By Hanlon, on March 11th, 2010 at 10:23 AM
 This is neither surprising nor illogical, but it is a bit annoying. In the year that’s passed since Bush left the White House, the public has (in entirely non-quantifiable terms) softened on their look back on ol’ Dubya. The man that was once vilified as the harbinger of the American apocalypse and the end of pax americana is shaping up to be looked upon more favorably than he was on his way out.
I thought the public would soften on Bush for another reason: the capacity of people to revise history with their own nuances, remaking it to suit their leanings. Anyone who has encountered a conservative insisting Nixon was a great president, for the sake of contrarianism and point-proving, should know what I’m talking about.
So my prediction is a bit different from Fish’s. Mine is that one day, in the not terribly distant future, it will become vogue for neocons to go around claiming Bush was the best president in the history of the United States, despite the fact that, by the end of his tenure, some in the neocon movement had basically accepted that he was pure political baggage and should be disowned for his government spending, at least (though they still liked his tax cuts).
It’s true, and Good misses the most obvious example: Reagan. Ronnie was not a popular president for much of his actual presidency (usually hovering in the familiar 50% area), the policies he enacted were downright disastrous, he was plagued by some of the worst scandals in presidential history (a blowjob has nothing on Iran-Contra), and he left Bush senior a horrible mess that was so difficult to clean up it tanked Bush the Elder’s potential second term.
Yet TIME called the cowboy president Man of the Century, largely because his more nuanced and technical failings were washed over in a sea of “tear down this wall!” and personality traits. Ronald Reagan went from Reaganomics and soaring debts to defeating communism and being a tough old bastard. Bush is likely to follow suit, especially if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan turn out successful. He’ll go from the bumbling economy crusher to the forward thinking anti-terrorism champion.
Plus, let’s face it, we as a people tend to want to think the best of others. That’s why guys like Tom DeLay can show up on Dance with the Stars and get applause. We like people to be good people at heart, and as the scars of their actions fade we have a tendency to forgive them and focus on the positive aspects. If you want to call Bush a good guy, well that’s fine. I think he’s likely a grand person, seems amiable and friendly and I have no doubts he’s a devoted father. But let’s not mince words: he was a shitty, shitty president.
By Hanlon, on February 17th, 2010 at 04:24 PM
My, how times have changed.
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, the government projected surpluses of $5.6 trillion for the coming decade.
Keep in mind only about one trillion of that is Afghanistan/Iraq.
By Hanlon, on December 14th, 2009 at 01:43 PM
It should go without saying that the Cato Institute is not a liberal organization. They’re one of those groups that truly lies outside of parties and has no political axe to grind. As such, when they put up an article saying “Don’t Blame Obama for Bush’s 2009 Deficit”, people should damn well listen. The breakdown comes in the form of realizing that the Bush years didn’t end when he left office from a fiscal perspective. Thus, we get the following two charts:
And…
But remember how I said there was something important to remember? It’s this:
It should go without saying that this post is not an argument for Obama’s fiscal policy. The current President promised change, but he is continuing the wasteful and profligate policies of his big-spending predecessor. That is where critics should be focusing their attention.
That is the key. Obama hasn’t caused the deficits, he hasn’t crushed the economy, but he certainly isn’t doing nearly enough to turn things back around.
By Hanlon, on September 26th, 2009 at 11:51 AM
I’m always dubious about stories like this, they strike me as an attempt to play “overly objective observer” and they end up whitewashing history or taking some really odd stances to prove that they aren’t “liberally biased”.
Ross Douthat put up a column in the New York Times that exemplifies this perfectly, making the ever so peculiar claim that even though Bush’s policies screwed up just about everything, since he tried to fix them he should be looked at more favorably.
But for the moment, [the Surge and the bailout] look like the sort of disaster-averting interventions for which presidents get canonized. It’s just that in Bush’s case, the disasters he averted were created on his watch.
