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Go On, Name One

Started by Melissa McEwan · 1 month ago

I'm sure Nancy Pelosi will catch a lot of flack (mostly along the lines of "Oh, yeah? So's your old man") for calling President Bush a "total failure," but in all seriousness, I'd like someone to name one policy or initiative put forth by the Bush administration that has been a proven ... Continue reading »

55 comments

  • kliofem

    1 month ago

    Mustang Bobby,
    I'd feel bad if your post didn't have ANY comments on it. So consider this one a placeholder.
    reply
  • Abra

    1 month ago

    Vastly swelling Halliburton's coffers.
    reply
  • Blue Jean

    1 month ago

    Embarrassing the family name.
    reply
  • SweetT

    1 month ago

    T-Ball on the South Lawn. Mostly b/c I love baseball and b/c no one has been harmed (to my knowledge) in the process.
    reply
  • Graham

    1 month ago

    Tax cuts for rich people?

    Sorry, man, I got nuthin'.
    reply
  • oddjob

    1 month ago

    My impression is he hasn't done a horrible job with international AIDS issues (aside from the obvious prevention stupidities of "abstinence only"). Of course, given how horrendously the GOP generally behaves towards this topic not doing a horrible job is a very low bar that says more about the GOP than it does about Shrub.
    reply
  • Radley

    1 month ago

    Well, please. He has given the world "misunderestimate" and countless other linguistic gems.
    reply
  • J.Goff

    1 month ago

    He's been a wonderful success at screwing any possibility for America to gain its credibility back within the next few decades.
    reply
  • Bitty

    1 month ago

    He has excelled in increasing the national debt.

    Excelled.
    reply
  • LS

    1 month ago

    I had something! Then I realized it was actually begun in the Clinton administration and just finished out/implemented during his first term. Dang.
    reply
  • militantmama

    1 month ago

    I can't believe all the hate for Bush, i mean come on because of his Abstinence only program, anal sex in teens has tripled. Because of Iraq OPEC profits have more than doubled and because of his clean water act we now have more Mercury in our water. How can anyone call him a failure, he has successfully fucked this country up beyond all repair, how can that be considered a failure?
    reply
  • jules

    1 month ago

    Personally, I appreciated the law that allows people to get one free credit report per year. He had the good sense not to veto that one.

    But that's it. I can't think of anything else I've heard about in the last 8 years that has made me go, "hey, good job." Or even "hey, way to not fuck that up." And I'd trade in my free credit report to have the last 8 years under President Gore.
    reply
  • nightshift66

    1 month ago

    If we're only measuring his success at getting what he wants, Bush has been very successful. He has powers Nixon didn't even dream of getting; he got every tax cut and most laws passed that he wanted, under both a GOP Congress and now under a Democratic one. The only thing he wanted and didn't get, to my knowledge, was the destruction of Social Security.

    I can even argue that his policies have been successful in their actual (not their stated) goals. They've enriched GOP interests; they've concentrated power in the presidency; they've insulated his friends from legal consequences. Pretty damned successful.

    Oh, you meant "successful" in the sense of being good for the country and/or the rest of the world? Sorry, I got nothin' in that department.
    reply
  • skirt

    1 month ago

    anal sex in teens has tripled
    Probably a shoddy statistic, but dear god I hope lube sales have kept pace, considering what I know about how teenage boys have sex.

    And Bush has done an excellent job with every single policy that aimed to rip apart the safety net in this country. He's been successful at putting women's lives at risk around the globe (which is exactly what he wanted to do), creating and abandoning another generation of veterans (creating = goal, abandoning = who gives a shit?), making it harder to pay for college (definitely a goal, duh), goading foreign powers into more aggressive stances than they would otherwise take (yup), and testing every US schoolchild to within an inch of their lives (in case they get any funny ideas). He has accomplished all his goals.
    reply
  • wiggles

    1 month ago

    I rather like that telemarketing act that created the national Do Not Call registry with the FCC. I'm not sure if GWB thunk that up or if WJC had set that in motion and George just signed the paperwork.
    That's all I can think of though.
    reply
  • skirt

    1 month ago

    or, what nightshift said.
    reply
  • Katie

    1 month ago

    He's provided Websters with a multitude of new words to assess. Jon Stewart/Steven Colbert/Keith Olbermann have certainly thrived in his leadership...
    reply
  • Right-Wing Automaton

    1 month ago

    Have we had a terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11? No! See? He's protecting us! Protecting us, I tell you! Oh, and he's keeping all those oogey gays away from our important marital institutions.
    reply
  • Bill in Birmingham

    1 month ago

    Well, uh, I guess Chancellor Merkel got a nice neck massage out of his presidency......
    reply
  • QuakerDave

    1 month ago

    I'd also like to see a list of the number of times, especially in the last two years, where the Pelosi-led House has stood up to this war criminal and his gang of thugs in any really meaningful way.
    reply
  • justicerobin

    1 month ago

    Didn't he catch a really big fish one time?
    reply
  • deeky

    1 month ago

    I appreciated the law that allows people to get one free credit report per year. He had the good sense not to veto that one.

    was that a requirement already?
    reply
  • Deborah

    1 month ago

    That turkey pardoning thing worked out all right.
    reply
  • TinaH

    1 month ago

    What QuakerDave said.

