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Was George W Bush a good president?[W:439:621]

Was George W Bush a good president?

  • Total voters
    124
  • Poll closed .
Grant, let me summarize it for you with a quote from Bush's economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay:

"No one wanted to stop that bubble. It would have conflicted with the president's own policies."
 
And Grant, please prove any falsehoods in the following excerpt:

But for much of Bush's tenure, government statistics show, incomes for most families remained relatively stagnant while housing prices skyrocketed. That put home ownership increasingly out of reach for first-time buyers like West.

So Bush had to, in his words, "use the mighty muscle of the federal government" to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives. He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for low-income lending.

Concerned that down payments were a barrier, Bush persuaded Congress to spend as much as $200 million a year to help first-time buyers with down payments and closing costs.

And he pushed to allow first-time buyers to qualify for government insured mortgages with no money down.



With it being NYT and all, I'm sure you will find more than enough. ;)
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

Geoist said:
Biden is an idiot for saying that. Of course its unstable and the Bush Admin made it unstable. It will not be stable for many more years.
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Actually Biden was correct at the time though his foolishness was trying to take credit for it.
As I said, it was not perfect. He did horrible things to his people, but so do many political leaders who we happen to be allies with. Should we invade them, too? Btw, you do know he committed many of these atrocities while the US was allied with Iraq?
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He was 'not perfect'? The guy was a murderous despot! Who are you suggesting we invade, and would it make any sense?

Here's what Bill C had to say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENAV_UoIfgc
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

Grant said:
Actually Biden was correct at the time though his foolishness was trying to take credit for it.
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Oh yes, sectarian violence was a distant memory and Sunnis/Shias were holding hands in the streets singing Kumbaya.

He was 'not perfect'? The guy was a murderous despot!
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I didn't say Saddam 'was not perfect.' I said the situation in Iraq was not perfect. Of course he was a murderous despot. That is not a reason to invade a country.

Who are you suggesting we invade, and would it make any sense?
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How about half of the African nations. Or how about Saudi Arabia, since they are perfectly willing to murder any woman they deem 'impure.' Oh wait, nvm, Bush preferred to hold hands and kiss their leader.


Here's what Bill C had to say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENAV_UoIfgc
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You think I give a damn what that chubby-chaser had to say?
 
Grant said:
You want me to prove a negative? Too tiresome.
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I am asking you to disprove the article, specifically what I quoted. And no, stating "it came from the NYT" does not count.
 
Blackstone said:
The poll results are interesting in themselves and help shed light on why Bush's poll numbers were so low throughout his second term.

Consider that (as of this writing) there are 61 self-identified lean-right respondents and 62 lean-lefts, essentially dividing the pool of American voters equally.

Whereas a majority of right-wingers rate Bush positively (albeit a bare majority of 52%), virtually all left-wingers (97%) view Bush negatively. This is more or less what I would expect the polling data throughout his presidency to reveal: that the opposition party universally disapproved of Bush from the very beginning, but his own party split in its support as time passed. This would easily be accounted for as Bush alienated conservatives on a number of fronts, most poignantly in pushing amnesty in 2005-2006. Independents, who rallied around Bush early also bled quickly as the media pounded war-weariness with the GWoT into the public's consciousness.

Interesting here, however, is that Bush's reputation among the right does not seem to have appreciably risen under the current administration.
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George Bush has passed Barrack Obama as far as competence, and many other issues, is concerned.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/int...se-obama-leadership-and-veterans-health-care/
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

Grant, here's a source you would trust: The Weekly Standard.

Hmm, what did they have to say about Bush's involvement in the housing crisis?


At first, 30 percent of all mortgages purchased by Fannie and Freddie had to be loans made to borrowers at or below the median income in the places where they lived, but in 2000 Clinton’s HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo, increased this quota to 50 percent. When the Bush administration took office in 2001, it had an opportunity to end this program, but it gave HUD a free hand, allowing the agency to raise the affordable housing quota to 55 percent in 2007, and doing nothing to cut back the scope of the Community Reinvestment Act.

