Bush Legacy: Speed-Read Version

I think the simple definative way that Bush was a failure was post 9/11. Bush was straight-jacketed by ideology. Ironically, 3 years later in 2004 he claimed he had a “mandate” with his 51% of the vote to do things like privatize social security. Ha.
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He had a mandate post 9/11. He could have gotten a health care compromise done. He could have had sweeping green technology revolution beginning with massive funding. He could have explained that us buying Hummers then filling them with oil helped fund terrorism by the money being passed from Saudi business men into the hands of extremists. He had such a mandate to radically make us safer, our air cleaner, our world better. He just couldn’t do it. He was an oilman, Cheney was an oilman, and the neo-cons were whispering into his ear about victory and freedom in Iraq. We were also told to just go shopping.
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He is such a failure because Post 9/11, he had a chance to do great things. He failed. 90% of presidents do not have the opportunity that he had. with his 91% approval rating, there was so much good that could have been done. He squandered it. He was a colossal failure.

KT — Interesting post. Unalloyed success, what flummery! BTW how can you tell the difference between KT being on vancation and not being on vacation? You can’t.
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Good story on Charlie Rangel. He’s a great quote machine. I don’t see how he can extracate himself from this…if indeed all the allegations are true.
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Enjoy the time away…

Sounds a lot like that Peggy Noonan column last week(?).
Have fun on vacation, KT. Don’t get into too much trouble!

KT here–

Thanks, guys. Posting will be light this week. I’m at my parents’ house in Texas and reading the papers on my laptop and couldn’t resist sharing this one.

That memo would make more sense if today were April 1st and not the 9th of December. It’s not unreasonable to expect a president at the end of his 2nd term to highlight his accomplishments and downplay his not so shining moments but Bush isn’t doing that here.

Kept us safe from attack after 9/11? How many times had we been attacked on American soil prior to that? Who’s watch did that attack occur under?

Lifted the economy through tax cuts? His “lift” was half assed to begin with but has he read a news paper in the last 6 months?

Maintained the honor and the dignity of his office? Since when have scandal, incompetence, indifference, ideological warfare, and contempt become the components of honor and dignity?

His AIDS work in Africa is the sole and only truthful accomplishment that they’ve been touting. The President deserves credit there but he’s fallen woefully short on all other counts.

I’ll try to be polite as I say this.
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Referring to the “the flawed intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war” is itself an act of rank revisionism. The intelligence itself wasn’t flawed so much as it was cherry-picked and massaged to support a conclusion already selected for unrelated reasons. I still cite the reaction to Natalie Maines as the best evidence that we were experiencing collective insanity, but to blame Iraq on a “intelligence failure” as opposed to a deliberate act of aggression is utterly unwarranted.

Are we supposed to forget about Cheney, Rummy, Feith, and Wolfowitz and “stovepiping”?

It’s remarkable that when listing his accomplishments he’s got nothing. I mean, I think he’s got nothing, but I’m kinda pissed off.
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“Kept America safe” is complete nonsense. The 9/11 attack happened on his watch, with his disregarding his intelligence services and the message from the Clinton transition team that stateless terrorists were the most serious threat facing the country.
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“lifted the economy through tax cuts”: well, just look around.
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“curbed AIDS in Africa”: spent money on programs, yes, but the whole banning condoms provision undercut any curbing.
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“honor and dignity of his office”: Now that’s a hoot.
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Unbelievable. I do remember celebrating when the Supreme Court made Nixon turn over the tapes. But I don’t remember anything like the spontaneous celebrations that broke out in response to Obama being declared the winner. Ding dong.

KT: enjoy your break. I deeply regret that I have not been able to write my own assessments of my work products. How good of the Bushies to be able to grade their own.

C’mon guys, don’t be so harsh. Maybe he’s working on his stand-up material for his talk-circuit gigs post-presidency.

The nice thing about lists like these is that they form a ready-made template for ridicule. Another heckofa job moment. They can’t even get this right.
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It is particularly interesting to watch them try to rewrite history now, with a new guy on stage who makes them look small and incompetent in every way imaginable. And people are noticing: CNN Poll: "Obama’s current approval rating is also more than 50 points higher than President Bush’s current approval rating"
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BTW, KT, vacation = sleeping in until at least 8. I mean, really.

trifecta: “He was a colossal failure.” In fact, the only thing Bush has every actually succeeded at is being a total failure. At everything. Remarkable really.

Breaking News: BLAGOJEVICH TAKEN INTO CUSTODY…. The announcement comes shortly after the Chicago Tribune reported that the three-year corruption investigation of pay-to-play politics in Blagojevich’s administration "has expanded to include his impending selection of a new U.S. senator to succeed President-elect Barack Obama." There was, apparently, reason to believe Blagojevich’s search for Obama’s replacement has become "tainted."
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One of Bush’s legacies is that I have little trust in the DOJ to act in an impartial manner based on the law, not politics.

Lincoln was preceded by Buchanan, who was considered the worst President we’ve ever had. Now Obama is preceded by Shrub, who has now usurped that title.
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That memo has the stink of failure.

I have this vision of Bush leaving Washington on January 20th, laughing as the city burns behind him.

How do I send a memo to the White House telling them to shut the f–k up?

jayackroyd -
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The worldwide celebrations that accompanied Obama’s victory didn’t remind me of any real event, as much as they did of the galactic celebrations that followed the Emperor’s death in the (updated) Return of the Jedi.