Bush a bad guy?

I think the last one is best, but remove the word "evil".

Just some random thoughts...

His ultra-privileged life and surroundings makes it tough to relate where he's coming from. For most people, he might as well be from Mars. All we have to go on, re. "is he a decent man?" are the decisions he has made in public life. A 'yes' or a 'no' will depends upon one's ethical, ideological (and spiritual) sensibilities.

My gut feeling is that he has never really been his own person and he doesn't really know himself. I think he has always been very easily led, and with constant awareness of the safety net of his family's vast wealth, he has never had to deal with the grittier stuff that most people deal with,...he has never had to go through the tough stressful stuff thats characteristic of life in a modern industrial society. I recently heard someone call this "financial terrorism"...ie the constant terror that so many people deal with on a day to day basis: "one paycheck ahead of being on the streets"...

GWB didnt deal very appropriately with his personal issues,.. (as many of us don't), as evidenced by years of drug and alcohol abuse. Should he have been brough up in regular surroundings, and interfaced with regular people, would George W. Bush be very different to the person he is now? That is unknowable of course, but worth a thought. From the public record, he tends to relate to people of power, wealth and privilege; thats his 'hood.

Re. your 3 options, IMHO:

(1) he definitely listens to the wrong balance of people....
(2) re. his intentions: he is well intentioned towards those in his neighborhood and class, but he believes that his perceived good intentions towards the privileged will automatically filter through to the American people as a whole. I disagree vehemently with that extremely naive perception.
(3) if there is any 'badness' within GWB, then I believe it is more due what he has assimilated, rather than what is inherent. I believe that he is the wrong man for his current job, and because he isn't the "sharpest blade in the packet" and is also easily led, this makes him the perfect candidate for those who an charge of the reins of power.

Edit: Re. the E word:
I believe that some of the decisions coming out of the White House are pretty evil...but are those decisions coming from the man himself, or from the influential bodies and organizations close to the administration that have power and sway on the administration itself? Does that make him complicit as accessory.. or does he have little choice in the matter... just the guy at the end of the line who provides the autograph?

I don't know anything about him other than that he led an incredibly privileged life, has never really held a job that wasn't obtained through family connections, and seems to be very, very good at projecting a kind of "regular guy" ethos that my relatives in Mississippi seem to believe completely.


I think that all politicians have what they believe are the best interests of the American people in mind. And while there is always going to be a degree of insider-ism in any administration, Bush seems to engage in a level of cronyism that is both blatant and offensive. So, what I'm saying is that he seem to believe that richer rich people will eventually be better for poorer people. It is convenient that the richest rich people are his friends and family. Does he actually believe this about supply-side economics? I don't know. I know that I certainly don't, and my read of history is that it has never, ever worked.


I think that there are a lot of people who stood to gain a lot by having him in office, both politically and financiallyand both. I don't know him. I've never met him. I don't know what he's like. Neither do my relatives who think he's the greatest thing ever and that he's just like them. Is he interested in serving himself and his friends? Certainly. Is that his only agenda? No. I think that the people he's bound up with have a very, very specific agenda that both serves what they believe to be the greater good and which will make their buddies richer and which will make America "safer."

Are they misguided? Yes. Are they evil? Don't think so, but don't know. Are they incompetent? Certainly.

I don't think W is "evil" just like I didn't think Clinton was "evil" (as many from the right either outright said or strongly implied).

First I think he probably doesn't want is best for the nation.

I think many people have different ideas about what is "best" and how to get there. That is clearly at least part of the issue. I don't always agree with his approaches (or even his goals).

I do think he has surrounded himself by some (possibly) "evil" folks (for example, one who's initials are "K" and "R" and rhymes with "snarl" "trove" ).

P.S. I also don't think the republic going to come crashing down as a result of his time in office (just like it didn't come crashing down because of Nixon's time in office...or Carter's...or Reagan's...or Clinton's). I have more faith in the system than the people in it...this is mostly because our wise founding fathers were smart enough to not have much faith in the people that might be in the system, and so constructed a system to reflect that.

I disagree with the premise behind the question - that we can or should judge the character of a politician. It's something that lots of people, especially conservatives, like to do, but I just don't think it's possible for us out here in TV land to judge the true character of someone like this, nor do I think it's relevant to what we can do - judge his actual policies.

True to a point, but it seems to me there is a quality to Bush that does come through via some objective criteria: he is a profoundly incurious man.

Now of course there is a lot of room for disagreement about what this indicates about his character. There is a certain American mythos that reads "incurious" as "sturdy simplicity", of the "I don't know much, but I know the difference between right and wrong" school of frontier taciturn manliness. Politically, it's a trait that plays well with the American penchant for anti-intellectualism.

But for my money the man's overt indifference to new ideas and the world around him is the touchstone of his administration.

There is so many ways to answer that question.

