So I've been thinking...

[NC-Echo]

So I've been thinking... bush is probably the worst most damaging president in U.S. history.

Thoughts

 

[Sandtru27]

lol i'm not gonna pretend like he wasn't a TERRIBLE president (he def. was) but so is obama right now

and so was bill clinton

and so was jimmy carter

then again there aren't too many "good" presidents that we've had in the last 40 years

those that were "good" have too many negatives which prevent me from calling them actually "good" for the future of our country/world/planet/etc. (like Reagan)

 

[NC-Echo]

What was wrong with Clinton with the exception of the media scandal?

 

[Sandtru27]

imo, kosovo

edit: oh and the DMCA

super smart idea

....edit: and let's not forget about housing

lol pretty confident you guys are mad young and just are nostalgic for that "oooooo the president is so cool"

but w/e i'm mad young too

 

[Zero_Gamer]

I don't keep up with politics much, but... yeah, the Bush administration did some ******** stuff.

Clinton seemed cool.

Obama is a lame duck.

 

[NC-Echo]

Thats my opinion too.

 

[Masky]

..........

 

[ph00tbag]

Bill Clinton was fine. Kosovo was a bad situation with no good options, which Clinton handled as best he could, IMO. Clinton was no great president, but he was certainly a good one. I do think his successor makes him look a whole lot better.

Obama is unfortunate. He has a lot of good ideas, and he has, IMO, the charm and drive to realize them. He's just president in a time when he hasn't the political will, and when America hasn't the resources, to put them in effect. As such, he may have been the man for the job five or nine years ago. He might be the man for the job three or seven years from now. But right now, we need someone who can afford to make impossible decisions, despite the vitriol to come down on them as a result, and who can come out of it ready to accept the hate, whether it's warranted or not. Obama... can't do that.

 

[Jaff]

edit: oh and the DMCA

For the record, the DMCA was not a terrible piece of legislation. Keep in mind that while you bash it because some corporations extended the meaning of some portions, its those portions you don't mention that allowed the internet to grow. Specifically, without safe harbors and fair use, things would be miserable in regards to the use of technology these days.


Also, I wouldn't start discounting Obama just yet. The fact is that he inherited a total mess. He should have made fixing it is top priority for his first term, which would give him easy re-election, and then the chance at some health care work. (Edit: He didn't, and things have slowed, but continued their downward trend.) It has only been a year, so it is very hard to say what will happen with this president in the future. However, I will say that if he continues the way he is going, he will be remembered more for having one of the most partisan presidencies ever, not being one of the worst.

People talk too much **** about this health care plan, it won't ruin our economy, it wont increase our debt. Its also not as radical as the media might want you to think. This is a more conservative plan than was presented even 15 years ago, and that more conservative than its predecessor. This plan is probably going to cause headache for many people until it gets ironed out, but you know what would really help that out? Just a little discussion from the right wing rather than "We will eliminate health care reform".

 

[Sandtru27]

Kosovo was a bad situation with no good options, which Clinton handled as best he could, IMO.

The best thing we could've done was to not intervene.

For the record, the DMCA was not a terrible piece of legislation. Keep in mind that while you bash it because some corporations extended the meaning of some portions, its those portions you don't mention that allowed the internet to grow. Specifically, without safe harbors and fair use, things would be miserable in regards to the use of technology these days.

It's kind of funny because I never made any mention to any portions; just the entire document.

Safe harbors/fair use is great of course but there's still a ton of flaws that just makes technology use harder/more annoying (like the whole reason why sklyarov got arrested).

 

[ZIO]

Ah? A political discussion on a social forum?

I can't say this will last long . . . But then again. This post did nothing to help that, either.

I tend to keep my nose out of politics.

 

[~Twitch~]

everyone says bush is an awful president but i never actually knew what he did wrong...

 

[NC-Echo]

everyone says bush is an awful president but i never actually knew what he did wrong...

You're a little young to fully understand... no offense.

 

[Cosmopolitan]

As an independent, I'm aligned with neither the conservatives or the liberals. However, while I think there has been bipartisan failure in recent years (i.e. the last decade or so), I do feel the right wing is slightly more responsible for the quagmire that the U.S. has been trying to trudge through.

