of thinking, that’s just what George Bush tried to do (warn us) with the Social Security and Medicare financial crises that loom on the horizon. Rather than trying to help him solve the problem, though, Democrats were in a bashing; we-refuse to-work-together-to-solve-these problems mode.

The reality is, one of the grand strategies of anti-Bushers was literally bashing Bush for everything that happened.

So when the tsunami hit they used the death and destruction to lay out Bush. Chastise him for being late giving aid and then not giving enough. They bashed him for New Orlean’s levies breaking. They bashed him for reading to children for five minutes after he was told about 9/11. They bashed him for believing the intelligence about WMD’s that led to the invasion of Iraq. They didn’t care whether Bush was really to blame or not. at fault or not. If Bush choked on a potato chip and almost died, it was non-stop laughing. Non-stop demeaning. A lesser man would have cracked like a pretzel under the unceasing personal assaults.

Bash enough, they thought, and peope would believe it.

Well, the bashing strategy worked. Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s problems. Democrats blamed Bush.

And part of the reason the strategy was so effective was that not only Democratic Party people did it, but Hollywood joined in the mean spirited madness, too. And others piled: from SNL, Colbert, Sunday Morning on CBS, The View, to Bill Mahar, Letterman, CNBC and the premier bashers of all time, the mainstream media.

But despite diving approval ratings, non-stop personal attacks on everything from the way he talked to the way he dressed to everything about him personally from A to Z, as well as every public decision he made, George Bush stayed the course, never even flinching.

He won the war in Iraq. Keep terrorism on defense. Foiled terrorist plots. Created millions of job. Had the economy humming alone. Kept mortgage rates and interest rates low, kept taxes down, while trying to figure out what to do about illigal immigration.

In the first six months of his second term, George Bush extended olive branch after olive branch to Ted Kennedy and the Democratic Party. But they would have none of it. Conciliation, decorum and good will weren’t part of the Democratic game plan. The country be damned. They we’re out to win in ‘08.

And they did.

However, George Bush leaves this Presidency a better man, a greater President than any Democratic wanna-be could ever be.

Nov 30, 2008 - 4:27 pm 56. USorThem:

Bush will never be redeemed.

His greatest failure, which follows him right out the door, is NOT NAMING THE ENEMY.

How does a country win a war without accurately naming the enemy? Did he really make the world any safer for us? Where will the next Mumbai occur? How long will Iraq and Afghanistan be an ally when Bush agreed to allowing sharia law to become part of each country’s Constitution?

This is not a war on terror. It is against a supremacist ideology I dare not name on this board out of fear my post will be removed. Bush told us all that a certain unnamed religion was “Religion of Peace” and made many feel at ease and put Americans to sleep about the origins of Jihad.

This is not about a global war on terror. It is not about seeing if Al Quaeda has some connection to every terror filled atrocity. Is it about a dangerous ideology that Bush, Rice and Cheney deny exists and lulls us to sleep with their “Religion of Peace” speeches.

A failure to study 1350 years of Islamic jihadist history. A failure to investigate and learn about the ideology that induced those 19 hijackers to kill innocents. A reliance on so called scholars of Islam who are bought and paid for with petrodollars.

And no, I am not suffering from BDS. I believe GWB is a patriot. I voted for him 2x’s. But his legacy will about serving as the most ignorant and intellectually lazy President patriot this country has ever seen.

Nov 30, 2008 - 4:45 pm 57. susan:

michael delong, even if you hadn’t said you were a child during the bush years it was pretty clear anyway that you are a teenager.

You live in a teenage bubble of your parents’ financial security and your biggest dilemma in life is to choose the color of the ipod case.

You will realize that the yuman rites of the terrorists imprisoned are not that important in the big picture. And you will realize at your own expense how obama’s kumbaya, personal charm and that stupid way he has to “connect” with others by touching their shoulders and pretending to feel empathy towards them will not bring any good.

When you will grow up you will realize that the few people who kept on being at the higer moral ground have always ended up dead.

PS: you forgot the most terrible torture in Guantanamo, forcing terrorists to listen to metallica songs.

Amnesty international was too shocked to comment.

Nov 30, 2008 - 4:56 pm 58. Cybergeezer:

Obama’s supposed to be on Lettermans show! What a thrill! I’d like to see Letterman plant a french kiss on Obama. It will be his last chance. And then have Rosie O’Donnell and Nancy Pelosi come out and perform the same!
Are we a splendid society or what?

Nov 30, 2008 - 5:20 pm 59. klrtz1:

Actually, after the next big terror attack in America the left will surrender unconditionally. They now have that power. So the history of the Bush years will be written by muslims. Probably they won’t be any easier on him than the left is. Obama will be lauded though, especially if he really is a secret muslim.

Note to humorless liberals: I’m not really serious. Everyone knows Obama is not really a secret muslim.

Nov 30, 2008 - 6:09 pm 60. Michael DeLong:

The few people who keep on claiming the higher moral ground have always ended up dead? Odd, I thought that America was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. And that a great source of our strength in the fight against the Nazis during World War II and the Soviets during the Cold War was that we were a free, democratic nation that always tried to assume the higher moral ground.
Moreover, I’m wary of people who claim that little unimportant concepts such as “human rights” and “being against torture” matter in the big picture. Once those pillars of civilization are thrown out the window, the big picture begins looking a lot more menacing.

Nov 30, 2008 - 6:53 pm 61. cedarford:

Speaking about this himself, the President told an interviewer that he would like to be known “as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace,” and as a person “who first and foremost, did not sell his soul to accommodate the political process.” He would like to be known as a leader who “rallied people to help their neighbor, that led an effort to help relieve HIV/AIDS and malaria on places like the continent of Africa; that helped elderly people get their prescription drugs and Medicare as part of the basic package.”

1. His legacy on Africa is good, even though blacks revile him and voted 94-5 against Republicans.
Far better for Republicans if he and other Rep leaders had wasted less time of black issues and Jewish lobby matters and more time on Latin America and Hispanics (Jews voted 70-30 against McCain, and in Israel 75% opposed McCain as President in polls.)
Being politically smart is trying to do things for voters that are likely to support you, lean or shift their vote to you in response to support – not oppose you in any circumstances.

2. Bush’s claim to have liberated 50 million is likely to go back to 23 million as Afghanistan goes back to their normal ways. Even Iraq may go sour and be just as bad or worse in 5-10 years if the Shiite Islamists misrule the place.
As is Bush’s Sharansky-Wilson “spread democracy” crusade at any cost to the US soldier – is just about dead. Same with the Neocons.

3. Despite his protestations, he sold his soul to Hastert, DeLay, Abramoff, Ted Stevens’s “political process”. 6 1/2 years, not a single veto of spending. Eagerly presided over the greatest growth of deficits and the size of Fed Gov’t since FDR. Made LBJ look like a small Texas piker.

4. Little evidence he did much to inspire volunteerism. He always thought the 1st part of his message – shop, travel, buy the biggest house the banks will let you have to “grow the economy” was far more important.

5. The non-means tested prescription drug entitlement is the mother of all pork. It immediately boosted our unfunded medicare and SS liability from 24 to 36 trillion. And led some economists to say we will need to go up to 25-27% FICA witholding to pay for boomers skating out of paying their fair due, and spending the surplus away.
The best part is former Congressman Billy Tauzin and other Republican big shots inserting law barring the US from negotiating discount drug prices, as other nations have by 20-50% on drugs..Which Bush cluelessly though was “great for innovation”. Whatever Big Pharma pays Tauzin and the other whores now out of Congress – one million, 3 million a year as “consultants” – it isn’t enough..

