I'm not being sarcastic about this. When the tea partiers were rounding up after the 2008 election I had a general positive spin about the group that applies to the Syria debate. For better or for worse, including the people I vehemently disagree with, I'm glad people are actually paying attention to what our government is doing. I'm glad people finally realize that elections have consequences. Rather it be because they are riled up because a black man is elected, whatever your politics are, its better that the general public is knowlegable. in the run up to iraq, i don't think its that the american public was supportive or war thirsty as much as i think they were apathetic to government. one thing i have learned in my short time on this planet is that organizations do not run themselves. nothing is automatic, rather it be governments, schools, churches, or corporations. an organization is a group of people, and depending on the ability and compentence of those individuals especially the leaders is how an organization will perform. we learned this hard lesson in katrina, incompetent president has incompetent staff and when competence is needed there is none. so now regardless of their motivations, americans of all social and economic backgrounds are more demanding of government officals and the democratic process. that is a good thing.
Not a George W. Bush fan. Iraq was a disaster, spent money like a drunken sailor, one of the more "liberal" Presidents, in some ways more than Obama. Bill Clinton (while a horndog) was a much better President policy wise. Clinton's financial team was first rate.
Actually we learned it in the nineties; when one party single-handedly squandered a global nuclear and geopolitical victory, their own historic fifty year political realignment and the best prosecutorial check on executive power all at the behest of a literary agent, a jowly, disgruntled office admin; a promiscuous, gullible, litigious bumpkin and the legal advice of a bigoted, emotionally imbalanced commentator.
Except Clinton's financial team led us to the economic hard times that had begun prior to 9/11, which really threw us into a tailspin.
you can't really fault Clinton for the dot.com bust. But at the same time you can't really give him for all the credit of the dot.com boom before that either - he didn't invent the internet...Al Gore did :grin:
He weakened the world's only warmongering country. Now USA has to think twice before killing people. He debunked the democracy lies. Now we do not ever hear Obama uses "democracy" to push the war.
I thought this thread was supposed to be about a postive legacy from Bush. I don't see anything positive, not even in the OP.
Out of curiosity, do any of our resident democrats believe that W. had any type of positive effect in America or the world?
I'm not a W fan by any stretch. But I think his increased aid to Africa was exceptional and he should receive credit for it. It's true that his administration lied about how much of an increase, but there is no doubt that the money did a lot of good.
No child left behind. Also while I think that tax cuts are a more risky economics, it definitely benefitted people, just too much variance in revenue for the gov.
I said during the GW Bush presidency that I didn't think he was the worse president ever and I still think that way. The Hardings, Hayes and Buchanans of history are still worse. As other have been noted he is rightly praised for his work in Africa and I also think his heart was in the right place regarding No Child Left Behind and immigration reform. I think history will remember him not as an evil or power mad man but as someone who wasn't completely up to the job and got some very bad advice from people around him.
A big difference, besides Bush being a governor who'd I have over Perry in a minute as well, was a legislature that wasn't dominated by a Republican Party under the heavy influence of extremists. The fact of the matter is that Bob Bullock essentially ran state government as Lt. Governor during Bush's first term, until his death in June of 1999 during his second. And Bush was grateful. At Bullock's funeral, Bush wept, and the tears were genuine. He knew what he owed Bob Bullock, and he knew what he had lost. Texas today is not "another country," compared to then. It's more like another planet. Not news to you, Buck.