Obama has the right ideas and the tools to implement them, but his attempts to build anything keep getting thwarted by the conservative bulldozer. The blueprints remain largely ignored. It doesn't matter if the design is sound - if the architect is Obama (or liberals in general), the building gets bulldozed.

Conservatism is a useful anchor when employed judiciously, but when your anchor remains grounded regardless of the weather, what good is it? It seems conservatives are determined not to budge simply because they don't want the ship to sail under a liberal flag.

Evidently, the conservative modus operandi is that "it's my way or the highway" (also applies to liberals, but there's a huge difference in motive). I had thought the minimum age for senators was 30 years, but it seems like they must have lowered it to 5 at some point.

Surely, not every individual agrees 100% with his/her political registry, and yet, the tremendous significance of the supermajority seems to suggest that politics within the senatorial realm is almost entirely dichotomous. The Senate is essentially two bandwagons playing tug-of-war with the limbs of the American public.

You really have to wonder what happened to all the supposedly "free" thinkers. As it stands, I see very little freedom. American politics is just one large anchor of mostly conservative mass, and every citizen is shackled to it. Civil discussion is obviously the easiest (and at the same time, the hardest) solution, but every time the key turns up, someone invariably conspires to swallow it.

Biased media certainly doesn't help, either.

 

[Dorsey]

John Edwards and Hillary Clinton were both better candidates for the democratic party. Hillary Clinton was the toughest candidate and scared a bunch of men tbh. John Edwards is one of the most successful defense lawyers in our country and big business feared him being that he bent over big corporations and forcefully delivered the long **** of the law on a daily basis.......so there's definitely some who would fear him being in power as well.

No, instead the democratic party decided to say 'hey, lets get this half black guy with no political resume a shot. Hell, there's lots of black people in the country, were bound to win!' then the republicans answer 'Well fine.... we have a woman VP now, even if she's a dumb***.. there's more woman than blacks in the country, now it's in the bag!!!!' --too bad there was a flaw in this brilliant plan being that many women still supported hillary.

Politics has to be the lamest **** ever though. **** politics. Government for the people and by the people my ***. $$$ aka big business runs **** in this country. As for George W. being the worst president in history? Top 3 no doubt.

 

[Nihongo-ookami]

Libertarians Unite!!!

 

[exarch]

One of the worst things Bush did was setting up the political atmosphere in the country to cause Obama to be elected. But other than that, I would like to hear other reasons for him being so bad. I'm 22 so I should be able to understand, right?

Anyways, there's a reason a Republican Senator was elected in Mass. The charm and drive of Obama isn't fooling people anymore; he has blatantly ignored campaign promises, advanced the national debt even further, and is pushing health care reform on which the majority of Americans are no longer sold.

Not the political atmosphere? The Democrats have a majority in the House and a super majority in the Senate. A better political atmosphere for getting agendas passed does not exist. (We're talking a similar type situation as what led to Reconstruction in the South.) If the majority party is willing to pork-barrel a certain state not to have to pay taxes just to get one more Senator to vote to end a filibuster, it is a wonder Obama and the Democrats haven't passed every whim since the beginning of Obama's term.

But right now, we need someone who can afford to make impossible decisions, despite the vitriol to come down on them as a result, and who can come out of it ready to accept the hate, whether it's warranted or not. Obama... can't do that.

You mean, like Bush did?

I'm so frequently surprised at how liberal smashers are, and I like to play devil's advocate... so it works well.

 

[NC-Echo]

I'm drunk and have been playing on green greens right now... expect a response from me in the morning........

 

[DJRome]

people act like the president is the determining factor in how the us ends up. he probably affects like 2-4% of what actually goes on in this country.

 

[Jaff]

It's kind of funny because I never made any mention to any portions; just the entire document.

Safe harbors/fair use is great of course but there's still a ton of flaws that just makes technology use harder/more annoying (like the whole reason why sklyarov got arrested).

Its also funny that you just finished saying that you didn't mention any portions, and then pulled an example of a case in precisely the portions I was talking about (anti-circumvention). That is where most of the complaint comes from. My point is simply that we are far better off with it than without.