Even one thing his small band of remaining fans give him “The American Churchill who kept us all safe” has to be weighed against his huge casualties and lost opportunity costs and propensity to “spend whatever money that could raise safety from Evildoers, anywhere..” No 2920 terrorist casualties, but 33,000 war casualties inc 4200 dead since 9/11. Almost 3 trillion spent on pork and bribes to Muslims and “1st Responder Heroes”, but nothing on health insurance – lack of which kills 18,000 Americans each year (126,000 vs. “another 9/11 and 2900 dead possibly avoided”.)

Add in that he hardly functioned as leader of his Party, allowing the Corporatists, Neocons, Globalists, the Religious Right freedom to become more obnoxious, money-grubbing, and entitled to screw the middle class and the moderates..

Bush, like Carter, will have to be left for a reasonable period of time to hash out and see if they were better than people thought at the time (like Truman, Eisenhower, to some extent Nixon, and Bush I). Carter so far has failed..possibly like Bush may end up with Clinton and Obama…Carter was bookended between two highly successful, mostly competent Presidents that got a lot of important stuff done – Nixon and Reagan. (Hate Nixon if you want, but he did big things, and most have become permanent parts of the nation’s fabric.)

FDR, IKE, Truman, Reagan, Clinton bashing except for the most deranged partisans, ended. Nixon and LBJ are only bashed by the school that believes Vietnam & their moral lapses trumped their great feats.

But Carter-bashing continues…even if it is the quite disgust that that miserable failure once again is in the news.
Bush-bashing may continue in the same vein for decades to come, especially if Obama has a successful Presidency and he is “bookended” between good Clinton and good Obama periods.

Nov 30, 2008 - 7:10 pm 62. AnnieB:

I expect Bush bashing to go like Regan bashing. Remember the ‘mad cowboy’ who was hated until he died – and the cannonized once the price of ignoring history was greater then the pain of acknowledging the man’s accomplishments.

Consider Obama a Carter rerun – just flipped.

Nov 30, 2008 - 7:40 pm 63. Scott:

Rachel Peepers Comment #55;

Right on Girl!

Class, Character and Integrity was restored to the Office of President by George W Bush after the wholesale catastrophe wrought on it by BJ Clinton. It was not one instance of oral sex as the Big Media would have you believe he turned the white house into a whorehouse during his term, BJ Clinton ignored threats against our country for 8 years, BJ Clinton had Bull Dike AG Janet Reno not only whitewash the Oklahoma City investigation but remember Ruby Ridge, Waco and worst of all the at gun point capture of minor child Elian Gonzalez. There is so much more that the Office of President represents that was destroyed by BJ Clinton that the colluding, corrupt and electioneering big Media would just as soon have us all forget like they have.

Long Live George W Bush!

Nov 30, 2008 - 7:47 pm 64. cedarford:

Bush needs an excellent biographer in about 20 years to write something like Conrad Black’s biography of Nixon. I hope he gets it.

Conrad Black had far more material to work with to build his case for Nixon as the brilliant, but flawed, angry man who rose from nothing, who was a lifeime moderate and perhaps did more than Reagan did to end the Cold War. Black calls Nixon the most consequential president of the 2nd half of the 20th Century, FDR the 1st half.

**********************
misanthropicus:

Vivo: the Soetero-mocking & ridiculing will soon and powerfully replace the Bush-bashing.
By the way, did you hear that Donald Rumsfeld is considering Soetero’s offer for a White House special adviser?

misanthropicus is fast establishing his being a Right-Wing Truther (the secret Kenyan birth!) and as someone who tries to feed lies into blogs, hoping his lies become viral. (Nothing from Google or Nexus on any consideration of Rumsfeld to return to the White House as a special advisor in an Obama Administration)
My recommendation is to not believe a word this creepy bullsh*t-shoveler says.

********************
Joshua:

re: Bush-bashing.

People on the right are still bashing Bill Clinton, and all he did was cop a blowjob.

The test of “bashing” is not in the marginalized left and right fringes, even in mostly “progressive, Jewish” Hollywood or the MSM.
That sort of ideologue is still bashing Lincoln, FDR..

You know the bashing is real and general when you get the same reaction about Bush II and Carter at the same group of parents of black and white and hispanic HS football players in Colorado (ugh! hated them!), Asians at a global business conference declaring Carter and Bush II almost as big pieces of sh*t as the Gang of Four, Suharto, or hear a group of older ladies in Pennsylvania of the “Reagan Democrat” kind in King of Prussia PA explain how Bush II is “almost as worthless as Carter, and just as bad at defending his leadeship.”

Nov 30, 2008 - 7:57 pm 65. Will:

As time marches on, history paints in broader and simpler strokes. 50 and 100 years from now, middle and high school students will simply learn that President Reagan brought down the Soviet Union and that President Bush unseated two tyrannical regimes and restored human rights to tens of millions of people.

Face it, people, we won’t have another great depression and no one will study the finer points of what happened in 2003, nor 1996. No one will care or learn much about Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, nor George Bush, Senior.

Only boring history students which mutter to themselves and everyone else ignore. (Like me).

History in on our side.

http://leftcoastconservative.wordpress.com/

Nov 30, 2008 - 8:33 pm 66. JPS:

Michael DeLong:

“I thought that…a great source of our strength in the fight against the Nazis during World War II and the Soviets during the Cold War was that we were a free, democratic nation that always tried to assume the higher moral ground.”

It was. And in the process, we did some unspeakably horrible things, things much worse than the most controversial or infamous actions in this war. Not that all of them should be excused on the grounds that we were doing what we had to do; still, some perspective is in order.

Nov 30, 2008 - 9:08 pm 67. venividivici:

Odd, I thought that America was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.

That’s clearly applicable in a political context, not a military context. We recognize this distinction even with our own citizens, who are subject to a different legal code than non-military personnel. Nevermind how different the context is when we are talking enemy combatants. When a person decides that he wants to take on the US, even if its some naive goatherder from Afghanistan who thinks Allah’s going to save him with some magic weapon, that person loses any and all privileges of everyday life and should be hunted like a beast until he is within an inch of his life, then thrown into the deepest, darkest hellhole we can construct.

I’d do the same to my own mother, if necessary.

Once those pillars of civilization are thrown out the window, the big picture begins looking a lot more menacing.

The big picture is always and everywhere menacing. That you seem to think it isn’t is a tribute to those protecting you from it, not a reflection of how it actually is.

Nov 30, 2008 - 9:16 pm 68. Dave:

When George W Bush dies we shall bury him
Texas style. Face down.

That way all his critics can stop by and kiss his ass.

Certain aspects of his Presidency have been disappointing.

However, as Commander-in-Chief he has performed admirably. Barack Obama has some mighty big boots to fill in that department.

Nov 30, 2008 - 9:44 pm 69. misanthropicus:

For the liberal imbeciles (sic! oxymoron) who’ve made a career out of making W guilty of any ills of this wretched planet – and who will continue it, career, by defending Obama who’s going to pursue W’s foreign affairs trajectory:

Deng Xiaoping (wo was quite a wit) once was asked what he thought about the consequences of the French revolution – and he answered “that’s way too early to come with an assesment about that”.

