PLENTY of people can be blamed for the calamity on Capitol Hill on September 29th. Two-hundred and twenty-eight congressmen decided they were ready to risk another Great Depression. Nancy Pelosi made an idiotic speech damning the Republicans. Sheriff McCain claimed that he was going to ride into town to sort out the mess””and promptly fell off his horse. But there is no doubt where the lion’s share of the blame belongs: with George Bush. The dismal handling of the financial crisis over the past fortnight is not only a comment on Mr Bush’s personal shortcomings as a leader. It is a comment on the failure of his leadership style over the past eight years.
The convenient excuse for Mr Bush’s performance is that he is at the fag-end of his presidency. Public attention has shifted to the presidential candidates, and the members of the House face the electorate in a month. But this rings hollow: there is nothing about the political cycle that dictates that an outgoing president should have an approval rating of 27% and an army of enemies on Capitol Hill. Bill Clinton ended his two terms with ratings of close to 70%.
The crisis underlined Mr Bush’s two biggest personal weaknesses””his leaden tongue and his indecisiveness.
What is the approval rating for Congress these days?
You know it does get tiresome. The Democrats prevent any action, they are past masters, and them blame the other party, they are past masters at this too. And it doesn’t matter if they control the Congress or the Presidency.
Bush isn’t the greatest President, but he is also not the most evil either.
Oh, how we miss Clinton! Oh, Mr. Clinton would have deen so much better! Mr. Clinton was always so good on TV! And what great drinking parties – errr social events! Oh, everybody approved of Clinton! Oh, Clinton, where are ya when we need ya. Can I get a round of “Slick Willy, we loved ya”? Everybody now!
***how does one spell that gagging sound that happens when bile is stuck in your throat?***
“his indecisiveness. ”
Poor George Bush. If only he were omniscient like the author. Monday morning quarterbacking.
Well at least Georgie was consistent throughout his Presidency.
“George Bush’s Presidency Is Ending in Disaster”
He may well go down in history as the worst president since James Buchanan.
A Canadian friend asked me in 2006 what would happen in the USA with a Democrat controlled congress and a Republican president. I answered: nothing. It will be total grid-lock. Oh, how right I was. I am over 60 years old and have never seen a worse congress. And Iraneus, you may be right for now, but in the long run I disagree. I think that the blame will eventually settle where it should be, on Congress. And there millions in Iraq who lead better lives now. There are hundreds of pundits who have books to write about all this. Millions to be made on telling us what we already know.
Oh please, #6. So a bunch of states have just passed ordinances of secession, have they? They’ve just selected a new capital, raised a new flag and designed a new Great Seal? And they’ve done all that with the tacit support of Washington?
Comparing an economic downturn, which, it may surprise you to learn, there have been several of in US history, to the United breaking into pieces is one of the silliest “historical” comparisons I’ve even seen anywhere.
Most intelligent people know that what’s happening now is the result of policies implemented under both Democratic and Republican administrations. “Analyses” like this one in The Economist are why I don’t pay any attention to anything the British say about this country. Because most of it is inept garbage.
I remain puzzled by the Democrats’ hostility to George Bush, and by the willingness of the Republican Party to continue defending him. He has expanded government entitlements, nationalized education, used the military to export democracy, imported millions of social democrats, engaged in massive deficit spending, and spearheaded New Deal II. Wilson and FDR would love this guy.
If I were John McCain or Sarah Palin, I’d be praying for Obama to win.
#9, Al Gore isn’t President.
So you don’t like the article, Christopher, because it was written by the British?
The article was pretty clear: Bush asked for imperial powers. He got them. But he didn’t have the ability to actually use them. It seems taht if Bush were a great leader, he would be doing much better than he is currently. The fact that his own party barely mentioned him during the convention demonstrates the destruction he has wrought.
Of course, perhaps we’ll just see on election day.
Yeah basically, John, since for the most part, Europeans are invincibly ignorant of how this country functions or anything else about it, falling back on tired bumper stickers like “neocons” and “imperial powers.”
If Dubya is the worst president since Buchanan, a literate person would interpret this to mean that he was not as bad as Buchanan. I’d also point out that if succession is our standard of badness, then Bush would be the worst president since Lincoln.