One of the worst things Bush did was setting up the political atmosphere in the country to cause Obama to be elected. But other than that, I would like to hear other reasons for him being so bad. I'm 22 so I should be able to understand, right?

My main gripes against Bush are against his foreign policy. His plan was essentially to tell the rest of the world to go f themselves while the United States does what it wants. We invaded Afghanistan to combat the Al Qaeda threat to our safety. That was good. But, a year later, when they were at the brink of annihilation, we rapidly decreased the number of troops dedicated to Afghanistan and allowed a resurgence in the area. Why? To invade a completely unrelated country, and with virtually no support at that. The reasons for the Iraq invasion were completely political, and had nothing to do with 9/11, we have no real justification for being there.

Not the political atmosphere? The Democrats have a majority in the House and a super majority in the Senate. A better political atmosphere for getting agendas passed does not exist.

The problem with our super majority (imo) is that it requires a completely partisan vote. With 100 senators, there is NO reason why just one won't switch sides on an issue. It's a horrible political atmosphere. Sure, one party can just squeak **** by, but that leads to god-awful legislation. However, when the two parties won't cooperate, you either pass nothing, or pass garbage....both will screw you politically.

 

[XIF]

Bush's biggest problem was really the ham handed execution of the Iraq war, but aside from that, I do not think he was a terrible president. And recall that it isn't the executive branch that intervenes with the banks and mortages, that's the legislative, and I don't think that the current economic situation is the fault of any one person, just a lot of dirtbag ceos, idealistic economists, and some oblivious legislators (and well, who could blame the legislators for not understanding whats going on with that?)

Before the 08 election I really had no preference to either candidate. I said I wanted McCain mainly because my dad probably would have kicked me in the gonads had I said otherwise. My main problem is that neither candidate made any sort of campaign promise or any effort towards reducing spending and reducing the National debt, and that's what I really care about the most. If anyone has seen I.O.USA, you would know what I am talking about, it's absurd.

Anyone who is working right now and pays any sort of federal income tax is getting money taken away from their paycheck to put into Social Security. The fund for Social Security will be bankrupt by the time we are of age to retire if there are no changes to federal spending, and all that money we're giving the government under the assumption that we get some sort of retirement money is being sucked up like a vacuum never to return.

Now that Obama has been in office, there have been two things I've noticed:

1) Aside from bail-outs, more federal spending, an absurd deficit, etc, Obama has done nothing, and certainly hasn't kept any campaign promises.

2) But with the absurd amount of money the federal government is spending, national deficit and national debt is spiraling out of control. We can't keep this up forever, and there simply isn't any logical way that more spending is going to fix anything. Think about a normal family that is in debt. What do you do to get back out of debt? Reduce spending and start saving.

We desperately need to start saving out money and get ourselves out of this financial mess, if Obama can somehow accomplish that (which looks unlikely since we have another year ahead of a $1,000,000,000,000+ deficit (trillion) then I would consider his term a success.

If you want to know someone that I think needs to be running for president is Mike Huckabee, truly one of the most sincere Conservative candidates and by no means an idiot.

 

[Jaff]

If you want to know someone that I think needs to be running for president is Mike Huckabee, truly one of the most sincere Conservative candidates and by no means an idiot.

I get nervous around highly religious politicians personally. I wouldn't want one in the White House.

Now, I've heard rumors that Obama plans to directly address the deficit with something to the effect of "spend ****-tons less $$" at his State of the Union. I certainly hope its true, and that he makes it a priority, because that should be #1 right now.

 

[BEHR]

Ron Paul.

Thats all.

 

[ph00tbag]

The best thing we could've done was to not intervene.

While in most situations I would agree with you, this is one where I would not. The situation in Yugoslavia at that time was genocide. There are very few precedents for it, but I believe that in situations of genocide, intervention is not only a good choice, but the choice that a sensible leader is obligated to make.

everyone says bush is an awful president but i never actually knew what he did wrong...

