Worst President Ever? NOT!

While hosting "The Laura Ingraham Show" and my own radio show over the past few days, I have listed a few of President Bush's jawdropping achievements. Because of popular demand, I list them again here.

We have been beaten over the head by the liberal mainstream press and the lefties in government that President Bush is "the worst president, maybe ever." For years, we've heard that he's an imbecile, a moron, ineffective, an incompetent boob who has ravaged the Constitution.

And yet, how is it that this complete idiot can continue to rack up victory after victory, both over America's enemies and his opponents here at home?

Just in the past week, President Bush secured funding for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of his presidency (actually June 2009. You're welcome, Senator Obama.) He got that funding without preconditions attached and without a deadline for troop withdrawal. You'll recall that the Democrats' campaign platform in 2006 (and over the past two years) had been pulling funding for Iraq, setting limits on the president's ability to act, and effecting a timeline for withdrawal. They didn't get any of those things.

Also last week, President Bush got Congressional approval of his reform of FISA, which allows the program to wiretap terrorist suspects calling into the United States to proceed unabated. It also granted immunity to the telecom companies that were participating in this program TO PROTECT OUR LIVES. The Democrats had opposed the program since the New York Times splashed this state secret all over the front page. Last week, the President won the warrantless wiretapping approval and the telecom immunity.

So let's recap: The president gets Iraq war funding and no withdrawal deadline, beating the Democrats. He gets the wiretap program and the telecom immunity, beating the Democrats. He's winning in Iraq, beating both the Democrats AND al-Qaeda (a two-fer!). He's changing Afghanistan, another two-fer. He got two waves of tax cuts through, beating the Democrats. And he's prevented another terrorist attack on American soil since September 11, 2001.

He hasn't been perfect: he's failed on illegal immigration and energy independence, and now we're in crises on both scores, and federal spending has been wild. But show me a perfect president, and I'll show you a perfect person. They don't exist.

On balance, he's got a pretty stunning record.

Moron? Idiot? Boob? Incompetent? Looks pretty successful to me. And clever: nobody has parlayed that Reaganesque "cowboy simpleton" routine better than Bush. Like Reagan, Bush has accomplished some staggering things, while everyone was writing him off and no one was looking.

Comments

[Truther]

She is right- and funny, when she says he has the simpleton routine down. God bless the GOP.

[FredK2929]

That's the best you can do? That he managed to get things through Congress? Not exactly a stellar record. Not exactly "jawdropping". Not quite like getting the country out of the Depression or ending the Cold War.

You forgot to mention:

9/11 happened after he took office, despite warnings that Osama bin Laden aimed to strike within the U.S.

Osama bin Laden never captured dead or alive.

Abu Ghraib.

Hurricane Katrina disaster. ("Heckuva job, Brownie.")

Iraq War based on Saddam Hussein's imminent use of WMD's.

No WMD's ever found.

Premature declaration of victory ("Mission Accomplished" -- yes, Bush's people put up the banner! Don't blame our military!).

Attempted change in rationale for Iraq War (but many of us never forget the reason that was given initially!).

Valerie Plame scandal.

Gas prices increase multiple times.

Public school system in decay.

Mortgage crisis.

U.S. Attorney firings scandal.

Loss of respect abroad.

You want to try again? Or do we need to keep going? He is the worst president ever. The shame of it is that he is not really stupid. But not all people who "not stupid" should be president. He should have found something else to do that did not involve screwing up the country.

[gringoman]

Ma Chere,

The problem with Georgie has not been so much his early bumbling in Iraq after the astounding early victory, when the "smart" morons were forecasting thousands of US fatalities on the way to Baghdad (Remember? They don't)

Every leader bumbles in war. (How lucky for FDR that he had Churchill to take him by the hand.)

History will likely treat Georgie better---arguably even much better---than today's weaselcrats do.
It could be surprisingly easy, judging by the list of idiocies posted here by the House Liberal. (Even what the liberals did to the once fine US public school system, even after breaking historic records in funding it with theft from the responsible, is ascribed to George Bush. Anybody notice? This would appear to take BDS from Syndrome to Psychosis, especially when you factor in the horrendous inability to get the 9.11 Arabs and AQ during Clinton due to PC and "sensitivity" issues, when even the FBI feared being prosecuted for committing what the liberals have branded "racial profiling."

George Bush fails vis-a-vis Ronald Reagan especially in (2) Border security and (2) Communication.

(Yes, Reagan issued an amnesty, but well before what became an illegal tsunami under Business School Georgie.)