But enough with the superlatives. I find it hard to come up with much about Bush that I want to defend, and heck, I voted for him in 2000. (And who knows? If the electoral embarrassment in Florida had gone the other way, maybe we would be getting to call Al Gore “the worst president since whomever”. It was not, as far as I’m concerned, an inspiring choice of candidates.) Bush is a third-rater who has saddled us with a list of messes, either willfully or through inaction. I’m quite happy to trace some of the origins of the current credit mess into the Clinton administration; but that was over seven years ago!
I never thought I’d be nostalgic for the Clinton presidency, but then, I never thought I’d be happy to go back to the days of Frank Griswold either.
John, #11, what “destruction he has wrought?” And what do you expect on election day, and how will it relate to Bush? (By the way, in response to another thread, Franklin Elliott of FNE fame -having taken $100 MM in bonus but never indicted for Enron-type accounting at FNE- is one of Obama’s chief financial advisors.)
John, #14, sorry, I meant Franklin Raines, not Elliott.
Christopher [#8]: Your usually fine reading skills seem to have deserted you.
James Buchanan was the worst president in U.S. history. I did not write that Bush was worse than Buchanan. I wrote that Bush may go down as “the worst president SINCE James Buchanan.”
#14 – billy, I don’t think blaming F&F;is accurate, even though conservatives think it might be.
Christopher, I wish they were just bumper stickers. So, is Dick Cheney not a neo-con? Are his advisers not neo-cons? As far as the imperial presidency, John Yoo wrote a pretty interesting paper about the executive branch – remember that?
You still can’t figure out where the economist went wrong. So you call them names. They’re foreigners, and foreigners don’t know nothing. Only I knows me! Nobudy else! Theyz stupid frenchies, or whatevers.
That’s one way of arguing, I suppose.
#17 – What exactly is a neocon, John, other than something liberals scare their kids with? As for the “imperial presidency,” people have been throwing that meaningless little bromide around every time a president not from their party does anything at all they don’t happen to like.
I have never seen a European analysis of American affairs that didn’t eventually dissolve into brain-dead cliches they picked up watching CNN. If I’m wrong, and I may well be, please enlighten me rather than having me say things I never said.
My vote for WORST president in the last century would be Jimmy Carter…..or doesn’t anyone remember the odd/even gas lines, the botched resucue attempt of our military troops held hostage and double digit inflation with mortgage rates as high as 18%? Please spare me the George Bush being the worst mantra!
I’d certainly argue that Carter was pretty poor domestically, and depending upon how you feel about being in Iraq, you may or may not hate the Carter Doctrine. The Camp David accords, however, stand as a triumph of personal diplomacy.
Actually, Now Orthodox, it was the “trifecta” of misery: double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates.
Yummie.
Unlike most, I think Bush’s rightful positive legacy will be his intervention in the Middle East. Other than the excellent and helpful tax rates, his economic prowess has been appalling, including his growth of the State, and his panicking Congress into nationalizing another industry.
#18,
Conservative political philosophy (see Burke, Eric Voegelin, Sen. Robert Taft et al.) formerly stressed limited government, isolationist foreign policy, strict construction of the Constitution, and republican governance. The new breed of intellectuals currently branding themselves as conservative embrace expansive government, flexible construction of the Constitution, democratic rule, and globalist foreign policy. They identify more with Woodrow Wilson and FDR than Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge, and represent a distinct break with what was formerly deemed conservative political philosophy, hence the prefix “neo.”
Christopher, you insinuate that it didn’t exist, except in the leftist mind. Hm. I suggest you read up on some neo-conservatives: Irving Kristol, for example, who actually wrote a book about why he was a neo-conservative.
Most of them believe that intellectuals should rule the country and confrontation against communism (rather than containment).
Look, as someone who has read Irving Kristol and Robert Kagan and a few of these guys, I don’t think they are stupid: they have some coherent critiques of the left. But the last 8 years seems to have demonstrated that applying their policy was as… successful they would have imagined.
Of course, some on the paleo conservative side call the “liberals with guns” because they’re trying to impose liberal democracy upon other countries.
I note Christopher, that you didn’t even bother to respond to my note on John Yoo. Perhaps he’s the same thing, but he seems a bit different to me. Do you know who he is?