One of the worst things Bush did was setting up the political atmosphere in the country to cause Obama to be elected. But other than that, I would like to hear other reasons for him being so bad. I'm 22 so I should be able to understand, right?

Bush's foreign policy was imperialistic and jingoistic, and often ran counter to the wishes of the international community. Now, from a domestic economic standpoint, this can have its merits, but generally, Bush's foreign economic policy served mainly to protect domestic interests abroad and not to promote exportation (a lot of goods come in, but not many go out, meaning GDP shrinks). This ultimately weakened our financial positions abroad, and didn't help with the fact that a good part of the international community was very unhappy with us politically, since our solvency was suffering. Part of the reason Obama got elected was because McCain looked like more of the same in the foreign policy area.

And Bush was no better than Obama in the fiscal policy area. We went from a steady annual surplus under Clinton (we were paying off our debt), to a much, much larger annual deficit under Bush in one year, if memory serves (our debt was growing). Obama had the unfortunate position of having to throw billions of dollars at failing corporations because they literally were too big to fail, though (an unfortunate condition with its roots in the steady stream of deregulation that's been occurring since FDR's administration, under administrations of both parties). Bush just spent irresponsibly, while making tax cuts that didn't really benefit the working class all that much.

Bush did make a lot of decisive policy, and consolidated more power in the Executive Branch than, I think, has ever been held there in American history. So by some metrics, he met with success. By and large, though, I think he abused the power he had, and didn't really serve his people in the best way possible. I do like that he appointed Ben Bernanke to be Fed chairman.

You mean, like Bush did?

I'm so frequently surprised at how liberal smashers are, and I like to play devil's advocate... so it works well.

It's true. For better or worse, Bush stuck to his guns. I feel like his guns were woefully inaccurate and often pointed in the wrong direction. But I cannot fault the man for being decisive.

I suppose the main thrust of what I said is that it'd be nice if Obama had more balls.

Bush's biggest problem was really the ham handed execution of the Iraq war, but aside from that, I do not think he was a terrible president. And recall that it isn't the executive branch that intervenes with the banks and mortages, that's the legislative, and I don't think that the current economic situation is the fault of any one person, just a lot of dirtbag ceos, idealistic economists, and some oblivious legislators (and well, who could blame the legislators for not understanding whats going on with that?)

Actually, the government's impact on the economy is managed by fiscal policy which is usually defined by the Executive Branch (so the President has quite a say), and then vetted by the Legislative Branch; and by monetary policy set by the FRB. The FRB is actually the one that directly steers the banks and money markets through incentives. The FRB is also very unregulated, and pretty much coordinates with the federal government in conferences rather than legislation and direct management.

I don't disagree with your main point, I just like being a smarty-pants.

Before the 08 election I really had no preference to either candidate. I said I wanted McCain mainly because my dad probably would have kicked me in the gonads had I said otherwise. My main problem is that neither candidate made any sort of campaign promise or any effort towards reducing spending and reducing the National debt, and that's what I really care about the most. If anyone has seen I.O.USA, you would know what I am talking about, it's absurd.

Anyone who is working right now and pays any sort of federal income tax is getting money taken away from their paycheck to put into Social Security. The fund for Social Security will be bankrupt by the time we are of age to retire if there are no changes to federal spending, and all that money we're giving the government under the assumption that we get some sort of retirement money is being sucked up like a vacuum never to return.

Now that Obama has been in office, there have been two things I've noticed:

1) Aside from bail-outs, more federal spending, an absurd deficit, etc, Obama has done nothing, and certainly hasn't kept any campaign promises.

2) But with the absurd amount of money the federal government is spending, national deficit and national debt is spiraling out of control. We can't keep this up forever, and there simply isn't any logical way that more spending is going to fix anything. Think about a normal family that is in debt. What do you do to get back out of debt? Reduce spending and start saving.

We desperately need to start saving out money and get ourselves out of this financial mess, if Obama can somehow accomplish that (which looks unlikely since we have another year ahead of a $1,000,000,000,000+ deficit (trillion) then I would consider his term a success.

If you want to know someone that I think needs to be running for president is Mike Huckabee, truly one of the most sincere Conservative candidates and by no means an idiot.