…
And if we give Bush credit on these fronts, it’s worth reassessing one of the major critiques of his presidency — that it was fatally insulated, by ideology and personality, from both the wisdom of the Washington elite and the desires of the broader public.
In reality, many of the Bush-era ventures that look worst in hindsight were either popular with the public at the time or blessed by the elite consensus. Voters liked the budget-busting tax cuts and entitlement expansions. The Iraq war’s cheering section included prominent Democrats and scores of liberal pundits. And save for a few prescient souls, everybody — right and left, on Wall Street and Main Street — was happy to board the real-estate express and ride it off an economic cliff.
Trying to give Bush “credit” for an 11th hour conversion to the light in which he tries to fix his own messes has become popular after he left office, and I think it’s because we, as Americans, love redemption tales. A guy on TV who doesn’t drink or do drugs is boring, but a guy who got addicted to booze and speedballs, stole from his grandma to feed his habit and lost his job and family, then gets clean and is now living in a trailer while he builds his life together? Well now he’ll get cheers from the masses. Sure, it’s great that he got better, but that doesn’t forgive all the things he screwed up in the first place.
The third paragraph there is also one of the most infuriating. Of course voters like tax cuts and expansions. They’re tax cuts. Voters always like tax cuts if the leaders tell us that the economy can afford it, there isn’t a liberal on the planet who would say no to tax cuts just because they dislike “money”. It’s the president’s job, at least his economic team’s, to make sure we can afford the tax cuts. That’s not the voter’s responsibility.
That’s like if a doctor gives you the entirely wrong medicine and it nearly kills you, then later says “well you wanted it when I prescribed it!” Sure, because we, as patients, trust the doc.
It’s the same with the Iraq War. Opposing the Iraq War required Democrats to take what would have been a horribly foolish (although correct) assumption, that Bush was lying about what he was telling us. When the President says “Iraq has WMD’s and plans on using them against the United States, and is also teamed up with the same terrorists that attacked on 9/11,” it’s very difficult to justify opposition. Many did, but it’s hard to blame those who didn’t.
Bush wasn’t all bad, but this rose-colored hindsight needs to end.
By Hanlon, on September 14th, 2009 at 04:21 PM
 The old phrase comes to mind: numbers don’t lie. If there’s one absolutely fair way to compare two presidencies, it’s to look at statistics at the end of each one. See how things were when they left office.
Do that with Clinton v Bush in terms of income/poverty, and it paints a pretty bleak picture for ol’ Dubya:
Under Clinton, the median income increased 14 per cent. Under Bush it declined 4.2 per cent.
Under Clinton the total number of Americans in poverty declined 16.9 per cent; under Bush it increased 26.1 per cent.
Under Clinton the number of children in poverty declined 24.2 per cent; under Bush it increased by 21.4 per cent.
Under Clinton, the number of Americans without health insurance, remained essentially even (down six-tenths of one per cent); under Bush it increased by 20.6 per cent.
Adding Ronald Reagan’s record to the comparison fills in the picture from another angle.
Under Reagan, the median income grew, in contrast to both Bush the younger and Bush the elder. (The median income declined 3.2 per cent during the elder Bush’s single term.) When Reagan was done, the median income stood at $47, 614 (again in constant 2008 dollars), 8.1 per cent higher than when Jimmy Carter left office in 1980.
There’s also this nifty chart to take a look at:
That would be the debt chart over the last few decades. Look specifically at the spikes that start in 1981 and 2001, as well as the drop from the early 1990’s to 2000.
Fiscal conservatism. Awesome!
By Hanlon, on September 14th, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Dubya, speaking to Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson:
“Someday you guys are going to need to tell me how we ended up with a system like this.”
Y’know, I think he’s genuinely curious.
