The Bush Legacy

huKSer

huKSer

New member
Silly me, I must be one of the few that thought the other thread title was "The Obama Legacy", many posters interpreted it as the "The Bush Legacy".

So I created a parallel thread called "The Bush Legacy" for those who don't want to derail a thread.

Mods - I know you can merge threads, but can you split them?

 
GWB I think will be in the lower 1/3 tier of presidents. Not the worse by any means - Carter, Buchanan, Harding and a few others get that label.

The thing that is hard to judge about GWB is there were so many wild swings during his term.

Foreign policy/terrorism: The low on 9/11, The high in going into Afgan and the country and congress behind him. The high of the fast ' Mission Accomplished" in Iraq which turned out to be a
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phrase. The low of not managing our 'victory' and the prolonged mopping up job. Then the high of the surge which should have occurred. Then the NO WMD lows, the cost of lives, money and prestige that followed. Initial response to 9/11 was a big plus, follow through a big negative. In light of what we know now and considering the ramifications of the Patriot Act and NSA. While some foreign leaders didn't like his cowboy tendencies, some liked the fact that he stood by his word. I give Bush a D+ at best now. He kept us safe afterwards but at a huge cost.

Domestically: Economy started out in the dot com recession which 9/11 made much worse. However, the economy recovered and was growing and generating jobs at a fast rate until the housing crash. Due to the housing crash all of the great gains made in the middle years were lost. In the same way I cannot blame Obama for the slow recovery in the other thread, I cannot blame Bush for the Housing Crash - this is a multi president disaster which has been debated on in other threads. I can blame Bush, however, for having 2 wars going plus initiating tax cuts which weakened our response to the housing crash. Grade D (middle years good, ending years very bad).

Growth of Govt: GWB rarely vetoed bills, supported big govt programs - whether they be social programs or military. Budget constraint Grade D

Cultural Issues: Pro-life, traditional values - he was supportive of these conservative ideas but not transformative as Obama has been. His highest profile SC appointee, Roberts, is a mixed bag. Grade B+

Overall Grade - D+

 
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With Bush, to me it all stems around the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

To me, Afghanistan was justified to go after Bin Laden. But, Iraq was a total cluster F.

Any President who gets us into the wrong war that kills thousands of American troops goes WAY down the list.

On the Economy? I honestly don't know how you make a judgement on that after 9/11. 9/11 changed everything. And, we really don't have a clue what would have happened in his Presidency if that didn't happen compared to after it did happen. OR, we really don't have a clue how any other President's economic policy would have faired after 9/11.

That one event was so huge to the American psyche that I have a very difficult time making a judgement on a particular President based off of that.

 
Yeah I kind of agree with BRB as far as, if you decide to take us to war for no real reason at all, and thousands die as a result, I'll have a hard time thinking of you anywhere north of favorably.

 
PEPFAR was a pretty rad thing that he did. It has got it's criticisms as well but there are a whole lot of people living today that probably would have died without it.

 
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All I know is that it would've been an extremely tough time for any President to do much better dealing with 9-11, terrorism, and the resulting economic impacts and the housing bubble bursting. Going into Iraq sure didn't help things but I'm still not convinced that was an entirely wrong thing to do given what we thought we knew at the time. I really think he did as well as anyone would have given the circumstances at the time. If they would've just found some of the WMD's that were there at some point in time, his legacy looks much better but now it is what it is. I'll give him a C+, bumped up from a C- just because it was an extremely tough time. Don't think any other recent President could've escaped those 8 years with a much better score and many likely would've done worse.

 
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