1) Its depends on how you define "Sincere"
2) No. But neither was/is Clinton, Clinton, Kerry, Bush the Elder, Reagan, not even the peanut farmer or McCain, even if they come close
3) Oh god, I hope not.

I appreciate this thread, Moe, it's very interesting.

I've always thought Bush would be a great guy to throw around a baseball with. He is in great shapes, runs a lot, takes care of himself, and I really respect that. I think it is important for US's leader to be in good health, especially considering all the problems we have with obesity compared to other countries.

But, like the others have said, i don't really have a lot of respect for him professionally, and he has done very few things to demand my respect. I feel he has a simple view of things...poor people are poor because they're lazy, build the economy now, worry about the environment later, etc. This, plus he's never really succeeded in any of his business ventures, he was a C-student who would have amounted to very little without his family. i don't feel that someone who got where they are because of family and money represents america, i would rather someone who was a great student, successful in whatever field, and got where they are because of their own hard work.

Plus, i think his refusal to admit any problems with the war-on-terror has revealed some character flaws that i'd rather not see in my president. namely, that admitting any mistake is a sign of weakness. i think we can all learn from our mistakes, and that it is an honorable thing to admit a fault.

I will add one more semi-serious/semi-humorous, semi-truthful/semi-cynical comment on this subject generally...

1. Any man (or woman) that actually wants ths job must be crazy.

2. Any man (or woman) that thinks they are qualified for the job must be arrogant.

3. Crazy + arrogant is a toxic combination.



With that...happy thanksgiving all...hope y'all take a little time to contemplate the things you have to be thankful for.

Later.

The wrong man to lead the country. Is he evil or just out to feather his own nest? Well I think given the nature of his job and the gravity of the situations he passes judgement on one might imply the other.

Other than that the worst president in my lifetime ( I'm 52 ).

I really find it hard to hate Bush. It's almost pity when I think about what my feelings towards Bush are. He seems like a guy who's having trouble filling the requirements of that role, and he'd be much happier and better-suited to be... pretty much anything but the President of the United States.

I think of Bush as someone who confuses "values" with slogans and aphorisms. Whether or not he has much capacity for subtlety and nuance (which to me seems doubtful), he sure doesn't have much patience with such things. In fact, I'd guess Bush distrusts subtlety and nuance. It's as if one took the expression "the devil is in the details" in completely the wrong way, and decided that good only comes from quick gut reactions and inflexible adherence to very simple/simplistic principles. He's anti-intellectual, bored with the details of policy making, and far too incurious.

Bush overvalues a distorted concept of loyalty which places loyalty to friends above loyalty to the people -- although I doubt he's even aware of the conflict, simply imagining/hoping that only good can arise from loyalty on the small-picture personal scale he's more comfortable dealing with. Bush undervalues competence and expertise while overvaluing friendship, familiarity, and character judgments such as "he's got a good heart!".

If there is anything "evil" about Bush's character -- setting aside what I might call the "evil results" of many of his policies -- it might the combination of the fiercely competitive nature he's said to have, being a poor sport about losing anything, and the flip side of his insistence on loyalty, which is to attack and/or ostracize anyone he perceives as disloyal. I sadly see many hints that he often confuses loyalty to himself and loyalty to the country as the same thing.

Not seeing much difference between disagreement and disloyalty, Bush ends up surrounding himself with lots people who are either yes men, or people who know how to convince Bush that what they want is what he wants.

See, I disagree here. It seems to me that all that is just Rovian strategery, which plays nicely into his regular guy ethos.


While I don't necessarily disagree with you, I tend to divorce large chunks of this from his personality and attribute it to simple political posturing. But you're right. They've used this to tap into a genuinely anti-intellectual strain of American culture. The irony, of course, is that so many of the key (very) public figures are PhDs (or, like Cheney, dropped out of PhD programs).


This is something I just don't know what to do with. I don't trust this narrative, since it smacks of some Rovian maneuver. But it seems to be true.


Again, part of the narrative that I am inclined not to trust.

I dunno that you can judge him on a personal level morally but I think you can at least begin to see some aspects of his psyche. Honestly he strikes me as more juvenile than evil. Recapping some qualities- good and bad- which have been attributed to him:

Arrogantly Anti-Intellectual
Loyalty > Morality
Friendship > Competency when it comes to Hiring
Substance Abuse Problems
Confrontational
Smug
Unable to Admit Errors
Inability to see multiple viewpoints

As best as I can tell he really just an overgrown teenager, ie he never matured. The frat boy caricature has been referenced in regard to Bush and I think that that is also a good match. I suspect that because his life circumstances prevented him from having to deal with the realities of the world which force other people to turn into adults he never became one. This was a guy who was getting up into middle age and whose life consisted of businesses which he did not have the skill to help succeed, an admittedly indulgent party lifestyle and his rich boy's trinket of a pro baseball team. Then a combination of inadequacy fueled by his father's defeat (a blow to his identity given that his identity is primarily that of his family/class because his own identity lacked focus) as well as supposedly finding him religion gave him direction. Although of course that choice of direction was rooted in the family "business" and capitalizing on his name and connections so even that change of direction shows his method of dependency. That base coupled with the fortuitousness of a run for Gov at the same time as the GOP Revolution in 94 plus the benefit of a pair of presidential opponents who were deemed unlikeable by the general public propelled him to power beyond his level of incompetency.

