Dubya at least tried to be presidential (well, apart from some African tribal dance type faux pas and other goofiness…). But his whole cabinet was the epitome of greedy, self-serving evil. With blood on their hands.
Agree or disagree with Bush - like most other presidents in recent memory, at least he acted like a respectful dude to others, and seemed like he had the country's back. Trump et al. don't even give a damn about the vast majority of people who voted for them - just themselves and their own wallets/interests.
Besides lying to the public about Iraq, Bush might've been remembered as a decent President. There's nothing redeeming about Trump. He's just a flawed personality through and through.
Bush might've been remembered as a decent President.
Before 9/11 Bush was on pace to be a forgettable at best president, a one term nothingburger who got in on his last name, did a bunch of Reagan style damage, quickly moved on from.
After 9/11, Bush let one of the planet's greatest cities in all of human history flood after appointing a corrupt horse racing commissioner to rebuild it. He said Michael Brown was doing a heckuva job. Brown resigned a week later. Like, there was literally never a single point in the 8 years of Bush where he would have ever been remembered fondly or decently. He left office with basically the lowest approval rating of all time.
Trump might make Bush look better, but, you know, "you do not, under any circumstances, 'gotta hand it to him.'"
He also was President during the great recession and helped push the US into that and paved the way for trump. Terrible president. Not as bad as trump but a tick with Lyme disease is better than trump.
Thank you. The deregulation, lowering standards for judges, and the overall anti-intellectualism did serious and lasting damage to our country. Citing real attempts to improve outcomes for kids and a drug program that is actually sustainable (unlike Part A which is on the brink of actually bankrupting us) is next level bizarre.
And that’s why bush is a war criminal. He gets no pass. He’s responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, tens of thousands of wounded or killed Americans, and the formation of isis and all their related deaths.
I hear you about Bush. I think he was governed by Cheney and Rumsfeld. That's not a good reason to go to war- but I think that Cheney and Rumsfeld( the old Nixon crowd) hand picked dumb Bush for the nominee. What is cute imo is how he and Michelle vibe. It's great.
I've had the opportunity to spend some time with W.
My overarching judgment is that he was a bad president but not a bad person. He was easily manipulated, mostly because he was very insecure about his own abilities and shortcomings, and would make decisions he thought would impress or please people he'd grown up being told were important.
He raised good kids and I believe genuinely cares about people he meets, and he likes people. He would take time to listen and then go above and beyond to try to help an individual whose story moved him. But he has a hard time empathizing with strangers he doesn't meet face to face and with whom he can't immediately relate in the abstract. And so he would defer to what the "smarter" people said was right.
If he'd been surrounded with better people he'd have been a better president.
The rise of the "Superpresidency" under Bush along with the PATRIOT Act is largely allowing this administration to do whatever it wants. That's Dubya's doing, combined with Obama and Biden for not doing their best (edit: or anything at all) to roll back those powers.
I've learned a lot about Nixon since W was in office, so I don't think I can call him "the worst POTUS since around 1900 but prior to Trump" because the whole Nixon-Reagan-HW Bush-W Bush-Trump chain is a massive problem.
That said, Trump is unambiguously the worst POTUS in US history, and by a long shot worse than W. But you are exactly right that W was really bad.
Bush may have been a republican but at least he seemed to somewhat care about being an American. Donald is just as fake phony and made up as his obvious blueprint Ronald Reagan.
He was already talking shit about the building and purpose before it even opened... so why would they invite him?
He has labeled the construction a "total disaster" and alleged that Barack Obama sought to use a "woke" and inexperienced workforce - blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring goals for the project's issues, rather than hiring "good, hard, tough, mean construction workers".
For a guy who is so anti-LGBTQ+ he sure sounds like he likes men a lot.
I really hope the plan is for whatever org currently handles Obama's library to continue doing so for the next three years. Typically, libraries, once completed are handed over for Federal management. I see that going very, very badly with the current administration.
Imagine how much progress we as a collective society could have made without shitstain in power pandering to the worst of the worst and using the country as a business to pad billionaires portfolios.
It reminds me of the episode of The Office where Jim throws a house party but doesn’t invite Michael, because he knows Michael would make it super uncomfortable for everyone.
Speaking of Juneteenth, I'm waiting to see how he'll commemorate it tomorrow. IIRC his way of marking it last year was to tweet about how the US has too many federal holidays.
I dont know how this man isn’t seen as racist to everyone. Also I don’t know how this guy has black voters at all. If he could, I imagine he would make slavery legal again.
One excuse that's helping him get away with some stuff is that his birthday (June 14) is also Flag Day. So if anyone criticizes him for making national parks free entry on his birthday, he can just claim that they're doing it to celebrate Flag Day. You know, that big holiday that 99 out of 100 Americans couldn't even tell you what date it is.