By Hanlon, on July 26th, 2009 at 04:42 PM
 Did you know the Bush administration had classified photographs showing some ice up in Alaska? I sure as hell didn’t because, um, why would he be doing that? There’s not a national security reason to be hiding pictures of ice sheets, so all that’s left is that he wanted to hide evidence of global warming. So Obama declassified all the pictures, and it ain’t pretty.
One particularly striking set of images – selected from the 1,000 photographs released – includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.
The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice – a record loss – were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.
Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery. Ice cover for 2008 was almost as bad as for 2007, and this year levels look equally sparse.
Okay, see, here’s where my brain explodes.
It’s one thing to think that Dubya just didn’t believe in global warming, that he saw all these various charts and pictures and reports and just thought they were inaccurate somehow. But if he was intentionally hiding photos that showed the effects of climate change, that means he knew that seeing them would prove his public stance was wrong, so he had to keep them from the public. We’ve moved beyond denial and into willful deception.
By Hanlon, on July 16th, 2009 at 11:44 AM
 Watching the right bitch-fest grow the elephantine proportions (appropriately enough) is starting to test my endurance. The level of shrill hysterics flying out of some of these idiots is just too much to bear, so just give me a few moments to vent. Specifically at one column by dumbass du jour Burt Prelutsky.
It’s yet another in the long line of apocalyptic anti-Obama columns that presents 2009 as the absolute destruction of the United States. I dunno if he was being intentionally misleading or if he’s just got a few blood clots in his brain, but either way it’s unbelievable what he typed out and thought to be respectable.
Whenever the slide began, in the months since Obama was crowned, we’ve slid faster and further than I would have dreamed possible. Obama keeps huffing and puffing and the federal government just keeps expanding like a gigantic balloon. It’s only a matter of time until it blows up in all our faces.
I want to point out that the Bush administration saw the greatest increase and consolidation of executive power in United States history. Obama has not added to it in the slightest save how he’s continued the stimulus policies that began under Dubya. Take your pick. Even as of 2004, Bush saw the greatest increase in government spending since LBJ. His was a time when presidents could skirt Congress by way of signing statements and Vice Presidents could tell the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, since he existed in a quantum-like fashion between the legislative and executive. Plus, hey, let’s not forget that Reagan pretty much owns the national debt.
Not in my wildest nightmares would I have imagined that an American president would travel to countries we’ve bled and died to defend, and apologize for our arrogance. Neither would I have ever expected that the same man who casually dismissed our special relationship with England would curtsy to a Saudi prince; refer to a blood-thirsty Muslim cleric, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the Supreme Leader; and butter up a Russian tyrant who cut his eye teeth working for the barbaric KGB.
This is the kind of person who would probably bitch at John Paul II for apologizing for the Catholic Church’s past actions. And I’d be careful about talking about deference to Saudi Princes considering the Bush family has had Saudi balls on their faces for, oh, quite a few decades now. Khamenei’s actual title is “Supreme Leader”. That’s who he is. He’s the Supreme Leader of Iran. There are lots of Ayatollahs over there, Khamenei’s the Supreme Leader. It’s like bitching at Obama for calling Gordon Brown the Prime Minister.
I also find it hilarious that people actually admire Bush’s policy of calling other world leaders “evil” and saying that’s what he saw in the eyes of Putin. I don’t think neoconservatives get the fucking message that when you spend all your time throwing handfuls of your own shit at the world and calling them evil, they’re going to want to hurt you. One of my favorite quotes of Abraham Lincoln is “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”
Obama’s groupies in and out of the media used to cry “Foul!” during the campaign whenever people would question the character of a man whose intimate circle included a corrupt Chicago lobbyist, an unrepentant domestic terrorist, a racist minister and a spouse who announced that America was a mean country. It seems that in the past several months, his circle has grown in size, but unfortunately not in character.
Again, Obama and Bill Ayers weren’t best friends, he publicly denounced Wright’s remarks, and I love this bullshit notion that conservatives can bleat about American being a pussified nation of victims (hey, remember McCain’s economic guy calling everyone whiners?), but if Michelle Obama says American is mean suddenly it’s the end of the world. And that’s the only legitimate comment in the list. The Rezko story was pretty much all hot air. We’re seeing the Clinton Murder fantasy part two, and it’s starting early.