As the Great Non-Communicator, Georgie failed everyone who voted for him, people who watched helplessly as the weaselcrats took over the national dialogue, able to distort anything and everything, including their own part in the national and international consensus on the danger posed by Saddam Hussein and Middle East Madness of Oil and the Medeival.

Even today, the Republicans seem impotent in throwing crucial questions back in Libdom's face. Even if you assume Saddam did not have or successfully hid his WMD, how long do you wait for this guy to develop the nukes which everyone knew he wanted? And what do you do then? Whose thumbs do you twiddle?

Which leads directly into Iran today. Georgie--like Johnny McCain who is showing signs of Mumble Mouth too--- has all kinds of opportunities to mock these "smart" morons, but he will not. The wasp elite has too much "class" to go forth and Communicate directly. It's beneath Old MOney. That takes a non-Ivy Leaguer, a Ronald Reagan, someone a little closer to the national pulse.

So why isn't Libdom now doing its hideous WMD shriek re Iran? Here's your chance, Bubbies! Give it to Bush---the one thing you know how to do. Go get him, libniks! Ask, Where's da proof, Cowboy? Why you fear-mongering, Cowboy? Hey Moron, why don't you just talk to those Islamos in Tehran who say Israel is a rotten corpse that needs to be dumped into the sea? Moron, you have to talk to them. Moron, don't be a war monger like your McCain. Talk, Moron, Talk!

And what is the weaselcrats' answer to the fast developing Mullah Bomb? Can they do any better this time than "Bush Lied/People Died"?

Does anybody know?

Is that silence we hear?

[Ummah Gummah]

Gringoman, you can't talk to the guy. He's a self-hating Jew. AND a self-hating white man as well..

You can try and talk sense.. break things down in the greatest of detail..

Trying to reason with a liberal is like trying to go pick daisies with a Terminator.

That is what I have learned while observing some of the Moonbats who fly in here every now and then.

Problem is the Moonbat vote will go to Obama 99%. The remaining 1% will vote Nader.

[FredK2929]

FDR and Churchill were a great team, but Churchill hardly led FDR by the hand. No less a person than Churchill himself gave FDR credit for what he did for the world.

I blame Bush for No Child Left Behind -- which focuses on more tests than on actually improving the schools, and has led to the top of the class being ignored while the rest of the class is taught to pass the test.

We didn't have to invade Iraq (and if we were going to, a better rationale than "mushroom clouds" should have been presented). We had Saddam Hussein's under control as an international threat. Our fly-overs were working.

What we don't need is Bush taking on any more projects right now. All he'll do is screw up, like he did to oil companies (he was the one who cracked jokes in the boardroom without contributing anything constructive), like he has done his whole life. Including when he had that DUI in Maine that was covered up. The guy is just a screw-up. We don't need him breaking anything else. So he has to leave Iran alone until January so he doesn't create another mess, since that's all he is capable of doing.

We'll see how history treats Bush. I predict: Not well.

[Ummah Gummah]

I won't comment on Bush though most of Fred's points are liberal talsking points.. one fact is that the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were BEGGING the Americans to stay or move them with them when they left.

We all know they feared much worse would befall them once the Iraqis came in charge.

Abu Ghraib was one of those cheap propaganda exercises right out of the Al Quaeda handbook.

The Western press was all-too eager to go right along with it all..

Back to Bush.. the WORST President ever.. that distinction goes tro none other than Jimmah MALAISE Cattuh..

[FredK2929]

"Self-hating Jew" is a convenient term that Jews use against Jews who question the religion. If you question a couple-of-thousand-years-old religion, that must mean you hate yourself, right? My answer: Just because something is tradition or old doesn't mean it's not subject to question.

If you are Jewish, Ummah, and going to synagogue weekly, you should give it up because it's not making you a better person.

Nice Terminator reference. It makes sense that you live in the world of science fiction. What's next? A Star Trek reference?

[FredK2929]

Nice try, Ummah. Carter was definitely among our worst presidents, but he did not have the opportunity to do the kind of longterm damage that Bush has had. Plus, at least Carter had some kind of ethics. Bush has demonstrated that he has none (treatment of John McCain in 2000 election; Valerie Plame scandal; firing of U.S. Attorneys for not conducting politically motivated prosecutions; not condemning Swift-boating of John Kerry; and OF COURSE -- invading a nation based on lies).

Carter was merely ineffective. In that sense, Carter is in the same category as bad presidents like Buchanan, Pierce, and Benjamin Harrison. They were not bad men, just not up to the task.

