Treatment of Bush has been a disgrace
 

This has been the most popular article in the wall street journal for about a week now.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584386627599251.html

People forget how HORRIBLY Truman was treated - and it didn't stop at him, it extended to his family as well. Most of it was because he didn't choose to suck Douglas MacArthur's pole and, oh, open the door for WWIII. The problem was the Dems had been in power for 20 years at that point and any time one party is in power for too long you get a backlash - just as with any celebrity who gets too big.

I don't know that I'd put W on the same level though. He has done some of the things he did for different reasons than Truman did.

Exactly - Truman was hated by a large portion of the country upon leaving office. It has only been in recent years that his reputation has been rehabilitated.

That's not to say that Bush will end up ranked as highly as Truman, but as you mentioned, it gives a good example that Bush isn't the first, and won't be the last, President to leave with low popularity rankings.

In my opinion, a lot of people are influenced by what the Media feeds them which is not always the honest truth and as a result peoples perceptions become clouded.
So I believe that President Bush's approval rating is mostly a direct result of the media ability to change perceptions instead of his true leadership ability.

despite the reasons for his ratings (media, etc.) i think he really feels it. i watched him speaking to Obama the other day and he just looks worn out....of course no president leaves without aging a great deal, but it really shows in his face and the way he speaks...

8 years in office will do a lot - it's crazy to look at the before and after pictures of Presidents.

I think Bush's presidency will be much better regarded by history than it is today.

I do i agree i think the treatment of Bush from the media has been nothing short of a disgrace. I think in a few years we will get a better perspective, but i think people need to show much more respect for their President.

"For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president." --Ann Coulter

People didn't start off showing disrespect and disloyalty to Bush. He received a lot of support particularly after 9/11 and received votes from nonRepubs. He was fighting an uphill battle in some regards and Americans from both sides of the aisle were initially going along for the ride.

But Coulter knows that already.

I feel sorry for Bush and think he's probably a cool guy. Some of this is of his own doing, though.

He had a pretty high approval rating right after 9/11. I'm not sure exactly when his approval rating started to dive, but it seemed pretty steady over a period of time.

If the Democrats had been able to field a viable candidate in 2004, who knows. But, they chose Kerry, who has been living off of Kennedy's good work in Massachusetts since he took office. I think it could have been interesting if there had been a half-way decent candidate for the Dems in that election.

I will be very interested to see how history judges Bush. He's not going to leap into the top 10 Presidents or anything like that, but history tends to obscure the mistakes of many Presidents (FDR's court-packing plan, for example).

I agree here and some of it is his own doing, but we also have to look at the whole picture, not just Bush. It's not just the president who makes all of the decisions. People keep making bad accusations of his decision to go to Iraq, but his staff had a large part in the decision to go there.

The buck have to stopped somewhere. He is the President and he has to take full responsibility for his actions. It's great to say that his staff did this and that, ultimately, his staff did not make the decision to go into Iraq. It was him and congress. Those who voted for him and Bush bear the main responsibility.

I agree, but it was his staff that made the mistake with the WMD drama. They said there were WMDs and there weren't any.

I don't know if you saw the movie "W", but something like this was in the movie. It was a good movie. The same guy who directed Nixon did this one too. Oliver Stone I think.

Ditto. I think he is probably a perfectly lovely person. I just didn't (and don't) like the way he leads. It takes a certain person to be President in the state we're in and I just don't think he has it. Maybe if everything was easy peasy he might have been an okay leader. But he just...didn't make the wisest or most sensible decisions...to say the very VERY least. :rolleyes: And you can't really afford that when all eyes are on you. Unfair but it comes with the territory.

I do not regret voting for Bush either time.

What has happened during his administration is enough to get anyone else traumatized.

He did his best. I truly do not think he is the worst president ever- and not just because he has not had a single sexual scandal. He is not corrupted- nor do I think there has been much corruption during his years. We do need to pull out of Iraq, but can he really be blamed for a bank tricking new homeowners into getting a mortgage for a house they could not afford?

Enron, rolling blackouts? Haliburton, government contracts in Iraq?

Okay.

Enron was a private business that had nothing to do with George W. Bush. I am talking about things that would directly involve him or the government.

Okay... deregulation, looking the other way during the blackouts? You really don't know about the connection?

The heavy contributions to the campaign?

Read this book: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, then you'll get it.

Tell me what Bush did that was corrupt regarding ANY of these. Enron was a private company, its not surprising that Bush and Lay were in the same social circle in Texas but he certainly didn't let Lay off easy. Halliburton is the only company capable of doing the work we need in Iraq and they gave the government a good price.
The bottom line is that Bush hasn't done anything terrible, the country was doing fine until September 11th. I think that he is getting the heat for everything that happened during his presidency, even though those things are a result of US policies dating back 30+ years.

I left that movie feeling bad for Bush. Honestly, while I don't agree with Bush, and don't like the direction the country has gone in during his presidency, you can't say that I've ever been disrespectful of him. Unless you count going to a Bush rally in 2004 (just to see the sitting President in person, I'm such a geek!) and leaving halfway through (because the people sitting around me were annoying the crap outta me).

ETA: I do feel like Bush is pushed around by Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al, but that's because I dislike Cheney and Wolfowitz. :)

The rolling blackouts (in California, at least) started in December of 2000. How is that the fault of Bush's corruption as President?

As far as Enron, they were doing what they were doing well into the late 90s. Does the governor of a state hold that much control over the corporations in his state?

