Bush II's Popularity is soaring

[GoodEnoughForMe]

American presidents found the inverse to be true; you can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun, than you can with just a gun.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

If your next president is going to be some movie/TV celebrity I am officially calling quits on the American political machine.

 

[Mouthwash]

If your next president is going to be some movie/TV celebrity I am officially calling quits on the American political machine.

Why? The party's just getting started!

 

[onejayhawk]

Bush is the best President of this century so far. It's a low bar, but there it is.

J

 

[Berzerker]

he's 3rd best in a 3 way race (if Clinton doesn't count)

 

[caketastydelish]

Bush is the best President of this century so far. It's a low bar, but there it is.

J

How on earth was bush the best?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

How on earth was bush the best?

On our Earth he wasn't. @onejayhawk resides in an alternate reality populated with people who call themselves independents despite slavish devotion to every Republican position and politician.

 

[Lexicus]

Trump is a wannabe autocrat whose "mistakes" include attempting to undermine and destroy the very institutions which he has sworn to uphold.

Sorry, but Bush did the exact same thing. Bush signed off on torture (which Trump talked tough about, but afaik has not actually done). Bush suborned the intelligence agencies into lying to the world so he could fight a war of aggression. The only two areas in which Trump is doing worse than Bush did are in what he's doing to the state department, which may well end up doing more damage than the Iraq War, and judicial appointments. Bush's appointments to the federal bench were bad, but they were by and large qualified judges, just qualified judges whose politics were trash. Trump's appointments are setting a whole new standard of evil.

Bush remains the worst President of the 21st century, but Trump has plenty of time to catch up.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Sorry, but Bush did the exact same thing. Bush signed off on torture (which Trump talked tough about, but afaik has not actually done). Bush suborned the intelligence agencies into lying to the world so he could fight a war of aggression. The only two areas in which Trump is doing worse than Bush did are in what he's doing to the state department, which may well end up doing more damage than the Iraq War, and judicial appointments. Bush's appointments to the federal bench were bad, but they were by and large qualified judges, just qualified judges whose politics were trash. Trump's appointments are setting a whole new standard of evil.

Not really. He hasn't appointed a horse. Yet.

 

[Lexicus]

Not really. He hasn't appointed a horse. Yet.

I'd actually rather have horses in place of several of his bench appointees.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'd actually rather have horses in place of several of his bench appointees.

Hmmm...good point.

 

[EgonSpengler]

About 10 years ago, there was a book entitled "The 3 Trillion Dollar War" that tried to estimate all of the long-term costs of the invasion of Iraq for the US. I never got around to reading it, but I wonder how accurate it's been so far, or if anyone has attempted a new tally.

 

[Evie]

Sorry, but Bush did the exact same thing. Bush signed off on torture (which Trump talked tough about, but afaik has not actually done). Bush suborned the intelligence agencies into lying to the world so he could fight a war of aggression. The only two areas in which Trump is doing worse than Bush did are in what he's doing to the state department, which may well end up doing more damage than the Iraq War, and judicial appointments. Bush's appointments to the federal bench were bad, but they were by and large qualified judges, just qualified judges whose politics were trash. Trump's appointments are setting a whole new standard of evil.

Bush remains the worst President of the 21st century, but Trump has plenty of time to catch up.

There is a tendency in this thread, in my opinion, to overly focus on "presidential" actions - decrees, appointments, use of executive power in general, and to ignore the simple moral and social authority that comes with being the president.

What the president does certainly matter, but it is foolish and naive to dismiss what the president says. Their words are a part of their presidency, whether they're Washington's farewell address, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, or FDR's fireside chats. The president is in a position to legitimize, empower and encourage certain ideas, and hinder other, to spread and disseminate notion to large segments of the population. That,s part of the powers that come with the presidency, and misuse of that power makes for a bad president as surely as what the president *does*.

Trump, thanks to his motherfranking twitter account, has been expressing himself publicly at a pretty much unprecedented rate. His twitter is basically the Fireside chats taken straight to the bottom of the slippery slope, and very much a part of his presidency. Which puts his presidency right near the bottom of the pile in and of itself.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There is a tendency in this thread, in my opinion, to overly focus on "presidential" actions - decrees, appointments, use of executive power in general, and to ignore the simple moral and social authority that comes with being the president.