Bush has surpassed Nixon in lack of ethics. He has surpassed Warren G. Harding in making poor choices in appointments. I believe he has surpassed Andrew Johnson in doing longterm damage (Of course, we'll have to wait and see on this one). He has surpassed Carter, Harding, and any others in incompetence.

You going to try to respond, Ummah, or just call me more names?

[FredK2929]

P.S. Jimmy Carter never used the word "malaise" in the speech that conservatives call the Malaise Speech.

[Ummah Gummah]

So Fred thinks a Bush DUI in Maine is reprehensible, but Obama can simply wipe away 20 years of membership in a racist church cult by half-heartedly throwing the "reverend" Wrong under a bicycle?!

His associations with FaraKKKan mean NOTHING rto u libs!!

Oh, and for good measure..

Bush was DUI - NOBODY DIED!

Ask Mary Jo Kopechne whom she'd rather ride in the car with.. Bush or Ted the Red-nosed reindeer..

Oh I almost forgot, we can't ask her anything..

Shall I take on some more liberal talking points!!

[Ummah Gummah]

Oh YEAH!!??

Carter is responsible for enabling the mullahs to take over Iran, with all the consequences that has had.

Consequences which now will make armmed intervention inevitable to keep them fron acquiring the Bomb.

Not only Bush thinks so.. or is Dovenik Olmert also a war monger now?

Carter was weak and he got taken advantage of. Carter gave away the Panam Canal too.

No islamic "republic" of iran - No Hezbollah.. no Hamas... and so on.

All the islamofascist stuff we are now going through goes back directly to Carter allowing the ascendance of the insanahola Kakamamie in iran.

So let's keep the ball at eye level, shall we?

[Ummah Gummah]

Oh and .. mortgage crisis...!!

Did Bush tell these idiots who didn't read their contracts or scrimped on a lawyer to guide them to take on these mortgages with no money down and ballon payments..?

Where was Congress all these years.. they never saw this coming..?

They pass more laws than they pass gas and yet they never attempted to draft regulatory legislation re. the mortgage industry!

It's all Bush'sw fault!!

Why the bastard!! He didn't go to everyone's home and put a chicken in their pot!!

[FredK2929]

Was Obama committing a crime when he went to Rev. Wright's church? What's that you say? No?

Then Bush's DUI is worse. Someone could have been killed.

You make a better point about Ted Kennedy. I may have to read "Senatorial Privilege" because it's still not clear to me why he was not prosecuted. But it did destroy his chances of ever becoming president.

Maybe if Bush had killed someone, his chances of becoming president would have been destroyed. So maybe one person would have been killed instead of thousands in his war based on lies. But that's all theory.

A better comparison between Bush and Obama is that Bush had an association with anti-Semite Rev. Billy Graham. So did Nixon. So did many other presidents. So if that was not a problem for them, I don't see why I should hold the Wright thing against Obama.

Sure, Ummah, keep on addressing my points. Keep making yourself look more and more absurd. This is the one place you can do it because, outside of this blog, we all see you as the lunatic fringe, and we find you childish and amusing, but nothing to be taken seriously.

[FredK2929]

So Carter did in Afghanistan what Reagan did in Iraq? There are photos of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein.

As for the mortgage crisis: If the economy was great, you'd be giving Bush all the credit, right? But when times are tough, it's not his fault.

It's like Bush saying he's "The Decider" until things go wrong. Then it's always someone else's fault. Story of his life.

[Ummah Gummah]

Oh and .. mortgage crisis...!!

Did Bush tell these idiots who didn't read their contracts or scrimped on a lawyer to guide them to take on these mortgages with no money down and ballon payments..?

Where was Congress all these years.. they never saw this coming..?

They pass more laws than they pass gas and yet they never attempted to draft regulatory legislation re. the mortgage industry!

It's all Bush'sw fault!!

Why the bastard!! He didn't go to everyone's home and put a chicken in their pot!!

[Ummah Gummah]

Fred you really need to look in the mirror because you're only talking to yourself. Might as well see yourself doing it.

[FredK2929]

That was not worth repeating, Ummah.

Not everything can be Bush's fault. I'll give you that. But he has set the tone and direction for this country, and he has gotten us into some messes that are not going away by January. His presidency has been a disaster, and apparently, everyone but 11% of the country has realized this. He was never fit for the office. He never should have been there. We should take some of the blame for putting him there. His ability to become our leader is a failure of the American electoral process. We are supposed to be protected from incompetents, not following them.

[FredK2929]

What exactly am I "talking to [my]self" about? Clarify.

