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Anyone that believes Bush was a great president must have eaten a lot of paint chips as a kid.
Was Nixon a great President in your mind, too?
Dirty Harry, you are really overthinking this and way to critical of Bush based upon media reports and not the actual facts. Bush wasn't nearly as bad as you thought as the numbers would show.
GW Bush won a disputed election that many including a lot of the media believe he lost and thus held the grudge for 8 years. The fought him tooth and nail and debated every Florida ballot. When the Supreme Court jumped in and declared Bush the winner the loons went nuts and the fringe kooks of the Democratic Party ratcheted up the hate rhetoric and the blogs. Because of the Florida recount it took Bush a couple months to actually establish his Administration.
After taking office he did his best to change the tone in D.C. even having weekly breakfasts with the Democrats in Congress. He had Ted Kennedy over for movie night and had Kennedy help draft the No Child Left Behind Act. Democrats willingly participated in public but behind the scenes were sticking the knife deeper into his back.
The economy wasn't what we were led to believe and Bush inherited a recession. NBER says it started in March but the numbers show it started in November 2000. Regardless it was the Clinton economic policy that was being implemented and Bush didn't have time to do anything to prevent the recession. He tried to get a tax cut through but only got a rebate through and that didn't do the complete job of getting us out of the recession, Bush knew the answer was rate cuts not a rebate check. Democrats were totally and completely opposed as they always are to tax cuts.
Behind the scenes the bloggers and the kooks continued their attack and weren't going to give an inch to President Bush. Congress went on recess and Bush was attacked for going to Crawford in August. Democrats never accepted the fact that the Crawford Ranch was still in this country and equiped to handle any problem that arised but that didn't matter to the "selected not elected" President.
then came 9/11 and the charges that Bush knew, it was an inside job, Bush allowed it to happen, Bush was friends with Bin Laden. You heard them yet the country came together for a short period of time. In October we invaded Afghanistan, Bush poll numbers skyrocketed and the liberal elite couldn't have that so they stepped up the attacks and the conspiracy theories. Throughout it all Bush remained classy but the rhetoric was the worst I ever experienced against the President which showed again that President Bush was never going to be accepted by the elite and the loons.
9/11 according to the GAO cost this country over a trillion dollars which was off budget but part of that debt you are so concerned about and GW Bush took the fight to our enemies. He was fully engaged and fully committed to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan and take the fight to our enemies, something previous Presidents, his father and Clinton didn't do.
The loons never let up and none had the stomach to fight a war let alone win a war. Bush knew that and without the help of Democrats tried to fight the war with as little U.S. Casualties as possible so he engaged the Northern Alliance to do most of the heavy lifting in Afghanistan and realizing it would take hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to fight the war and with limited support from the Congress he got NATO involved like the Democrats wanted but he also knew that al Qaeda wasn't only in Afghanistan. He also recognized correctly this was a war that had been ongoing since the 80's. He lived with the vision of 9/11 ever day and vowed to never let it happen again.
GW Bush fully understood the enemy we have, it was radical Islam and anyone that supported them. He realized that it was Radical Islam's goal to prolong the fight and to do everything in their power to destroy any American. They underestimated this President because he wasn't Bill Clinton and had the resolve to kick their butts. He also had the resolve to take the fight anywhere in the world and all evidence pointed to Iraq.
Clinton knew that Iraq was a problem and had the Iraq Liberation Act passed in 1998. Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists in the region and paying money to suicide bombers in Israel. Saddam Hussein had a WMD Program and had used WMD on his own people. The world changed after 9/11 and Saddam Hussein couldn't be allowed to reconstitute his WMD program and although sanctions were in place China, Russia, and France were putting pressure on the UN to lift those sanctions. GW Bush was told he had to get approval from the Congress and the UN before removing Saddam Hussein. He presented the evidence of violations of the Gulf War ceasefire agreement and put a resolution together explaining the reasons to go to remove Saddam Hussein.
Overwhelming support in both Houses of Congress using evidence available to all and much of it from the Iraq Liberation Act as well as UN Inspectors Richard Butler, Iraq Study Group David Kaye, Wesley Clarke, British and German intelligence, he and Congress realized that Saddam Hussein couldn't be allowed to remain in power. He went to the UN and Resolution 1441 was passed unanimously so a year and a half after 9/11 with support of Congress and the UN he went into Iraq and removed Saddam Hussein.
All this time the loons and the left never let up and with the help of the media continued their assault to destroy GW Bush. then people like you jumped on the bandwagon and piled on totally ignoring the results generated.
Bush took over an economy that generated 9.8 trillion dollars in GDP in 2000 and took it to 14.4 trillion, the largest increase in GDP in U.S. history for an 8 year term. He did that by promoting tax cuts, first the rebate then the rate cut in July 2003. He was confronted by 9//11 and its cost in human life and to our economy. 1 trillion of the debt he is charged with came from 9/11. He removed the Taliban and one of the most evil dictators in the world, Saddam Hussein, he got passed NCLB, cut the unemployment rate, grew the economy, improved personal financials of individuals, didn't have another terrorist attack in his first term and won re-election in 2004.
In 2005 we were hit by Hurricane Katrina. GW Bush took a hit by people who haven't a clue as to state and federal responsibility in an disaster. they ignored that the mayor of New Orleans had buses in storage to help get people out of the city, they ignored that it was the responsibility of the Governor to ask for Federal Help and INVITED the Federal Govt. to help, they ignored state responsibility and blamed Bush. That was a raw deal but fell in line with the rest of the loons attacking Bush. Since Katrina La. has become a Red State again and replaced the Governor. The people of New Orleans remain stupid and re-elected Nagin who was the major source of the problem.
Anyway Katrina cost billions and added to the debt. Hurricane Floyd and Ike also were major Hurricanes that cost debt. In spite of all this the economy grew as did govt. revenue thanks to the job creation from the tax cuts. He passed the Prescription Drug plan as a first step to reform Medicare, lost a bid to reform SS by privatizing a small part of it all without the public support of Congress. The negative press and the ignorance of a large segment of the people took its toll. He lost the Congress in the 2006 elections. In November 2007 thanks to a do nothing Congress that was more interested in regaining the WH the country slipped int recession. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd helped destroy the housing market and threatened the banks. That led to the TARP bailout that the Congress including Obama supported. 700 billion was authorized, Bush spent 350 billion of it and left 350 billion for Obama. That program saved the banks and the economy and most of the money has been paid back after Bush left office but by the terms of the TARP program.
Anyone know where that money went?
Anyway, BEA.gov, BLS.gov, U.S. Treasury, U.S. Census judges Bush a lot better than many Americans and when historians review the Bush legacy they will be kinder than you, Dirty Harry and kinder than those with BDS that ignore his actual results.