Now making it easier for liberals:
1) French revolution – 18th century, approx. 1789’s/ 1799-s;
2) Deng Xiaoping’s pronouncement – say, 1980-s;
3) time-span between the two time points – say, 180 years;
4) any intellingent, 20th century person’s rating Deng’s pronouncement – well, I think he nailed it;
then:

5) US invades Iraq – 2002;
6) obviousness of a mad man behind that decision – next day, 2002 and continuing ’till today, Nov. 30th 2008, and well beyond;
7) other unshakable, gravity-like certitudes floating between 2002 and present:
- Russia will never recover;
- Iran will never make stuff for atomic bombs;
- Latin America is a US turf;
- China will never be a spatial power;
- globalisation is good;
- I got twelve credit cards – I max them up, then I call and I get increases on them all and everything will fine;
- variable rate mortgage is the smartest way to go, it’s so cool!
- Oprah Winfrey is an intelligent woman;
- we are liked; and if we’re not, we’ll do something to be liked again so I’ll get another credit increase;
- gas will never go over $3;
- gas will never go back to $ 2.70;
- Bush is a fool – Whoopy Goldberg is so intelligent!
- if someone deserves the Nobel prize, that’s Baradey;
- wine coolers will sell well into the 2050-s;
- what W’s doing is sheer madness;
- Europeans can’t put together a convincing act;
- EU is scaring everyone around;
- W is a fool, knows nothin’;
- Russia is a great power, why don’t we let them alone;
- I hate Europe, gas is so expensive!
- UN is the only hope of the world;
- how long this racket can go?
- if we don’t do something, the global heating will kill everyone;
- the glaciation is here! We’re gonners!
- Microsoft will outlast everything;
- Microsoft stinks (NB: I agree);
- it’s good to have a clear mind;
- clear minds know that W is a fool;
- clear minds can feel that the time for change has come;
- clear minds can feel that change we can believe in is around the corner;
- clear minds can feel that hope ‘n change can fix things;
- W is a fool;
- where is that, 18th century?
- Den Xiaoping knows nothin’;
- what do you mean, “too early to come with an assesment about that?” – everything is sooooo clear!
- W is a fool;
- Cindy Sheehan is soooooo right! Why do we keep provoking the Rusians, the Chinese and everybody? There simply is no justification for what W does!
- Barrack is soooo different;
- I heard that Zogby’s report/Ziegler’s movie describe the democrats in such a flattering way! We deserve that, because we’re so aware…
- Deng Xiaoping knows nothing;
- Bush is a fool and history will judge him severely, this is obvious.

Nov 30, 2008 - 9:45 pm 70. Beth Barnat:

Captain Zero will be inaugurated on Jan. 20th, 2008.
Captain Zero has Zero Experience, Zero Qualifications for the job of POTUS, Zero loyalty to the United States, Zero Humility, Zero Integrity and Zero Character.

I will be happy to give Captain Zero the same respect and dignity that the Left has given George W. Bush for the last eight years.

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:07 pm 71. mshatto:

Michael DeLong – Your discharge of sewage into the clear water that is Pajamas Media is quite telling of your immaturity and bring to mind the old adage that “if you’re not a liberal when you’re 20 you have no heart…a conservative when you’re 35, you have no brain.”

You state that the Iraq War was launched on false premise but you neglect to state whose premise it was. Was it Bill Clinton’s premise of 2/17/98? Or was it Hillary’s premise on 10/10/02? Or was it Maddy Albright’s on 2/18/98? Or was it Nancy Pelosi’s on 12/16/98? Or Al Gore’s on 2/23/02? The CIA? Or possibly MI6? Or was it the Mossad? China? Russia? Egypt? Yup, maybe it was Egypt? The facts that are so easily discovered tend to get in the way of the old “Bush lied and millions died!” trope. I know there were alternative viewpoints, but then again, there were alternative viewpoints.

As for the Iraqi refugees. Should we have welcomed those people into America before or after we pacified Iraq? Wouldn’t it have been a bit problematic for all those people to have been brought to America when they simply could have returned home? Michael Yon seems to believe the war is over. Shouldn’t you? I will agree that those brave Iraqis who acted as interpreters and assisted our military in Iraq be given preferential treatment but then we might have had to reduce the number of refugees we have received from our neighbors to the south. At this point, I think most Americans would gladly trade a few thousand Iraqis who risked their lives to assist us for the millions of poorly educated persons from our southern neighbors who George Bush welcomed with open arms. If you want to discuss the failings of GWB’s administration, border security should top anyone’s list.

Moving onto your point about the torture and Guantanamo, your statements about hundreds being wrongfully detained are ludicrous at best. Persons picked up on the battlefield, (the problem with terrorism is that the battlefield can be anywhere) became property of the US government but alas they weren’t in uniform. This leads to another question. What were we supposed to do with “unlawful, enemy combatants”? The situation could be described as nothing less than fluid. Working on the move, the GWB administration dealt with the “unlawful, enemy combatants” in a matter they deemed necessary for US security and then ran the clock out. If they were granted habeus corpus rights, then national security was jeopardized. If not, GWB was accused and slandered but there would be no more attacks on American soil. History so far, tells us which decision was right.

If Congress, the last two years controlled by Democrats , were so concerned with the treatment of these “unlawful enemy combatants”, then surely a piece of legislation could have been crafted and sent forth for a vote. Sorry if I’m wrong, but I’m not aware of any such legislation that made it to the desk of the POTUS. Certainly, Sen. Obama, so concerned with the goings on at Guantanamo the last few years could have crafted something that dealt with this problem, but he didn’t and we’re left to wonder why.

The treatment of the vast majority of Guantanamo prisoners was extremely enlightened and afforded these persons a comfort not witnessed in the jails of their countries of origin. Interestingly enough, if this was FDR’s America, we would have shot them after a guilty verdict in front of a speedy military tribunal. Somewhat less amusing is that in FDR’s America, we would simply have rounded ALL Muslim-Americans and sent them into “relocation camps” for their safety.

The closing of Guantanamo will move at a much slower pace than “O” originally thought. What to do with these terrorists has bedeviled brilliant minds for the last eight years and I’m sure it will continue to so for a few years more. You should read the article by Thomas Joscelyn in last week’s Weekly Standard for a deeper look at this topic. You might find it quite illuminating.

I say hold the judgment and wait to see what the next eight years hold.

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:17 pm 72. Battlecat:

Bush bashing won’t end, but it will subside as the left becomes increasingly emboldened to blame the Jews.

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:47 pm 73. Rob M.:

I can say that I’ve seen the faces of the Iraqi children during the Clinton years and I’ve seen their faces during the Bush years. Under Clinton, those kids were dying of very curable illness that would be a taken for granted inconvenience for any American. That doesn’t happen anymore. Those fortunate enough to get an education had to do so with no books or even pencils, under the threat of dilapidated buildings collapsing on them. That doesn’t happen anymore. They don’t go to bed hungry anymore. When they do go to bed, they don’t lose as much sleep worrying over their families’ safety anymore.
Perhaps if BJ-DC hadn’t pulled out of Somalia in the 90s, we wouldn’t be dealing with pirates now.
You can whine and complain all you want, but Bush’s decisions regarding Iraq has done more for humanity since the fall of the nazis. Thanks to Bush, they have a future, and thus, their country has a future. I don’t see a whole lot being done by any of these haters, these liberals claiming to embrace peace and unity, to help people in their own countries who are truly in need. But then, that isn’t what the liberal inward-focus is all about now, is it?