Oh and by the way.
As hard as it is to accept, there’s no getting around the fact that Al Franken is a U.S. Senator. On the upside, just as people used to say that any boy could grow up to be president, now people can say that any comedian who’s smug, obnoxious and not the least bit funny, can grow up to be a senator. That being the case, I guess it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that Sen. Franken might one day be joined by the likes of Bill Maher and David Letterman.
Ronald Reagan was an actor and Arnold Schwarzenegger became a governor practically on a whim, not to mention Jesse Ventura the senator. If I hear anyone bitching about Al Franken being a “comedian” again I’m going to start punching people in the throat. The dude has been involved in politics for at least 13 years, when he first wrote Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. He started the progressive talk radio station Air America and has been a tireless promoter and worker in the political realm. What the hell did the “Governator” do before he ran? Made Terminator 3.
Also, Franken has a political science degree from goddamn Harvard where he graduated cum laude. Oh yeah, this guy can’t possibly know politics. Remember, Rush Limbaugh flunked out of college and Hannity dropped out twice. Just food for thought.
And the coup de grace:
Before signing off, I found myself wondering the other day why it is, now that Afghanistan is Obama’s war, I don’t hear the Democrats or their lap dogs in the media referring to it as a quagmire, pointing out that the Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11, and demanding that President Obama announce his exit strategy?
I legitimately can’t figure out if this is a joke or not. I mean, liberals during the Bush era were mad at him for not focusing on Afghanistan. The big argument was that the Iraq War distracted us from Afghanistan. You know, the one against the government which was offering haven to Al Qaeda. I’m not really sure what this asshole thinks liberals have been saying for the past eight years, because he went beyond a straw man argument and just started making shit up. At least a straw man argument has a tenuous connection to a real argument, this is just batshit crazy.
Okay, I’m done.
By Hanlon, on July 12th, 2009 at 02:20 PM
 Actually this is awesome for two reasons. Not only what he’s doing, but the thought process that is going into doing it.
Okay, so, we’ve all been waiting to see if anyone in the government actually gives a shit enough about ideas like “justice” and “responsibility” to go after the Bush administration’s policies on torture, and Eric Holder’s just taken the torch. Which, actually, was pretty surprising because I didn’t expect this guy to show up in the news at all. I had him pegged as a kind of quiet lackey. But lo and behold.
These are not just the philosophical musings of a new attorney general. Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama’s domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. “I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president’s agenda,” he says. “But that can’t be a part of my decision.”
Now that is how it’s done.
As the article points out, the AG has to be careful not to go too far in one direction or the other in terms of loyalty and independence or else they’ll undermine themselves. However, if one has to pick a side to err towards, I’ll go with “independent” any day.
One of the problems that exists all throughout Washington, even in its interaction with the media, is the “quid pro quo” idea. This notion of “well I gave you that appointment/interview/donation, now you owe me this and this.” Alberto Gonzales seemed to operate under the principle that since Bush hired him, his job was to do whatever Bush wanted. What we need, and what this hints at, is for the president and his appointees to operate under the idea that “you got the job because I trust your decision making, so you do what you think is best for this country.”
I was watching Face the Nation this morning and they had Pat Leahy on. A point he made, which I wish more people would get through their heads, was that one reason to prosecute any lawbreaking at any level of the administration is to reinforce that we won’t stand for it in the future. As adorable as Obama standing up there saying “I promise we won’t do that,” a prosecution would actually mean something.
We got yer back, Holder. Do it right. I’m sorry if Obama is too limp to take a stand, but you shouldn’t be.