Alternatively, his characteristics also fit the profile of a gang member pretty well. I suspect Bush would make a decent Hoover Crip. Or even a good Al Queda member for that matter. Or US military perhaps. The tribe mentality suits him well.

Agree to some extent. On a personal level I think the fact he values a healthy body is one of his few qualities that I agree with. But as to the second I really don't think it matters much to the general public. No one is skipping that second cheeseburger and going for a 5km run because Bush does. I just don't see people parroting those actions of the president that closely. Nor do I suspect that people are taking the tack of his predecessor and asking interns to swallow their snausage just because Clinton did. But obviously many people disagree with me and think of the president as strong role model. I just don't see that in my interactions with adults or kids.

Moe, this is a great post! I'll be back with my two cents in a while.

My lovely DEMANDS my help in the kitchen, err, I have to replace the engine in my 'vette befor dinner...

I just want to second that this is a really interesting topic, Moe. I'm particularly interested in hearing from the Bush supporters here. Specifically, how do you distinguish between pandering to your beliefs and his actual adherence to them? For instance, Bush spent almost his entire term dropping in little evangelical Christian phrases into his speeches (read that first inaugural). To me, that simply registered as a Rovian/Frumian attempt to get the evangelicals who stayed home in 2000 to come out. But was is sincere? If you think it was, then why?

"misguided angel.....soul of Lucifer and a heart of stone"

- Cowboy Junkies

On the other hand,

how could he be, if he is the embodiement of the collective wish of the majority?


My split-responses embodies that confusion. I guess I'm not smart enough to know.

I think that Bush is used to putting in a 4 hour day, and that just is not enough time when you are president.

I agree with most of his secular goals, but when you put in very little effort, and when you are unwilling to admit or correct mistakes, then you get this administration.

That's because at heart he's still just a lazy frat boy.

When you put one of those in charge you get this administration.

" Hey let's go TP Saddam's palace! ".

This question should be posted again in ten years, when this question will not be any more a political issue, and will have not any influence on a future political vote.

Today saying that Bush is a bad guy will lead to an evident conclusion : change the leader : vote democrat in the next elections, in order to avoid Bush's heritage.

As I have absolutely no influence on any US elections, and doubting that any of my post should change his mind on such a subject, I will give my opinion about the subject :
Like Brussel said, we should only judge someone by his policies. My feelings are :
- Bush do not seem to react quickly when he face big dramas : 9/11 and Katerina.
- Bush follow more political doctrines, than pure logic. He is not an adept of the real politic. For me the best example of this way of acting is the Iraq war. In his book, Saddam was an evil dictator (so true) and Iraq was a very important country in a geo political point of vue (right again). The plan was to get rid of him, and export democraty here. In a philisophical point of vue, it was nice (if we think that we have the right to make a war for the greater good) and so that's what he manage to do. He jumped, on the WOMD thing, who was the perfect excuse for this war. USA won the war easily, as we all know. Unfortunately, if the military war was a cakewalk, the post war was nightmarish (and still is). Democraty is not the magical wand, Bush expected, the civil war is here, and Iraq is now a quagmire.
My personal advice about the Iraq war, is that most politicians, more concerned by real politic than ideology, would have guessed, that the Iraq war will lead to a mess. We all know at the light of the experience of communism, that great ideologies, can lead to disaster.

In my opinion an ideology with a seperate ( and unlisted ) agenda. Bush benefited from this war from several different angles. Among them are : Distraction from the bad economy which would have been news item number one if it hadn't been for Iraq. Many of Bush's friends are in the oil business and are enjoying huge profits now ( not passed on to us of course ). A strategic foothold in the middle east. He couldn't get Bin Laden so he found another fall guy. I could go on but you get the idea.

I still don't believe the Iraqis want to be occupied. What possible motivation will they have to hold elections ( unless ordered ) or a free government as long as we are there ( imagine if France had come in on the side of the colonials here in the late 1700's and then occupied those colonies. Would we have been motivated to have elections or considered it " our choice " under those conditions? ). I think they would have considered it trading one foreign ruler for another.