Nov 30, 2008 - 11:22 pm 74. susan:

michael delong, where are the buddist of afghanistan?

and with the nazis do you think we brought them flowers? ever heard of dresded being shattered to the ground? I bet we killed some innocent civilians too.

what do they teach in that public school of yours?

Why don’t you go and educate yourself on how sharia law views human rights and the rethoric sentence you wrote “all men are created equal”?

don’t get back to me unless you did your homeworks.

Dec 1, 2008 - 4:25 am 75. paulr:

Very good points Susan. That youngster Michael Delong reminds me of myself during the 60’s and into the 70’s. I was an immature and ignorant war protestor living on Mommy & Daddy’s financial largesse. I just KNEW the govt was evil, Ho Chi Minh & his VC cohorts were just freedom fighters like the American colonialists and that if we just lay down our arms & destroyed our nuclear deterrent well then the WORLD would be transformed. The USSR & Mao just wanted to be our friends.

Then I read A. Solshenitzen (sp).\ books. A Day in the LIfe of Ivan Denisovitch (again sp) was followed by the Gulag trilogy.

Oh my G*d!

20 years of socialist schooling became so much bullshit when challenged by the truth revealed in those books. I never again believed the lies told to me by the MSM or the liberals.

and the truth SHALL set you free.

Let Michael have his fantasies, warm in the protective embrace of our military as he sleeps soundly in his bed, unaware of the brave men and women of the US military who stand ready in the night to deliver “rough justice” to those who would do us harm (G. Orwell paraphrase). I am forever ashamed for doubting this as a youngster like Michael.

Michael, if you are reading this I challenge you to read the Gulag trilogy (Lord of the Rings it ain’t but it deals w/ the same subject – Evil).

Perhaps someday you will wake up, grow up and understand Mr. Churchill’s words…
“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds are against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.”

As for myself, I will remember Mr Orwell’s words…”
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell,”

and of course…
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! – Patrick Henry

I remember President Reagan being reviled and demonized by the MSM and liberal pundits – warmonger, liar, murderer and much more yet when I went to pay my last respects as he lay i the Capital, the Line of People went on for miles. All day they filed by, many in tears as we saluted and laid to rest a great man

I hope to be there on a similar occasion when we give Pres. Bush his last respects and I Know the lines will again stretch on for miles.

Pres. Bush will be remembered as a great wartime president. His legacy is secure from the Lilliputian morons fluttering around the dim candlelight that passes for intelligent commentary today.

Vinegar tastes sweeter to a free man (or woman) than doth honey to a slave

Thanks for reading

Dec 1, 2008 - 7:13 am 76. Jim Baker:

As evidenced by the above mountain of drivel from Lefty, the answer is no.

Dec 1, 2008 - 8:39 am 77. Thinking Person:

Rachel Peepers….LOVED YOUR POST!! Just wanted to let you know that your words said what I have been thinking for some time. Thank you for so eloquently writing what I’m hoping others feel also.

Dec 1, 2008 - 8:45 am 78. dan:

the problem with the bush assessment is that the bush years demonstrate just how many minds are ripe for the disinformation and manipulation of the Left. it is a gigantic demonstration of this country’s sympathy for words words words that exploit their total lack of historical knokwledge, to say nothing of natural moral sensibilities. they believe they know something, but all they know is the left’s representations.

by sober historians W will be regarded as having performed necessary tasks among the barbaroi with reasonable skill and admirable political will. ironically, the Left’s tantrums will have provided Bush with the opportunity to demonstrate his exceptional leadership (despite his rhetorical handicaps). i’m proud to have supported him throughout his presidency, and i will continue to do so.

but i’m truly concerned about our citizens like michael delong. it seems they truly have been demoralized; it’s hard to say, short of war or nuclear calamity, what it would tak to snap them out of their trances.

Dec 1, 2008 - 10:21 am 79. Pat J:

The Bush bashing will cease. ANd Bush will be seen one of the truly great American presidents.

Just kidding!

Dec 1, 2008 - 10:27 am 80. ew:

So many members of the leftist illuminati have completely idolized Obama all ready to the point that I have no doubt Bush will continue to be blamed for his mistakes.

Dec 1, 2008 - 10:40 am 81. Barbara Janney:

There is no way that Bush can be forgiven for the Iraq debacle, and No, the members of Congress were not privy to all the facts on the situation going into war. This has been a stealth government from the start. When they gave a “go” to the war, most intended use of force only if conditions warranted invasion. And they most certainly did not. Bush’s help to Africa was indeed worthy of credit, but the thousands of lives that will be saved cannot cancel out the tens of thousands killed in Iraq–can’t put lipstick on this one……..

Dec 1, 2008 - 11:55 am 82. WestGuard:

Thank You President Bush! Thank you sir for standing up and fighting for America and the free world. You were the right man at the right time in history.
I shutter to think about how different things would be if Al Gore had been in charge of Americas security, fighting an enemy from a place where there are no trees to hug, and no one sings kumbaya.
Timing is everything, and George Bush was right on time.

Dec 1, 2008 - 12:31 pm 83. Steve P.:

susan: “You will realize that the yuman rites of the terrorists imprisoned are not that important in the big picture…When you will grow up you will realize that the few people who kept on being at the higer moral ground have always ended up dead.”

Susan, when you grow up, you will realize that the promise of freedom and the pledge to defend the rights of the individual is the basis of our American Republic. In the “big picture”, allowing torture weakens the effectiveness of our military and undermines our pledge to uphold our Constitution.

If we have to rip a page out of the Communists’ and Fascists’ playbooks every time we engage the enemy, then how do we expect anyone to believe that our system is better?

And when assuming a higher moral ground puts you in the line of fire, that does not mean you should abandon that moral ground! That reeks of cowardice!

Dec 1, 2008 - 12:52 pm 84. Dave Surls:

“And that a great source of our strength in the fight against the Nazis during World War II…was that we were a free, democratic nation that always tried to assume the higher moral ground.”

Silly me. I thought it was because we drafted millions of people into the armed forces, imposed total press censorship, subjected our civilian population to rationing, put tens of thousands of innocent American citizens in concentration camps (just in case some of them might be sabotuers) and thus we were able to slaughter millions of enemy soldiers and civilians while bombing their cities into rubble with high explosives, napalm and atomic bombs.

I never realized that the source of our strength was our superior morality.

Dec 1, 2008 - 1:13 pm 85. fred:

paulr @75,

Great post. I can identify with much of it. You are perhaps a few years older than I am, but I definitely remember what life was like back then. I was born in ‘55, so you do the math. I grew up in a family and milieu that supported the war in Vietnam and standing up to Communism, but over time the media and the academic Left wore us down. I was not initially a Reagan supporter, as I did not leave the Left until 1987, but I too felt very choked up by his very moving funeral. I had under appreciated the man, but at least I recovered. To my everlasting shame, I voted for Carter twice. But I was in the Army right after the withdrawal from Vietnam and I got to know some of the men who had fought there. It was not until many years later that I began to read the truth about what magnificent feats they had accomplished over there. And I simultaneously experienced a growing hatred for the Left for having lied so much and so often about that war and our men. It is now a burning hatred.

People often do not realize their mistakes and lies until many years later. It is my hope that the man I voted for in ‘04 and did not vote for in 2000 will be more fairly judged in the years and decades ahead.

