General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNot sure if you read Jennifer Rubin's latest at WAPO...
It's a mouth opening fucking doozy.Bush is back
It took less than 4 1/2 years of the Obama presidency for President George W. Bush to mount his comeback. While doing absolutely nothing on his own behalf (hes been the most silent ex-president in my lifetime), his approval is up to 47 percent according to The Post/ABC poll. Thats up 14 points from his final poll in office. For comparisons sake President Obamas RCP average is a tad over 49 percent.
Why the shift? Aside from the memories fade point, many of his supposed failures are mild compared to the current president (e.g. spending, debt). Unlike Obamas tenure, there was no successful attack on the homeland after 9/11. People do remember the big stuff rallying the country after the Twin Towers attack, 7 1/2 years of job growth and prosperity, millions of people saved from AIDS in Africa, a good faith try for immigration reform, education reform and a clear moral compass.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/04/23/bush-is-back/
Make sure you check the hilarious comments.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Thank you for doing so so we don't have to.
trumad
(41,692 posts)it will be fun.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)and more enlightening.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)winstars
(4,213 posts)I smelled the frigging fires burning downtown until late November, and I lived in the East Village. Katherine Graham is spinning in her grave for sure...
BeyondGeography
(39,276 posts)jimfilyaw wrote:
5:11 PM EDT
is this a joke? what kind of damned fool could spout such nonsense
Flagjedi mind trick responds:
5:12 PM EDT
uhm Rubin
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)She's a disgusting racist and the Washington Post spreads her poison.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)why did the Republicans go to such great lengths to hide him from America during the 2012 Republican convention? Why not put him out there for the world to see and discuss his magnificent record?
Why did they do their best to pretend like those 8 years never happened?
Jennifer Rubin is fucking baked.
madinmaryland
(64,920 posts)Douchebag extraordinaire.
The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum will be dedicated Thursday at Southern Methodist University, an event that will draw all of the nations living presidents to Dallas. Despite the coming fanfare, many Americans consider Bushs presidency a failure. There is little evidence that scholars, including the influential historians who pronounce the success or failure of an administration, are having second thoughts about their assessment of Bush as a failed chief executive. Unfortunately, far too many scholars revealed partisan bias and abandoned any pretense of objectivity in their rush to condemn the Bush presidency.
Many academics branded Bush a failure long before his presidency ended and not just fringe elements of the academy, such as Ward Churchill or Howard Zinn, but also scholars from the nations most prestigious universities. In April 2006, Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz published an essay in Rolling Stone titled The Worst President in History? Wilentz argued that George W. Bushs presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace in part because he had demonized the Democrats, hurting the nations ability to wage war. No other U.S. president failed to embrace the opposing political party in wartime, Wilentz claimed, despite numerous examples to the contrary, such as when Franklin D. Roosevelt compared his Republican opponents to fascists in 1944.
Not to be outdone, in December of that year Columbia history professor Eric Foner proclaimed Bush the worst president in U.S. history and argued that Bush sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights that date as far back as the Magna Carta. According to Foner, Warren Harding of Teapot Dome fame was something of a paragon of virtue next to Bush, whose administration was characterized by even worse cronyism, corruption, and pro-business bias.
In 2007, historian Robert Dallek was so appalled by the Bush presidency that he proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow for the recall of a sitting president: After securing passage of a 60 percent majority in both houses of Congress, the public would vote yes or no on removing the president and vice president from office. Historian Douglas Brinkley, author of a flattering election-year biography of 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry, declared in 2006 that its safe to bet that Bush will be forever handcuffed to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder and that Bush purposely tried to brutalize his opponents.
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who coined the term imperial presidency and had a tendency to apply it rather liberally to Republican presidents, at first considered Bush an amiable mediocrity but later saw him as a threat to not just the nation but also the planet. In 2005, Schlesinger wrote that the Bush administration was purposefully driv[ing] toward domination of the world, placing the constitutional system of separation of powers under unprecedented, and at times, unbearable strain, and was intent on outlawing debate. A 2010 Siena College Research Institute survey of 238 presidential scholars ranked Bush 39th out of 43, in the esteemed company of Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Harding.