In order to meet the growing quota for financing low-income borrowers, Fannie and Freddie had to relax their underwriting standards; that was the whole idea. By 2008, half of all mortgages—28 million loans—were subprime or otherwise low quality; of these, 74 percent were on the books of Fannie and Freddie and other government agencies or government-controlled entities. The funds that the government poured into the low-income housing market through Fannie and Freddie raised homeownership rates from 65 percent in 1995 to 69 percent in 2004, the highest rate ever recorded.

Bush took credit for this, but the huge expansion of subsidized mortgage funds also built the largest housing bubble in U.S. history. When the bubble began to deflate, it became clear why subprime mortgages had always before been a niche business—they defaulted in unprecedented numbers, driving down housing prices nationwide and weakening most major financial institutions. When Lehman Brothers failed in September 2008, a full-scale panic—the financial crisis—ensued.

Romney should not deny Bush’s error. Although Clinton began the process of forcing low mortgage underwriting standards, Bush continued and enhanced it.

the housing bubble | The Weekly Standard
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

He was the absolute worst president in the nation's entire history, bar none.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

DifferentDrummr said:
The two are radically different - and neither is wonderful - but at least BO hasn't killed nearly as many Americans.
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Neither has killed a single American.

Sent into harms way unnecessarily, perhaps.

But presidents have been doing that for centuries. Comes with the job. Even presidents are human, and make mistakes. Some are more forgivable than others.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

The Mark said:
Neither has killed a single American.

Sent into harms way unnecessarily, perhaps.

But presidents have been doing that for centuries. Comes with the job. Even presidents are human, and make mistakes. Some are more forgivable than others.
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It wasn't a mistake. It was an attempt at narcissistic validation by doing what Daddy wasn't willing to do.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

DifferentDrummr said:
It wasn't a mistake. It was an attempt at narcissistic validation by doing what Daddy wasn't willing to do.
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That's...kinda the definition of a mistake.

In some ways.


Assuming you are correct, that is.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

The Mark said:
That's...kinda the definition of a mistake.

In some ways.


Assuming you are correct, that is.
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Not really: sending troops into harm's way "by mistake" would have to mean that the CoC thought it was vital to the security of the nation. I strongly doubt that W knew - or even cared - whether the nation's security had anything to do with his decision.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

DifferentDrummr said:
Not really: sending troops into harm's way "by mistake" would have to mean that the CoC thought it was vital to the security of the nation. I strongly doubt that W knew - or even cared - whether the nation's security had anything to do with his decision.
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Which was a mistake, if true.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

Bush was not the architect of the invasion of Iraq. He just listened to the wrong people: Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld. It was a mistake, a bad one, and a lack of good judgement. Now, we're paying the price and so are the Iraqis.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

Dittohead not! said:
Bush was not the architect of the invasion of Iraq. He just listened to the wrong people: Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld. It was a mistake, a bad one, and a lack of good judgement. Now, we're paying the price and so are the Iraqis.
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Except that he listened to them because he was already inclined to do it himself (and long before 9/11). As I said before, nothing but daddy issues.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

DifferentDrummr said:
Except that he listened to them because he was already inclined to do it himself (and long before 9/11). As I said before, nothing but daddy issues.
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Maybe so, maybe not. How do you know what his motivations were?
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

Dittohead not! said:
Maybe so, maybe not. How do you know what his motivations were?
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His interviews, his behavior, and the accounts of many people who have or had close relationships with him.

Just out of curiosity, how deeply have you researched the guy? In my experience, the more people learn about him, the less they like him.
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

DifferentDrummr said:
So if someone says, "I know I'm doing the wrong thing, but I don't care," you define that as a mistake. Hm. Okay, got it. :shrug:
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Did he know he was doing the wrong thing?
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

DifferentDrummr said:
His interviews, his behavior, and the accounts of many people who have or had close relationships with him.

Just out of curiosity, how deeply have you researched the guy? In my experience, the more people learn about him, the less they like him.
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Really?

No, I admit I haven't researched him deeply, just formulated opinions based on seeing him in action as the pres. Could it be that I'd have an even more negative opinion if I knew him better?
 
Re: Was George W Bush a good president?

DifferentDrummr said:
I suppose he could be one of those extreme narcissists who believes, "If I'm doing it, it can't possibly be wrong."
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Barring temporal mind-reading abilities, we'll never know.
 
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