Dec 1, 2008 - 1:24 pm 86. Robert Hurley:

I hope the Bush bashing goes on until we get the truth. But I guess we have to concentrate on fixing the mess he left first.

Dec 1, 2008 - 2:21 pm 87. susan:

Robert Hurley, you can get the truth if you synchronize your tin foil hat properly whenever there’s a thunder storm. That will do, you should try it.

Dec 1, 2008 - 2:46 pm 88. Lieberman Dem:

I’m not even bothering defending W from the lefty tools anymore, because it will be interesting to see how they will explain Obama’s inability to get the troops out of Iraq and the increase in unemployment (which neither W nor O can control). They are already making excuses for him over his Clinton picks (which proves he needs his hand held, NOT smart leadership), they’ll cover for everything else.

Dec 1, 2008 - 2:50 pm 89. Robert Hurley:

Ah Susan – I guess you are delighted with the current mess – Why bother to fix things then everyone is so happy with things as they are. Keep thinking that way and you will be in the minority for your lifetime

Dec 1, 2008 - 2:56 pm 90. misanthropicus:

RE #86/Robert Hurley: “[...] But I guess we have to concentrate on fixing the mess he [Bush] left first. [...]”

An idea for dba R. Hurley:
News: [...] American teens lie, steal, cheat at ‘alarming’ rates: study/ Dec 1, 2008 – 2:21 pm

Ethics Institute Report Says Cheating Up Among High Schoolers
American teenagers lie, steal and cheat more at “alarming rates,” a study of nearly 30,000 high school students concluded Monday. The attitudes and conduct of some 29,760 high school students across the United States “doesn’t bode well for the future when these youngsters become the next generation’s politicians and parents, cops and corporate executives, and journalists and generals,” the non-profit Josephson Institute said.
In its 2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, the Los Angeles-based organization said the teenagers’ responses to questions about lying, stealing and cheating “reveals entrenched habits of dishonesty for the workforce of the future.”

dba Hurley, wouldn’t be a nice beginning in this “cleaning the mess” operation to have Barry Soetro’s birth certificate examined?
Doesn’t the “mess” of having someone as “liar in chief” disturb you?
Let’s do it – remember, the Chinese have a good saying: no matter how long the journey, it always begins with a small step.
Hurley, help have Soetero exposed for the liar he is, and the mess will remarkably lesser.

Dec 1, 2008 - 4:06 pm 91. fred:

Beware of trolls who only post very brief, mocking statements and then scram. They can’t do anything other than that style, because they can’t think, cannot write, cannot reason, cannot… They are like a few students I had when I was a Jesuit seminarian who taught in a high school one year and had taught intro. to philosophy college freshmen one year at Loyola of Chicago: they are the smart-mouthed provocateurs who interrupt class with their flip, snarky insults and then retreat into their smug ignorance. I know the type well. In a bygone era the priest or brother would stride to the back of the classroom where the miscreant resided and give him a knuckle sandwich to the snotbox. We can’t do those things anymore. But, when you met some of these types years later the ones who grew up would tell you honestly that they deserved what they got. They admit that they were disrespectful troublemakers.

Dec 1, 2008 - 5:32 pm 92. Dave Surls:

“And although intelligence turned out to be deeply flawed, the spurious charge that “Bush lied us into war” has no mettle.”

Especially when you consider the fact that the Clinton administration had bombed Iraq hundreds of times before George Bush ever took office.

Here’s a list of the ANNOUNCED air strikes we made just in the year 2000:

http://www.ccmep.org/usbombingwatch/2000.htm

The obvious question is: How can one lie America into a war with Iraq when we’re already fighting a war against Iraq?

The answer is, of course, you can’t. It isn’t possible. Bush didn’t lie us into war, lead us into war, start a war or anything like that. We were already at war, and all he did was change tactics so we could actually win the war.

The charge that “Bush lied us into war”, like everything else claimed by the leftoid nitwits to show what a terrible president Bush is, is total nonsense.

Dec 1, 2008 - 5:33 pm 93. Dave Surls:

“However, I think people who closely examine Bush’s record will rank him as one of the worst presidents, especially for two reasons. The first are the Iraqi refugees. The war has displaced millions of Iraqis to flee their homes and eke out miserable existences as refugees in other countries. Yet the United States has kept its doors almost barred to them-only about 17,000 out of millions are going to be admitted, and that is only because of constant prodding of the administration. Before it only admitted hundreds, abandoning the very people in Iraq who trusted and worked with us.”

LOL. Before you start rating presidents I would suggest you look at how other presidents handled that problem. Start with Roosevelt, and then tell me that Bush is a WORSE president than the sainted FDR, and do try to keep a straight face while you’re doing it.

Dec 1, 2008 - 5:53 pm 94. Lieberman Dem:

Or Lincoln. I guess 6 assassination attempts (with the 7th being successful) means that the people REALLY like you. And he was not seen as the brightest person in the room amongst fellow Republicans at the time.

and some O-bots want O to follow in Lincoln’s footsteps? Only if you are sadistic.

Dec 1, 2008 - 6:44 pm 95. Lieberman Dem:

Yet the United States has kept its doors almost barred to them-only about 17,000 out of millions are going to be admitted, and that is only because of constant prodding of the administration. Before it only admitted hundreds, abandoning the very people in Iraq who trusted and worked with us.”

well, dave, Obama is president now. Why don’t you ask him to bring more Iraqis in when he’s official?

Dec 1, 2008 - 6:45 pm 96. Lieberman Dem:

correction – not dave, but the dude he was referring to (sorry, dave)

Dec 1, 2008 - 6:46 pm 97. Pat J:

Somehow I get the idea the Bush-bashing will never cease. Hundreds of years from now future historians are going to have a difficult time pondering the ineptness of the Bush administration. Hell. I’m having a difficult time pondering the ineptness of the Bush Administration and he’s still with us until January 20.

Dec 1, 2008 - 7:34 pm 98. jojobo1:

The war in Iraq has not been won,at least not as far as I can see.The killing is still going on.The only thing we ,the US did was help to hang a man we helped put in power..Bombs are still going off,there are still sucide bombers all over the country.Not saying the man did not need to be stopped but the thing is we helped him get into power.As far as President Bush is concerened a lot of things the president has no control over so the man himself is not to blame.I think he did what he thought was best and right in his eyes at the time.I only wish others would remember the election is over and for the most part except for on sites like this nothing is said about President Bush.He has shown he wants what is best for the country and is doing so by making the transition from one presidency to another run very well.

Dec 1, 2008 - 7:49 pm 99. Robert Hurley:

misanthropicus – Since the courts have already accepted his birth certificate, I think any further comments by you wil lead everyone to believe you are a nut. Do you really want that?

Dec 1, 2008 - 8:00 pm 100. misanthropicus:

RE #98/Robert Hurley: “misanthropicus – Since the courts have already accepted his birth certificate, I think any further comments by you wil lead everyone to believe you are a nut. Do you really want that? [...]”

dba R. Hurley: What courts? Hurley, I do appreciate your steadfastness in this matter, but I don’t confound it with intelligence and you don’t make any progress in that direction. So, all lawsuits against Obama were dismissed on technical grounds, i.e. lack of standing, and none of them addressed the substance of the case.
Now you have the opportunity to show that you can wiggle out from your position – inform me about a US court of law which has attested Obama’s birth certificate. One. Do it. Do it.
Show me a nut – otherwise you have to upgrade your tinfoil hat with a quivering egg beater for better reception of marching instructions from your SoeteroTrollDepot.