[FredK2929]

Ah, I see. Forget it, Ummah. Your way of thinking is now looked upon as ridiculous. That's why you feel a need to scream and resort to cliches like "self-hating Jew" and "liberalism is a mental disorder". You have nothing else to base your base prejudices on. Your time is past.

The country is finally coming around to my way of thinking again. The neocons have failed. Good riddance. See you on January 20th!

[Ummah Gummah]

Oh and this one.. Osama bin Laden never caught dead or alive..

Oh eas, Fred... THAT Osama bin Laden whom your ACLU buddies want to give a real trial in a criminal court to... why don't you go on the lookout for him with the troops so that you can make sure he gets mirandized properly?!

[Ummah Gummah]

So Fred.. I'l give you second-worst President in our lifetimes for now..

Though History may indeed wipe away the details and focus on the bigger picture in the end..

And we won't know that picture until much later..

[Ummah Gummah]

So now we have TWO incompetents running for President... just like last time.

I am not a Bush-backer at all. I'm just against putting blame where it doesn't always belong.

His weakness on border security and pushing for amnesty is where Bush sucks.. his associations with the criminal islamo-fascist SOWdis should be investigated further..

But please.. the mortgage crisis.. Abu Ghraib..?

I supppose Bush went over there and put panties on the heads of these inmates there too..

Well, he WAS a member of Skull and Bones so that one might actuallly be plausible in some weird way!

[emineid]

No doubt about it: Bush had it tough. He happened to be at the helm during a turning point in American history.

What would Bill Clinton have done? Keep playing golf while the F-117s are on stand-by with dusk approaching?

What would Carter have done? Send some Sea Stallions into a sand storm?

Some of the criticism against Bush are fair. Some are just silly.

1. Valerie Plame. Does anyone remember Dick Armitage? Yeah, the guy who blabbed his big mouth and started this whole thing. Why is it that the same critics who want to see Rove and Libby and Cheney hanging from the tree never even say peep about Armitage? And just what kind of an axe was Patrick Fitzgerald grinding? That's some millstone he was turning.

2. Oil price. Just four years ago, one of my friends moved into an $800,000 condo. This is the same guy who told me, "They don't make land anymore." I was already suspicious that the banks were making these loans to not-really-wealthy people, but a retired banker told me, "You gotta keep the money moving, and since you are paying mostly interest the first several years, the banks don't care." Hmmm. Multiply this story by a million, and you had a bubble that was just asking to be pricked with a hat pin. Meanwhile, the investment companies found loopholes that allowed this mad speculation into oil, and THAT is why we are paying four dollars a gallon. You can blame Bush until your vocal cord scleroses, but it's YOUR 401K and mutual fund manager who is driving up the oil price.

3. World prestige. How many among us have a clue why the rest of the world hates us? They hate us because we have flush toilets and hot running water and private cars. George Marshall predicted at the closing of WWII that the mass media would allow all these poor folks to see how the well-off were living, and that this would increase the hate and discord. If you are a single mother in Nicaragua flipping through some second-hand Sears catalog, you are going to be absolutely mesmerized by the material prosperity of America. All these school kids in Syria and China and India are taught that THEY are the best, that they have awesome history. Then these people grow up and realize that they are getting their behinds handed to them by the military clout and economic prosperity of America. Add to that all those state-controlled newspapers that repeat parrot-like their ministers blaming America for everything. Also, the cold business logic of the Anglo-Saxon Americans is not everyone's cup of tea. The Europeans would love to have our living standards, but they balk at the way we fire people at the drop of a hat. The human cost of prosperity is very high, though arguably less than the human cost of Communism, authoritarianism, hunger and pestilence.

4. Hurricane Katrina. When it happened, a lot of the doctors in the Midwestern city where I live were paging each other and making arrangements with the convention hall to help the refugees who might be heading this way. We had hundreds of cots ready. In the end, only a handful of people showed up, but we were in that sense prepared. We didn't wait for checks from the Treasury Department to get off our sofas. Seriously, is this the way some people prepare for disaster, wait for FEMA to hand out ATM cards? Back in 1983 when they were filming "The Day After," Even Nicholas Meyer figured out that FEMA was a joke. And we've learned nothing since then?

How George W Bush is rated by historians and by Americans in general is not going to be known for years, decades. It depends on how Iraq turns out.

I just want to know exactly what crystal ball all these detractors are staring into.

[timothy_d11]

His final approval rating will be just above Nixon (who is at the very bottom) and just below Carter.

He's the ABSOLUTE WORST and you people that defend him are somewhere between laughable and disgusting.

[Truther]

I would like to accentuate the positive - for example, he s a fast runner 20m30s for 3miles. He has no equal.