Like I said, at this point, given current knowledge about fiscal economic policy's effect on the economy at large, there is nothing Obama could have done that wouldn't have resulted in a staggering deficit. If the federal government weren't bleeding cash at this point, the rest of us would be, to be sure. At the time the Recession was heating up, I had an Economics professor who said that if nothing were done, we would find ourselves in another Depression. And she was adamant about this. (Mind you, this woman had a PhD and several published works under her belt, so I do not take her words lightly, even if I didn't quite enjoy the class.)

I think working towards Health Care Reform, while an admirable goal, was a very poorly timed gambit for Obama (not in the least because Kennedy died and a Republican took his place). In most other forms of weather, I'd fully support it (at least conceptually) no matter what, but now I'm not so sure. The word is that it will save in the long run, but that's a projection.

The more I look at it, the situation we're in is an economic perfect ****storm, where decades of deregulation, eight years of irresponsible spending by the government, and many years of irresponsible lending in the private sector have led to an impossible to reconcile economic meltdown. I think that, no matter your politics, you have to feel sorry for Obama, since he went into the presidency highly optimistic, but he's finding out now that he just can't win. And I'm not speaking politically. He cannot save this country at a low cost. Something, somewhere, has to give, and I don't think the guy is taking the news very well. (His hair is scary grey after just one year in office, and he's only in his forties.)

 

[Sandtru27]

While in most situations I would agree with you, this is one where I would not. The situation in Yugoslavia at that time was genocide. There are very few precedents for it, but I believe that in situations of genocide, intervention is not only a good choice, but the choice that a sensible leader is obligated to make.

Yea, so we intervene because Albanians were getting killed in Kosovo (under FR Yugoslavia) in 1999, but we wouldn't intervene during the breakdown of former Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War during 1992-1995 where more people were killed?

The Bosnian genocide was a much bigger deal.

The fact is that we as a country and the UN didn't know **** about any genocides in the 90's (aka Rwanda and the breakdown of the former Yugoslavia).

edit: Keep in mind all 3 of these situations happened while Clinton was in office.

These situations aren't so black and white (Rwanda for example was all caused by the Belgians when they colonized the dammn place) and at the end of the day I feel it's up only to the countries directly involved to handle these problems. It worked out for Rwanda luckily (thanks only to the RPF/Tutsi refugees and NOT the Belgians, UN or the US). Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Croatia are all doing pretty alright as well (No thanks to us).

I'm really tired so I hope this post made sense (the breakdown of Yugoslavia is probably one of the most confusing genocides in history).

edit: I'll let other people handle the other point because i'm pretty sure exarch/xif have pretty similar points that i would make

 

[ph00tbag]

Yea, so we intervene because Albanians were getting killed in Kosovo (under FR Yugoslavia) in 1999, but we wouldn't intervene during the breakdown of former Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War during 1992-1995 where more people were killed?

And some sort of intervention should have happened. I never said Clinton was perfect. I said I believe he made the right decision in Kosovo.

 

[Scidadle]

I think if Nader was voted into office US would be straight G

Cause nader is a G

But srsly Bush sucked wiener, lots of wiener.

We wouldn't be in this situation that we are in right now if he was never president.

 

[yummynbeefy]

I think if Nader was voted into office US would be straight G

Cause nader is a G

But srsly Bush sucked wiener, lots of wiener.

We wouldn't be in this situation that we are in right now if he was never president.

truth

but ross perot man that guy needs to run this country

businessmen>>>politicians

 

[Scidadle]

I'm not gonna lie though.

I'm a democrat... but I do disagree with somethings Obama has been doing in his campaign so far.

Such as not closing down Guantanamo Bay Prison

Sending EVEN MORE troops to war.

But I do think health care reform is something that needs to be done eventually. If you look at all the top rated nations to live in (made by the UN http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/un-picks-best-and-wo-1122/) all of the top 5 have some form of universal health care hell even Iraq and Afghanistan have some form of health care that the US is funding but having health care in our own country is too expensive and unreasonable? Cmon... (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.gadling.com/media/2007/07/healthcareworldbig.jpg map showing countries with health care)