Dec 1, 2008 - 8:26 pm 101. LOL:

9. Julio Jurenito:

If you consider who writes history textbooks, it is not realistic to expect Bush ever portrayed in a positive light.

Julio
Nov 30, 2008 – 6:36 am

You gotta be kidding. Text books have done nothing but hide Americas real past. The stealing of California,Arizona,Nevada,Texas just for starters

Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jackson I can go on for days.

Please show me where U.S textbooks have been truly critical.

Only thing Bush did was secure Iraqi oil for the future crisis. But now hes giving it back with the new agreement.

Forget what we say about Bush. When the international community indites Bush then maybe you will wake up.

Dec 2, 2008 - 4:25 am 102. C. Rita:

Hello? Didn’t Republicans blame Bill Clinton for every possible adverse situation (and screwup) under Bush for the last eight years? Hello? You people are now trying to work up a storm of preemptive outrage for somebody else’s supposed future actions, which exactly mirror your own behavior for the last two terms? Please, this is embarrassing…

Dec 2, 2008 - 5:00 am 103. vivo:

Yes, loyal right-wingers, Bush will go down in history as the WORST president ever, the Dark Age of the USA and the King of a huge Banana Republic. People will erase many bad memories, but History doesn’t forget.

Dec 2, 2008 - 5:08 am 104. T.K.:

vivo

Sorry you can’t keep your corporate fascist state.

Dec 2, 2008 - 5:20 am 105. misanthropicus:

Re #101/vivo: “[...] loyal right-wingers, Bush will go down in history as the WORST president ever, the Dark Age of the USA and the King of a huge Banana Republic. [...]”

dba Vivo, you cannot compete reality – BARRY SOETERO is the king of the huge Banana Republic this country is becoming, and his illegal appointment of senator Hillary as secretary of state shows that the constitutional abuses are only at their beginning.
By the way, I liked your cameo in Ziegler’s film – you’re a very compelling illustration of Obama’s electorate competence.

Dec 2, 2008 - 5:26 am 106. Maggie:

Bravo to Rachel Peepers, comment #55, and the many other Bush defender posts. Shame on elected Republican representatives for not being as bold and confident in defending the president.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:21 am 107. Donna:

55.Rachel Peeper. “In the past couple of years, I’ve felt like a girl on a deserted island, the only one around who believed President Bush was a great man and a great President.”

Thanks so much for your post. Few here are courageous enough to state all you did without apology. And of course it’s all true.

Conservatives are so concerned about being “fair” that they have to always qualify and point out negatives about their own and positives about the other side. I don’t see the value of it.

When a game is played, both sides have to agree to abide by the rules. If one side to claims to abide but doesn’t, that’s cheating. It invalidates the game.

The left and the democrats cheat and say they didn’t. We should stop “playing with them.” Let them play with themselves. They also accuse republicans of cheating in the same way they deny they did.

Unfortunately they are in power now. But they never would have been if conservatives/republicans, could figure out what in the world they really believe and stand for it unapologetically.

It was obvious to anyone thinking that in this day of TV and superficiality, an older, white-haired, nearly bald, short man would never beat Obama. Although he sure tried and the election was closer than it should have been.

ANY of the other candidates would have been a better choice: Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, maybe even Thompson. But Republicans had to quibble about abortion, Mormonism, etc., and ended up with the worst candidate. Obviously, the voters were only thinking of their prejudices, not trying to win an election.

Interviews with voters show that only a tiny minority have any idea of the issues. They vote based on looks and the influence of their peers and TV.

Now we’re stuck with Obama. I hope all you that voted for McCain in the primary (not in the general election, where we had to) are happy now. THINK ABOUT THAT NEXT TIME !!

To others I would like to say, why are you calling the Iraq war a failure? Because some battles were more difficult than others? Because some intelligence was faulty? Because it took longer than we hoped? That was all true and much more of World War II. Was that war a failure?

Another example of consevatives trying to be too “fair.” I imagine some of you would be quite happy with The Fairness Doctrine! Got to give the other side their due! I imagine some of the terrorists are quite nice to their children or their mamas too. Shall we point that out?

Again, Brava (Bravo is masculine) Rachel Peepers for not worrying about “fairness” and just stating the truth.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:43 am 108. Thinking Person:

vivo….I like the smoke and mirrors from the Obamanots such as yourself who are always trying to throw the scent off the real winner of the WORST PRESIDENT title. That my friend, will always go to Carter. At least Bush was fighting a war he thought would save us from future terrorist attacks. Carter had no excuse except his own ineptitude. Care to defend Carter? I guess if you could vote for a blank slate like Obama you could but I’m dying to see how.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:58 am 109. BMoon:

The real problem is far larger than delusionary, dissimulating and dishonest Leftist ideologues and their stranglehold on the Media and on history departments. The concept of objective truth itself is under relentless attack in academia. Post-modernism, Chomskyism, relativism, Hegelian dialectalism have all worked their corrosive, thought-stopping, fact-twisting, word-distorting influence on the modernists’ mind to such a degree that even Harvard grads can barely pass a basic High School civics exam. (http://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/blog/2007/09/scary-findings-on-civic-literacy.html). Facts, history, civics et al have all become subservient to the Party and the ideology, instead of vice versa.

As a prophet once lamented long ago, “Truth has fallen in the street.”

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:43 am 110. susan:

robert hurley, yes you are in a mess and I will enjoy every disgrace that will happen on the idiots who voted for an empty suit (I mark, for the ones who voted for him, not for the decent people who voted republican or even the ones who didn’t vote)

Other that that, I am currently the happy majority in my country since I voted not only for a government coalition that won with 9 points over the opponent but also has today an approval rating from the population of 70% (more than obonga for the matter). The government right now enjoys a popularity never before seen in my country.

What is your point?

Nothing as usual.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:25 am 111. Barry 0351:

Nope, the BUSH IS SATAN cry has become a Mantra.
The left whips it out every few seconds to show their solidarity because with out Bush their lives will be devoid of someone to blame.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:33 am 112. Rich:

Flash forward to October 2012:

“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

I doubt that the answer to that question will be kind to Obama.

Dec 2, 2008 - 10:30 am 113. Pat J:

“Other that that, I am currently the happy majority in my country since I voted not only for a government coalition that won with 9 points over the opponent but also has today an approval rating from the population of 70% (more than obonga for the matter). The government right now enjoys a popularity never before seen in my country.”
————
Susan. What country are you from?

Dec 2, 2008 - 11:13 am 114. goy:

misanthrop’ – apparently it was much easier for Hurley to claim that the courts have accepted Obama’s BC than it was to site evidence of a court that has actually done so. Good call.

Since the SCOTUS is reviewing this case on Friday (Obama hasn’t produced the vault copy of his COLB as requested by same) it’s clear they haven’t accepted anything. They’re busy reliving 2000 and trying to decided if they, once again, want to be blamed for “selecting” the POTUS.

All idle prognostication about what Obama & Co. plan to do to the U.S. aside, the best indicator of where this country is headed will be the result of that SCOTUS review. If they go with the flow and simply roll on the issue without demanding a verifiable COLB from the State of HI (which they have the authority to do), Americans will be left with one of two unsavory choices.