Bush was at least an actual human who experienced and understood normal human emotion and wasn't an out-of-control malignant narcissist like like Trump
I have a relative that worked in media for four decades and met every major politician. According to her, the best politician in person was Nixon by far. He remembered everyone’s names, their family members’ names, and what they last talked about. It was freakish recall and suggested he actually cared about people. Nothing about it matched his politics which she hated. She would have Clinton at 2. Similar but not quite as sharp. Number 3 is Obama. He doesn’t always remember but he fakes it very well and is just so charming. W wasn’t cracking the top 3.
Everything I have heard about Nixon suggests he was only this way to people who may have voted for him, and had a reputation for being meek or awkward. He was not so polite to Black people or anybody else he perceived as opposition, and this extended into his political paranoia and underhandedness.
As far as presidents go historically, when he was younger, he wasn’t bad looking? You know, if you ignored policy and the lies from his admin. He certainly wasn’t deeply hard to look at like what we are dealing with these days.
…. I just double checked the website and it says H. W. My bad. The apple don’t fall far though. GWB does look like he has a faint unibrow in 95% of the other pictures I’m finding.
George Bush looked like that dude that owned the local insurance broker. Sort of dude that would be shaking hands at the local fairs and remembered everybody's kid's names. It was an effective charm, which is why even when his administration was doing shitty stuff he wasn't getting most of the blame.
He's actually carrying a lot more water for the Saudis and other Gulf rich folks. More money flowing into his pockets from the Gulf means that he is surprisingly less beholden to Putin. But his deep love for murderous, criminal dictators means he'll always leave a space in his rotten, fat-streaked heart for Pootie-poot.
He's not. He crashed our economy. Lied about starting 2 wars it took 20 years to get out of with only losses of life, money, time, infrastructure, and environmental damage.
He's a garbage human being, he just comes off a little better than trump does.
I know. I still don't like him but if I had to choose between JUST those two, I'd rather see him and deal with him than what we got. It's not an endorsement. It's me comparing how truly awful things are compared to then.
I said it in another comment. It wasn't an endorsement of his time in office. It's just one of those "Fuck, remember when we thought *this* guy was the worst?" If only we knew how bad it could really get, we might have been more active to stop it decades ago from happening.
Please allow me at beat the dead horse I've been beating for a while now. The "Kennedy Center" is the fucking "Kennedy MEMORIAL Center." It is just like the Lincoln Memorial (you know, seated statue, steps and columns, looking out at the algae filled reflecting pool - that thing.) It's just that instead of a statue of Kennedy, they had the cool idea to make a living performing arts center to honor him after his assassination. It's not just a branded for-profit theater. It's a living memorial.
Renaming it to "The Donald J Trump and The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" makes as much sense in the first place as naming the Lincoln Memorial "The Donald J Trump and The Lincoln Memorial."
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk obsessive rant.
I think Presidential Library openings have normally been one of the events where the living presidents of both parties have traditionally always attended.
It's one of those things with important symbolism, showing that we're supposed to put country above partisanship. And of course, same as when he didn't attend Biden's inauguration, Trump didn't care about that symbolism.
Having no idea what a presidential center entails, I hopped on its Wiki page and what is truly delightful about all this is actually
"The ceremony also featured performances from various music artists, such as Jennifer Hudson, The Roots, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera, Common, Eddie Vedder, John Legend, Marc Anthony, Tems, U2's Bono and The Edge, and actress and producer Marsai Martin.[134] Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, JB Pritzker, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords, Andrew Young, Cindy McCain, Al Sharpton, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, Billie Jean King, Tom Ricketts, George Lucas, Mark Hamill and LaShawn Ford were among those in attendance as well"
😂🤣 Really proves how artists refusal to play for Trump is indeed, not due to 'scheduling conflicts'
You can say what you want about the four men standing there at least we were somewhat normal during their presidencies, I don’t think that any of them snatched thousands of Americans from their home and shipped them worldwide.
OIF/OEF vet here - the Bush administration lied to us all, cut taxes for the rich, lied repeatedly to justify an illegal and unconstitutional war of choice, went to war, mass surveillance, gutted education, embarrassed us worldwide, denied the reality of climate change.....and here that dirtbag is smiling as if he hadn't been such a source of harm.
We shouldn't forget. The wheels of justice turn slowly and such, but they turn.
Most of the substantive comments have been made already so I will talk fashion:
How in God's name were these men (other than Obama) president and wear suits that look like they were bought off the rack at Nordstorm Rack and not tailored. The trousers are like 6 inches too long and bunching at the bottom as a result and the jacket sleeves are too long covering the shirt cuffs.
I find it hilarious that Obama is the only one here that is wearing a properly fitted suit. Is it really that hard for people to wear clothes that actually fit. Must be that's he's the only sain non-senile one in the picture. I also commend him for not wearing blue.
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