What the president does certainly matter, but it is foolish and naive to dismiss what the president says. Their words are a part of their presidency, whether they're Washington's farewell address, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, or FDR's fireside chats. The president is in a position to legitimize, empower and encourage certain ideas, and hinder other, to spread and disseminate notion to large segments of the population. That,s part of the powers that come with the presidency, and misuse of that power makes for a bad president as surely as what the president *does*.

Trump, thanks to his motherfranking twitter account, has been expressing himself publicly at a pretty much unprecedented rate. His twitter is basically the Fireside chats taken straight to the bottom of the slippery slope, and very much a part of his presidency. Which puts his presidency right near the bottom of the pile in and of itself.

I stand convinced. GWBush was indeed superior to the current cretin in chief. @Berzerker had me leaning, but this was definitive.

 

[Lexicus]

There is a tendency in this thread, in my opinion, to overly focus on "presidential" actions - decrees, appointments, use of executive power in general, and to ignore the simple moral and social authority that comes with being the president.

What the president does certainly matter, but it is foolish and naive to dismiss what the president says. Their words are a part of their presidency, whether they're Washington's farewell address, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, or FDR's fireside chats. The president is in a position to legitimize, empower and encourage certain ideas, and hinder other, to spread and disseminate notion to large segments of the population. That,s part of the powers that come with the presidency, and misuse of that power makes for a bad president as surely as what the president *does*.

Trump, thanks to his motherfranking twitter account, has been expressing himself publicly at a pretty much unprecedented rate. His twitter is basically the Fireside chats taken straight to the bottom of the slippery slope, and very much a part of his presidency. Which puts his presidency right near the bottom of the pile in and of itself.

It's funny, because I started to type up a contemptuous response about how people can seriously think that Trump's tweets are worse than actual war crimes, then deleted it and changed tack because I thought it was uncharitable, but now you've edited your post to say basically that you think tweets are more important than war crimes. To help you understand why the "contemptuous" is there, to me this is literally like saying, "sure, giving all those orders for the extermination of Jews was bad, but Hitler's speeches really put him beyond the pale."

YMMV, I guess, but you'll never, ever get me to agree that tweets are worse than torture and mass murder. And if we're going to add this bully pulpit thing into the analysis then surely the siege mentality that Bush inaugurated, and the political Islamophobia he mobilized, after 9/11 must be seen as at least as bad as anything Trump has said, particularly since (in my view, anyway) they both contributed mightily to Trump's rise.

EDIT: I know that to some extent this is a false dichotomy, because what the President (or any other prominent figure) says can certainly lead to things being done, but I genuinely do think that many liberals seem to hate Trump largely because of the way he expresses himself, not because of the actual horrible stuff he's doing. Like yeah, it's okay to deport undocumented people en masse, just don't make racist tweets about it!

 

[Archbob]

Yes, but you have to remember that Hitler's earlier speeches were the thing that really stirred up Germany against the Jews and paved the way for the murderous actions later.

 

[stinkubus]

Germany, and all of Europe for that matter, did not need to be "stirred up" against the Jews. Anti-semitism was normal and socially acceptable.

On topic, one of the worst results of the Trump presidency is going to be the retconning of Bush the Younger's Presidency. He's going to be morphed into some sort of "elder statesman" the same way Nixon was.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Germany, and all of Europe for that matter, did not need to be "stirred up" against the Jews.

Maybe, but they needed to be stirred up to murdering them by the millions.

 

[Lexicus]

Maybe, but they needed to be stirred up to murdering them by the millions.

Not really. There wasn't really much change in what people thought about Jews. Not even the Nazis' pogroms represented a serious break with historical precedent. The real innovation was in mobilizing the resources of the state (not just one part of the state, like the army, but the whole state apparatus) to engage in massacre by industrial means. And that didn't require speeches stirring people up, because that part of the program was actually kept largely secret from the German public.

In any case unless it can be shown that a Tweet directly caused some action to happen, my position will always be that actions are worse than Tweets.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

How can we even rate Bush II. as a president when he was simply a voodoo doll for the neo cons behind the scenes? Effectively Senior and Junior were complete opposites. While Bush Senior was a calculating, ambitious, conspiring young wolf Bush Junior was a literal cheerleader. He's a puppy. I don't think Bush Junior was stupid, far from it, but he never was the man making the big decisions. That I refuse to believe. On a somewhat related note, Bush Junior's art is I think very nice.

Much like with Adolf Hitler, Bush should have just stuck to painting, however for opposite reasons. The two painters in comparison, I'll leave it to you guys to figure out who is better.