As for an end to Bush-bashing? Don’t make me laugh. History is being rewritten as we watch, with almost no response from those who know better. This has been going on relentlessly for 8 years now because Bush and his administration have never stood up to the media 1/10th as well as they stood up to Radical Islam’s War Against the Rest of the World. Bush, for all the good he’s done, gave us Obama. He did this by allowing himself, Republicans and conservatives to be demonized 24/7 – a process which began when Al Gore tried to change the electoral rules after he failed carry his own home State in 2000 – with nary a peep of protest.

It’s clear that Bush-bashing will morph into capitalism-bashing. And eventually the cancer that was visited on Russia and Eastern Europe for 70+ years will find its way here. It already has.

Dec 2, 2008 - 11:19 am 115. Simply Susan:

Amen, Rachel, Amen!! and so say all of me!! I agree with you 100%. I also believe that after Mr. Bush leaves office, they are still going to blame him for every itch, scratch or bite that they have.

But you just wait, later down the years, some of these same people who are bashing him will wish that he was the President of the US.

He is a honourable, great, good and caring man, and I say it unabashed.

Dec 2, 2008 - 2:19 pm 116. Michelle:

I agree with most of what has been said. At the end of 4 years, what will the country look like? And it will all be Bush’s fault. When in reality, he will have had nothing to do with it at all. Kiss the Constitution goodbye.

Dec 2, 2008 - 2:24 pm 117. Dave Surls:

“Yes, loyal right-wingers, Bush will go down in history as the WORST president ever…”

Hardly.

FDR is the worst president in U.S. history. No one else is even close.

Harding and Coolidge were our last great presidents.

All Democrat presidents are bad…no exceptions. That being said, Carter (first Democrat president of the 20th century that didn’t get tens of thousands of Americans killed in an idiotic foreign war…that’s giving serial idiots JFK and LBJ equal credit for bungling us into Vietnam), and Clinton were the LEAST bad of the 20th century Democrat idiots who held the office. It turns out that there are worse things than having a buffoon as the POTUS, as Woody Wilson, FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ amply demonstrate. Carter and Clinton were a joke. The other five were a freaking disaster.

Bush is good, not great. A big fat liberal on economic issues, and thus absolutely horrible in that respect, OTOH, also an excellent war leader who got the job done in spite of the never-ending treachery of the left, including most of the Democrat Party (carrying on their long and proud tradition of naked treason, a trait they first displayed in our Civil War), the looney-toon protestor set and the stinking pile of vomit sometimes referred to as the MSM.

In spite of a gigantic fifth column of lefty scumbags working against him, Bush killed more terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism than all the presidents before him combined.

‘Nuff said.

Dec 2, 2008 - 4:56 pm 118. The Historian:

DEMOCRAT PARTY VERSUS KIDS
One of the key tests for the new Obama administration will come in an arena that is key to America’s future: EDUCATION, as noted at this link:

http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/obamas-democrat-party-vs-kids.html

Dec 2, 2008 - 5:14 pm 119. vivo:

104. T.K.:
105. misanthropicus:
108. Thinking Person:
117. Dave Surls:

Blind and deaf mice, running around with delirious souls. Open your eyes and look at the light and beauty around you. Learn from the past. Otherwise you will live unhappy lives and perish. The Golden Rule will suffice. Six billion people will appreciate it.

Dec 2, 2008 - 11:12 pm 120. Dave Surls:

I’m quite happy, thank you.

Dec 2, 2008 - 11:36 pm 121. susan:

vivo why you call yourself “alive” when obviously your brain is dead?

Dec 3, 2008 - 2:09 am 122. vivo:

121. susan:

I’m so dead and you’re so jealous . . .

Go to a Mexican CD store and buy “La Cucaracha”. Have someone translate the song to you. Enjoy. And dance it. A Margarita will help.

Dec 3, 2008 - 4:17 am 123. susan:

being first language italian, i do not need translation for spanish

Dec 3, 2008 - 8:15 am 124. Jim Baker:

Robert Hurley,
Don’t say “everyone”, okay. “Most of us” is okay with me because it does not include me. Your welcome.

Dec 3, 2008 - 8:48 am 125. Candide:

Michael DeLong said,

“…a great source of our strength in the fight against the Nazis during World War II and the Soviets during the Cold War was that we were a free, democratic nation that always tried to assume the higher moral ground.”
_________________________

Bush will be vindicated, but there will be many twists and turns in that process, which are hard to predict.

What is easy to predict is that one day some naive young person will say,

“”…a great source of our strength in the fight against the Islamic Radicals and Arab Nationalists was that we were a free, democratic nation blah, blah, blah…”

On that day Bush vindication will be complete.

Dec 3, 2008 - 8:59 am 126. Mike:

The Democrats were willing to forgive anything Bill did: withholding armored vehicles to the troops he sent to Mogadishu, selling missile technology to China for campaign cash, sending US troops to fight the European conflict in Sarajevo, or the little things like his wife’s looting of the White House, his staff’s unprofessional behavior in removing the “W’s” from the White House keyboards or his pardons for dollars program. (Notice I didn’t even mention Monica). Obama will get an even greater honeymoon because he is black and we have been taught to be equal unless it means saying a black person is wrong. Will Obama make mistakes? You can bet on it. Will it make the press? You can bet it won’t.

Dec 3, 2008 - 1:31 pm 127. Zane:

I knew Bush was going to be a great Pres when he refused to play the diplo game and meet with Arafat.

Dec 3, 2008 - 6:28 pm 128. Andrea:

The “last 8 years” has another meaning and does not just refer to Bush’s term. It refers to the time during which we’ve had to listen to constant carping and blaming of Bush for everything under the sun. The childish rants. The ridiculous accusations (Bush as Hitler). And one very ugly outcome: the resurgence of religious bigotry. Attacking Bush’s religion is now popular sport.

Altogether, not a very pretty picture of Americans.

Dec 3, 2008 - 8:13 pm 129. SassyFrassy:

THE MELTDOWN AND THE FLEECING OF AMERICA or restated DON’T BLAME THE REPUBLICANS

Comment: LET’S TALK ECONOMICS–and what has led to our “meltdown”

prior to 911 when DEMOCRATS WERE IN OFFICE the Usa sent our law enforcement to Yeman to arrest Osama bin laden. The Yeman ambassador promptly got into a ‘turf battle” with USA law enforcement to claim the USA LAW ENFORCEMENT was “infringing” on YEMAN ambassadors “turf”.

So what happened OUR USA LAW ENFORCEMENTS WERE TOLD by DEMOCRATS–to go home empty handed. The DEMOCRAT Administration didn’t know at the time their irresponsible actions had paved the way for terriorist to make plans and lay groundwork for 911.

The Wall Street journal at that time printed a small article on it and to the recent it has been discussed but apparantly NOT ENOUGH.

I submit for your reading NY Times 1999 – MUST READ!

Well, it???s about time, the mainstream ???brainwashing media??? is finally coming out with the truth on this meltdown???

I think if they would???ve come out with the truth right away instead of letting obama camp point fingers at the Bush Admin. THE Gallup polls etc would HAVE LOOKEDA whole lot different FROM RIGHT NOW!

I just hope the ???American People??? Get it ~ before it???s too late!

Look! The New York Times is catching up to the American people..it???s important for ALL Americans to know who is responsible for this Economic Meltdown we are experiencing???in fact, some of you might remember that I posted the notice from Bill Clinton himself [I posted again, what Bill said at the bottom of this post]

Who???s administration
caused the problem??? See below.

Amazing
foresight!! Take a gander at this while they try to lay blame for the whole meltdown???