The fact that many predicted this would be another Vietnam ( and now is ) just underscores the lack of caring Bush has for the american people just to futher his own goals. I do think we need to think about this now. Part of the reason Bush was elected in the first place was a knee jerk reaction to what Clinton did. Remember it was hardly a landslide the first time. We need to think and remember so next time we don't elect someone like this ( that was so obvious to so many before the election ) be it republican or democrat.

The Iraq war was not a distraction from the "bad economy", the economy started to turn around due to the tax cuts, and we have had growth for a few years now.

The price of oil was little affected by the war in Iraq, and if peace is ever achieved there, it will reduce the price of oil and cut oil company profits. Access to oil was not a motivator for the war.

Iraq did not need to turn into a quagmire - a little more forthought, better leadership, and twice as many troops, would have averted the problems that we have now.

I am not sure of that. You can't put a soldier behind each iraqi. I fear that the invasion even for the greater good of iraqi people (removing a bloody dictator), is just some fuel for the fire of muslim integrism in iraq and many others countries.

Been over this. The unemployment sagged for years afterwards and some states still haven't bounced back. My state recently announced that they have the lowest unemployement since 2001! However it was bad in 2001. The effects of this recession lasted much longer than it should have. Announcing it was over meant little. Yes we are finally doing better however that really isn't saying alot. Also we still could easily slip back to where we were. We aren't that strong in comparison to where we were before Bush took office ( we won't even talk about the debt Mr. Bush has rung up for us when before we had a surplus ). I'm sure Mr. Bush cringed at the thought of news commentators discussing this instead of Iraq.

Many Bush supporters thought the price would go down after the war but things just didn't go that way did they? Just when do you think this " Peace " will be achieved?

As far the Vietnam comparison myself and many others were predicting this before the war. It had quagmire written all over it as these things always do. Seeing it any other way is just ignoring the obvious as history has taught us. I'm sure the government had plenty of time to have had forethought in Vietnam. Many years. They also sent lots of troops there and did it change anything except to make it more bloody? When people don't want you in their country in the first place they will fight to the last man just as we did back in the 1700's against the british. That's why this will never work.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, lynchpin of conservative fiscal policy.

You know, I've never quite understood this line of reasoning {although I hear it a lot}.

Surely history is full of absolute monsters that were "in good shape". I think most of us are aware that the Nazis made something of a cult out of physical fitness.

So I don't see exercising and being in good health as any particular indicator of character, although I'll grant you the "role model" bit is probably all and all a good thing in such a sedentary country.

Is it maybe that in America "athleticism" has so much mythos built up around it concerning "our" values? You know, discipline and forthrightness and willingness to sacrifice for the team and sportsmanship and all that?

Or maybe it's more the "outdoorsy" thing, which has its own set of ostensible attributes: self reliance, an appreciation of the land, ingenuity, focus, "heartiness" etc., plus the rural vs. urban vibe.

So is that true? Do we have an inclination to regard "outdoor recreation oriented fit people" as being of better character than their somewhat more sedentary urban counterparts (even when that distinction is somewhat contrived)?

1. The last time there was a problem with too much unemployment in the US was in 1983.

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/feddal/ru

5% is the perfect amount of unemployment, as below that you get tons of inflation (due to rising wages when businesses compete for workers).

2. You are twisting my point - I said that the war in Iraq could have gone better, I didn't say anything about how long it would take to fix after being screwed up.

Vietnam was a different situation, as the other side had the backing of Russia and China. Iraq was much easier than vietnam.

I would add that anyone that believes this war is comparable to the Vietnam war has a rather distorted view of either or both wars.

Yes I'm sure just like we tend to vote for who looks and sounds better on TV. The thing is it has nothing to do with their character or being forthright. Just like the old saying : " Don't judge a book by it's cover ".

The dymanics of both wars are different. However just like Vietnam we invaded a country which had never attacked us for reasons that weren't given the american people. Also in both instances we were in the wrong by doing so. A war and occupation that ultimately is unviable. Hence the quagmire. That's where the comparison comes in.

Oh please I'm not going to look this up for you but there were many artcles saying this was the worst unemployment since WW2.

As to the other look to my other posts as to why a war/ occupation like this ultimately can't be won.

Ok I changed my mind. Here's a sample of what went on during that period :

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseco...nderForPrint=1


I'm sure you won't like the source or something which amounts to sticking one's fingers in their ears and going " La, la la la " but it's still the truth.

A quote :

" August 27Jobless and underemployed workers are suffering the worst job slump since the Great Depression, according to Labor Market Left Behind, an Economic Policy Institute report released August 27. With a net 3.2 million private-sector jobs lost in the United States since President George W. Bush took office, the current recovery has been the worst for job growth on record since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began tracking unemployment in 1939, the report finds. "

It's called "muscular Christianity." Seriously. Why do you think we play sports in school and have to take PE?

"It's called "muscular Christianity." Seriously. Why do you think we play sports in school and have to take PE?"


Er.....babes?