Bush's Accomplishment and failure

[Luisa]

Hi everyone!

I really need your opinion on this matter. Can you guys be very vocal and let me know:

1. After serving as president now for over 5 years, what would be considered to be the most significant accomplishment and the most considerable failure of George W. Bush?

2. Is this the result of his leadership or by political forces outside of direct control?

I'm trying to write my paper regarding this matter from a personal point of view so I really need all the advice I can get. Tonchi told me that the topic sounds like something that we will really enjoy discussing here so let's see a show of hands?!

Thanks for all the help in advance !

His greatest accomplishment is being the worst failure as a president in the history of the US as a nation.

[Flint]

1. His biggest accomplishment was getting elected. His greatest failure was convincing enough Americans that this was a good idea. This trend extends to major events of his presidency. Iraq: if he has a plan to accomplish something, a reason for our being there, then it is an accomplishment, but since he didn't bother to tell anybody what it actually was, it can only be a failure.

2. His leadership is of the divisive "51%" variety, but this was not so when he was Governer of Texas. He has different advisors now.

[Shawnee123]

Past work experience:

--Ran for congress and lost.
--Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
--Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
--Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
-With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.

Accomplishments:

--Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union. Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money. Set record for most executions by any Governor in American history.

--Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my fathers appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments as president:

--Attacked and took over two countries.
--Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
--Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
--Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
--Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
--First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
--First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
--First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
--After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history.
--Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
--In first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
--Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
--Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.
--Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
--Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
--Signed more laws and executive orders circumventing the Constitution than any president in US history.
--Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
--Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
--Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
--Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. (http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/)
--Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
--Members of his cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (the 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleezza Rice has an Chevron oil tanker named after her).
--Had more states to simultaneously go bankrupt than any president in the history of the United States.
--Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
--Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
--Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.
--First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
--First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.
--Withdrew from the World Court of Law.Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
--First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US elections).
--All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
--biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
--Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
--First president in US history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
--First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
--First US president to establish a secret shadow government.
--Took the biggest world sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
--With a policy of 'dis-engagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
--First US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view his presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
--First US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
--Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
--Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
--Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'.


Oh hell, just go here
(From a google and there are others like it.)

[glatt]

From a conservative point of view (I'm not a conservative) his biggest accomplishment was filling so freakin' many empty judge seats with conservative judges. His conservative legacy will be with this nation for decades, as judges have their appointments for life. He filled more vacancies in his first term than Clinton did during his two terms. Hundreds of them. It's amazing what you can do when you hold the White House and Congress both.

His greatest failure is turning the entire world against the USA. Taking the US from a position of one of the most respected and liked nations in the world to the most hated and feared.

You are probably right Glatt... that and running a war that the Dems are going to get the blame for raising the taxes for. That is going to sting.
Reps are classic at that little bait and switch game.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Dems are going to get the blame for raising the taxes for. That is going to sting.
.

Status quo and typical MO.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

George Jr brags about having made $600,000 for accomplishing that nothing. Read his book, if you can. Reading it is painful. It is also devoid of important details such as his National Guard service and school achievements. But he brags how he became friends with a boisterous heckler of the Texas Rangers, as if that was an accomplishment.

For him, a day of breathing without swallowing his tongue is an accomplishment.
Putting that in is perfectly valid.

[DanaC]

Biggest accomplishment: managing to provide a conduit for the ideologically driven neo-cons to implement all their plans.

Biggest failure: managing to provide a conduit for the ideologically driven neo-cons to implement their plans :P

Seriously though, I think one of the really nasty side effects of this administration is the way it has damaged America's relations with so many countries. Ten years ago in Britain, politicians still used the phrase 'special relationship' to characterise UK and Usa relations. As politicians, they did this knowing it would be popular and well recieved by their electorate. This really doesn't happen now.

What's terribly sad to me, is that after 9/11, the British population grieved with America; we as a nation felt great sadness and anger at the attack on our friends. I am sure that feeling was echoed in many European nations, but I am equally sure that Britain felt it most keenly in Europe. The outpouring of goodwill, comradeship and willingness to stand by America's side, both in her grief and in her response to the attack, were heartfelt and apparent at pretty much every level of our society.

To me, one of the worst things Bush did was squander that goodwill and friendship by leading us, not after America's attacker, but on a stupid, unnecessary and bloody adventure in Iraq.

Oh, and there is the whole walking with no strings thing, that is a big one!

[glatt]

Originally Posted by DanaC

To me, one of the worst things Bush did was squander that goodwill and friendship by leading us, not after America's attacker, but on a stupid, unnecessary and bloody adventure in Iraq.

Shortly after 9/11, most Americans would be very angry with you for typing those words. That's how blind with rage we were as a nation. Now I seriously doubt anyone here will contradict you.

[Flint]

"Shortly after 9/11, most Americans" didn't want us to go "after America's attacker" ???

[glatt]

I don't understand your question.

Americans wanted revenge. We went into Afghanistan for revenge. Iraq was also offered up to an angry nation and we took the bait. Now most regret it.

[Shawnee123]

We wanted to go after the attacker: Osama Bin Laden, who Bush promised dead or alive. Hussein was offered up and, like glatt points out, we took the bait.