9 years ago???this one is priceless and worth the read- right out of New York Times

September 30, 1999

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending by steven A Holmes where the DEMOCRATS admitted that faulty lending pracitces along with ACORN activities have brought use to the crossroads our Nation is today.
HERE IS WHAT BILL CLINTON HAS TO SAY:

Bill Clinton knows who is responsible for this NATIONAL CRISIS!

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: “I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

ANNCR: You’re right, Mr. President. It didn’t have to happen.

Watch this video with Bill Clinton ~~ AND NO THIS WAS NOT TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szMGSbtYFtc

SO here we have it DEMOCRATS BROUGHT ON 911 AND CAUSED OUR MELTDOWN thru their FAULTY LENDING PRACTICES and now are once again all for this FLEECING OF AMERICA thru this bailout bandwagon!

Just found out days ago that this bailout will derail the economy by encouraging businesses to engage in the same kind of IRRESPONSIBLE risky business practices knowing full well that when the irresponsible business practices are overdrawn the PUBLIC WILL once again be left PAYING FOR IT.

The US in the bailout by year 2017 will be around 3 trillion in debt and if the US cannot pay the US will be completely bankrupt.

How many remember that Obama said what he wants to do in US will take lots of money!.

Well, with the DEMOCRATS track record for irresponsible spending that would hasten the bankrupting of the usa.

We need to make sure our Nation makes sure WASH DC slams on the brakes to spending.

WANT TO KNOW what happened to all those SO CALLED ACORN AND DEMOCRATS properties they claimed they wanted? WELL THEY ARE ALL BOARDED UP. MEANTIME our economy is still reeling from the effects of the DEMOCRATS CONSTANT IRRESPONSIBLE ACTIVITIES.

NOW THE BAILOUT which gives all businesses a blank check to engage in every conceiveable irresponsible business manner knowing the public will be forced to pick up the tab when the company runs out of money.

This will bankrupt our Nation, people and we will wind up like CUBA.

here is what the ACLU THINKS how stupid AMERICAN’S ARE SPELLED OUT BY NORMAN THOMAS ONE OF THE FOUNDER’S OF THE ACLU

quote American’s will never knowingly accept Socialism but under ‘liberalism’ accept every fragment of the Socialistic agenda; until one day they wake up in a Socialist nation and “wonder” how it all happened. by norman thomas one of the founders of the ACLU.

We need as a nation to make sure we legally and legislatively never leave WASH DC alone until everyone of our freedoms are iron-clad protected.

What we need to investigate is how the DEMOCRATS can count on the USA continuing to be as “stupid as the ACLU THINKS AMEIRCANS ARE’ so that the ACLU and DEMOCRATS can further their communistic/socialist/marxist agenda.

Just found out days ago news said the UN wants an agreement to SHARIA LAW which means making “anyone” punishable by death for claiming the muslim SHARIA LAW/islam murders or criminal activities as bad.

Does that sound like fairness to you? does that sound like equality to you?

What president, orator or author said–Tolerance becomes wrong and EVIL only when applied or given to criminals.

whom was it said–All that is needed for tyranny to reign is for good men to do nothing.

See how you can help protect this Nation at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) to address this topic signatures are needed if this Nation wants to protect WE THE PEOPLE.

We put it to you WE THE PEOPLE, is our Society so warped that we need to be reminded of what these orators have said and how it applies to Society??

feel free to cut paste print re-print and comment please

Dec 3, 2008 - 10:34 pm 130. vivo:

128. Andrea:

“Good men will do good and evil men will do evil, but for a good man to do evil things, it takes religion”.

Dec 4, 2008 - 4:39 am 131. vivo:

123. susan:

Bella bambina, good for you!

Dec 4, 2008 - 4:40 am 132. Pat J:

Bella bambina, good for you!
—————————–
She doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Dec 4, 2008 - 10:49 am 133. LJC:

I hope BHO reads this blog–I have a warning for him on the fate of presidents ala LBJ, who had a very good press and media thing from the time he took over from Kennedy till some time in ‘65, even with Nam getting hotter and hotter. And then one day LBJ pulled his dog’s ears, and that was the end of the love-in with the media, and a large chunk of the People. One silly thing and Lyndon was dung till Dick took over as Potus. Tell me that was not the way events really happened,but it’s the way I remember it. Be careful, Barak, watch yourself.

Dec 4, 2008 - 9:41 pm 134. thinking mom:

As long as American media acts like Solzhenitsyn described them (see online his infamous 1978 Harvard speech)…Bush will be despised. The Saul Alinsky policy of personal destruction is also a tool for the fashion following media…who blatantly promoted Obama and mauled McCain/Palin.

Just one example…Barbara Walters (not young…not inexperienced). I saw her reverently interviewing Pres. Elect Obama – thought she was going to genuflect. (A respectful, but tough interview would have served us all better.)

Today, I heard the ending clip of Experienced Reporter Barbara Walters interviewing – that GIANT of political wisdom – Tina Fey (the woman from the TV Saturday Nite Live comedy show who has made a living since Sept 08 imitating and mocking Sarah Palin). And she laughed with Fey over Palin…

Thus, US media mostly confuses comedy TV with real reporting -

- Even experienced persons like Barbara Walters, Charlie Gibson and most TV such as Chicago’s – WGN – mocked, misquoted the McCain/Palin team (also shooting unflattering video-sound on regular occasion);
—and mostly idolized the Obama-Biden team…

Thus, the media silliness (and following of fashion) goes on – and Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 Harvard comments show that we will not get objective truth abou Pres. Bush (or anything else) from such a silly sycophantic media group any time soon…

Dec 5, 2008 - 8:09 am 135. Jack:

As soon as he leaves office we are done with him. No need to keep bashing, he cant’ really do anything more to us. History will take care of the rest. Those of you who think the media elected Obama because they’re all liberals. Well how did Bush get into office, twice? We will be effected by his policies for decades, so there will be times when we will have to bring it up, but for the most part, we don’t give a shit, good riddance, let’s move forward. We let that asshole Nixon live out his life didn’t we.

Dec 8, 2008 - 10:58 pm 136. thinking mom:

The mostly left media is not enough to sway votors unless there are other outside blows…

(see June 2008 US gov regular gas prices – where gas spiked after McCain was nominated—and stayed high (till right after the Palin early Sept. Alaska oil speech). When Bush’s 2004 reelection came up …The economy was doing better than expected after the massive blow of 9/11 – no huge mid Sept market meltdown as in this Sept right after Palin’s nomination. And no Sept 2008 explosion of the then-still percolating Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac mess (which has many fingerprints on it).

However, the mostly left leaning media are still a factor. They resembled adoring Beatles fans of the mid 1960’s in this election. They swayed an unknown amount of votes with their rarely critical mostly worshipful coverage of Obama.

In fact, today (day after Illinois Dem. Governor Blagovich got arrested for massive corruption) a few media types said (in reverential tones as if talking of a religious leader) that Obama is not connected.

It is most likely Mr. Obama is not connected to Gov B’s blatant corruption, but one need not act if one’s religion is threatened were he to be ever connected to any scandal.

Dec 10, 2008 - 9:06 am 137. Josh:

I do disagree with you on one comment. President Bush will never be acknowledged for the good work he has done in Iraq. When President Obama finishes the job and (hopefully) leaves behind a stable Iraq, he (not President Bush) will get the credit. I guarantee it. He is our saviour after all.

Jan 22, 2009 - 6:56 am

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