There are plenty of reasons to be unhappy with Bush's performance now that it's almost over, but find some better reasons and we can talk then.

This reminds me of a few weeks or so after a bad breakup, and all you can think of is how bad your ex is. A few months later, you've moved on and can see the positive parts of it. I think this is one of those cases.

Munchkin03, don't you think your signature seems a little dated now? It's cool if you want to preserve that for posterity, but I wondered if you forgot about it.

No, I didn't forget about it, nor did I save it for prosperity. I'm still riding the happiness of the Obama-win wave. :) Plus, internet siggies are kind of a low priority.

Cool, but it doesn't actually seem to be about Obama. How long does one ride an Anti-McCain/Anti-Palin wave? It would seem that wave had crested.

The most dispicable treatment Mr. Bush received was from the Republican candidate for president at the end of this campaign. He showed Mr. Bush no loyalty and vigorously tried to distance himself from him. Ms. Coulter should just be quiet.

I'll change it when I'm good and ready. :) Right now, I'm not!

Munchkin's one of the smartest and most respectful people on the board. I wouldn't read too much into her keeping her signature.

Let people savor the victory for their candidate - I'd probably have something pro-McCain in my signature if he had somehow pulled a rabbit out of the hat and won it.

I'd like to agree with this. It has always been my exact sentiment. I think that time has a way of smoothing over things so that they can be seen in a new and sometimes entirely different light.

I don't think W wanted to be President any more than John F Kennedy did. If JFK had lasted for 2 terms, God knows how he'd be remembered by history now. IMO they were both pushed into it. I believe W came out at some point and said his lifelong goal was to be baseball commissioner, not POTUS.

Helicopter Parents: Not A New Thing.

I agree about the bolded part; the signature just pains me. I'm cool with the stuff that celebrates Obama's Presidency, (Nittanyalum's is a good example); I'm just tired of the "McCain's an idiot for choosing Palin" stuff. Can't we be done with that? At least until we start selecting Republican candidates again?

But of course, people can have the signatures of their choice.

Absolutely - it's called "the power of the Press" for a reason!

Granted, his family seemed not to age well but this is what FOUR years of the Presidency did to Jimmy Carter:

1976:
http://onlyhuckabee.com/carter1976.jpg

and 1981:
http://www.visualstatistics.net/east...hip/Carter.jpg


I agree - but it's going to take some years. Unfortunately.

Maybe we should have a Joe Kennedy thread.

ETA: can you imagine a Joe Kennedy recruitment thread, kind of like the one from Chuch Norris?

LOL - especially with his ookabillion children!

Haha...people don't want to hear my opinion on JFK...

I can cut W. a LITTLE bit of slack and say that some stuff was out of his control. I liken it the Hurricane Katrina fiasco in Louisiana. A lot of people place some of the blame on (former) Governor Blanco. However, Katrina was a once-in-a-lifetime event that NO ONE could have possibly been prepared for. It was a learn-as-you-go process. However, now that Piyush Jindal is in office, he's been through two major hurricanes--NOWHERE near the magnitude of Katrina--and he's been hailed as having the best hurricane preparedness plan in the world. Well, DUH!! From what we learned with Katrina, there's nowhere to go but up! With that said, I can understand a little bit of what Bush MAY be experiencing. HOWEVER, on the other hand, I feel that W. brought A LOT of the ridicule, etc. upon himself. He never quite seemed prepared, didn't have a way with words, always appeared confused and bewildered. He just seemed to run amok with the country and let the chips fall. I can't say that the media did it too him. HE gave them the ammunition.

One of my favorite US presidents that I admired was ironically, Nixon... He did do massive corruptions. And although I have a picture of my grandfather and President Ford, I still agree with is pardoning Nixon.

It will be interesting who Dubya pardons upon leaving office. I am unsure about the number of people that can be pardoned if any at all. And these people will have double jeopardy in place...

We have to admit President Dubya made missteps on the huge issues vs. the non-issues, such as not shaking hands with people. Most presidents do and learn from their mistakes. (maybe)... But, aside from the huge economic slump, President Dubya's brain farts were not horrific. If the economy had remained stable, the election outcome would have been different.

And this does not negate the fact that President Obama will be making plenty of his own missteps.

One of President Bush's great strengths is his steadfast loyalty to those he entrusts with responsibility. One of his shortcomings is his steadfast loyalty to those he entrusts with responsibility. He has always stood up for the the guy who gets picked on and can't defend himself. He always takes responsibility for all that his people do or fail to do. The drawback is that he is a very nice guy who does not make anyone take the fall. He protects those he places on the hotseat whether they deserve it or not.
So much of the good and positive that he has done has been unreported or distorted. He is not the most articulate and polished speaker but he has guts and honor. As has been said in this thread, he may not have really wanted to be POTUS, but like Cincinnatus he was there to stand up and be counted when it really mattered.
He made some mistakes - Gee whiz, I didn't know he was supposed to be perfect. I thought he was supposed to give it his best shot.
I admire George W. Bush for his courage, his humanity, his willingness to take the heat and keep us safe while there were many who wanted to do us ill and many of us who seemed ready to undermine our president rather than work with him as a 'loyal opposition'. The impartial muse of History will treat him well.
Whoever occupies the office I will respect and support that person because he is the president chosen by us the American people. I respect and admire George W. Bush because he himself is worthy of respect.

Nixon accomplished so much when he was in office (relations with China, etc) it's not funny. He would have been screwed no matter what he did because the press hated him. If he'd turned the Watergate burgulars in, he would have been a stool pigeon who didn't support his friends.