By Hanlon, on June 16th, 2009 at 03:59 PM
 The election of Barack Obama was rightly seen as a rebuke of George W Bush. Not just his policies, but of his politicking, his style, the whole works. From origins to race, party to demeanor, Barack Obama was in many ways the Anti-Dubya. Not a white Republican from a privileged family with a folksy demeanor that was big on dick-waving, Barack Obama’s a black Democrat who scraped his way up and talks with huge words but doesn’t meddle in shows of bravado.
To be sure, liberals, moderates, and even some conservatives have hailed the new president for his differences from Prez 43, but there’s one field in which Obama could take some lessons from Bush Jr: Bush knew how to get shit done.
For all of Cheney/Romney’s bleating that Obama’s policies have made us weaker, there’s been a conspicuous lack of change of any real substance. Oh sure, Gitmo’s closing, but the fate of 200-odd detainees is more symbolic than substantial. Even Bush was saying he might want to close Guantanamo a few years ago. We’re still in Iraq, he’s right with Bush on DoJ secrecy, even just today he decided that the White House visitor lists should remain secret. Military tribunals continue, no investigating torture, where’s the change?
Then we get into the gay rights issue which is starting to brew an outright storm. He said the Defense of Marriage Act must be repealed, then he defends it. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Still in place. All these things he said with outright conviction during the campaign, and arguably that’s the bulk of the list of the “change” his supporters wanted to see. Health care and the economy helped, but they weren’t the flagship issues.
One election later and now Obama’s relented on the most high-profile promises he’s made. Even the health care reform hasn’t gone anywhere of note, and the economic strategy is just to add more late-Bush era bailouts to the list.
To be sure, Bush the Younger had his share of flip-flops between candidacy and president. Enough so that people made lists. The bulk of those, though, were times when Bush moderated a little (gay marriage) or arguably was talking about something without a full grasp of it (steel tariffs). What we’re seeing in President Obama is a complete lack of courage to follow through with the various promises he made.
Bush, once his mind was set on something, either got shit done or ran himself ragged trying to get it done. He wanted in Iraq? We’re there. Crazy irresponsible tax cuts? Done. Secret prisons with no real restrictions on how to “interrogate”? Got ‘em. Spying on Americans in violation of FISA? Yes sir. Legal immunity for himself and everyone involved? Quicker than you can say “worse than Watergate”. George W Bush was a man who dove in head first to push for his policies.
Even when Bush failed it wasn’t for lack of trying. He was unable to get social security privatized, but that was after months of cross-country touring, media blitzes, and press conferences where poor Scott McClellan had to act like there were Democrats other than Allen Boyd who were on board with the idea. If one were to draw an analogy, Bush was the guy covered in bruises with one hell of a photo album, Obama’s the one with nary a scratch but few interesting pictures. His ideas may have been terrible, and some of them crashed and burned, but by god he put his all into it.
The most curious part is that Bush fought all of his battles uphill. A war on Iraq, privatizing social security, legal immunity and skirting the Abramoff debacle? These weren’t exactly popular notions. When Bush wanted to pass something he sat on his base and then fought tooth and nail to get juuuust enough of the opposition to rally beside him, even if polls showed sweeping majorities disagreed. Recall the famous quote:
I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.
Obama, meanwhile, is dealing with issues that either already enjoy massive popularity or are trending upwards. Support for gay marriage is slowly creeping toward majority status, most agree with shutting down Gitmo, and even two years ago most people supported federal health care. Bush’s 2004 victory was a squeaker that came down to a handful of counties in Ohio, but that prompted Cheney to declare a mandate. Obama, with a victory margin more than double Bush’s and a far more pronounced electoral victory, is acting as though he won by the skin of his teeth and hasn’t any political capital to spend.
It would be foolish to suggest that Obama should adopt Bush’s “renegade” streak to that extreme; no one wants another president that forges his own path no matter what anyone around him thinks. However, it would be nice if he’d be willing to press on in the face of opposition (or, as is often the case, perceived opposition) once in a while.
|
|
|