    And, the free credit report annually was only a requirement in some states, but was rapidly spreading, so the industry allowed it to get into a federal law in return for a whole bunch of other stuff.
    reply
  • DerelictDaughter11

    1 month ago

    nightshift - that's exactly right...fucking ass has done exactly what he set out to do (and hi there, haven't seen ya in a while.) :)

    Quaker Dave - right the F on! That's exactly what I thought to myself when I saw this headline in Yahoo news last night. "Oh, yeah, such a failure...except what did you do to stop him!?"
    reply
  • oddjob

    1 month ago

    fucking ass has done exactly what he set out to do

    On this particular observation by 'shift I can't help feeling that the truly correct way to phrase it is that he has done exactly what Cheney set out to do. Cheney is the one who has had the hard-on about wiping out post-Watergate reforms. He firmly opposed their imposition when he was President Ford's Deputy Chief and then Chief of Staff.
    reply
  • QuakerDave

    1 month ago

    Credit reports? CREDIT REPORTS? That no-risk, no-brainer is the best we can do? What's THAT tell you?

    And what do we get from the all-too-loyal "opposition" party? Threats. Of the "Why-I-oughtta" variety. Just empty threats in pissed-off tones. They all me me so sick and cynical, the lot of them.

    The Articles of Impeachment were taken off the table by this crew. That's about the time I gave up hope.
    reply
  • candygram4u

    1 month ago

    I have recently been thinking of the fact he has zero accomplishments, as his tenure limps to a (blessed) close. I have asked people who actually voted for him the same question. We all got nuthin'.
    While listening to NPR this week, in the context of some story, they said "...in the last 6 months of George W. Bush's presidency..." and I'm not kidding, I started to cry. It finally became real to me that our long national nightmare is (hopefully) coming to an end. It has felt like as citizens, we have all been stuck in an abusive relationship. We want to be out of it, but there is nothing we can do, but we know the abuser is leaving soon. I'm convinced that is why nothing bad is happening to Bush (in a prosecutorial sense, and the sense that the Democrats keep approving his stupid ideas). We're all too scared, and think we're powerless.
    Once he's gone, we'll all need rehab!
    reply
  • seeker6079

    1 month ago

    Weirdly enough, the Bush Administration has done some very good work on housing and homelessness solutions integration, backing programs to avoid "Million Dollar Murray" situations (http://www.ich.gov/ ) so far as I can tell from up here; I worked in homelessness issues for a while and the American "housing first" and related support programs were actually ahead of our Canadian curves which were far more reactive and siloed.
    reply
  • DerelictDaughter11

    1 month ago

    oddjob - touche!

    Quaker Dave - my "Democratic" (formerly Republican, before they wouldn't put her up for office Congresswoman McCarthy sent me a letter explaining why Impeachment isn't worth their time. Fucking pisses me right off. Here's a copy. Enjoy. Try not to gag.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/28742846@N08/26749...
    reply
  • Lloyd

    1 month ago

    He's basically made Nixon's claim that "[W]hen the president does it that means that it is not illegal" a reality (after all, he ain't never going to jail). Oh, wait did you mean accomplishments that are good for the country? In that case, none.
    reply
  • Constant Comment

    1 month ago

    That turkey pardoning thing worked out all right. :lol:
    reply
  • Flitt

    1 month ago

    Totally agree, and Nancy Pelosi should catch a lot of flack for taking impeachment off the table!
    reply
  • juliemania

    1 month ago

    One thing he was quite successful at was providing David Letterman with a wealth of "famous presidential speeches" material. (unedited)

    and candygram4u --- yes the end is near!
    reply
  • sj

    1 month ago

    More what nightshift said.

    Also Deborah
    reply
  • TheHolyFatman

    1 month ago

    Uhm....he can really clear some brush......
    reply
  • Kristen from MA

    1 month ago

    He made his very rich friends even richer. And made the poor poorer. And has just about broken the middle class. I'll bet he's very proud of that. Seriously.
    reply
  • JJohnson

    1 month ago

    Oh! OHHHHH <^_^> I have it! Bush has successfully made a pair of comedians some of the most well respected reporters in the country! (Colbert and Stewart of course)
    reply
  • Esme

    1 month ago

    He has successfully seized so much power for the executive branch that I really do fear my government. He has so profoundly demonstrated that the purpose of capitalism is to secure wealth, power, and control of the means of production for a small oligarchy of unelected elite that I have begun reading Marx with far more seriousness than ever before (if you mix Marxism with Maria Mies, you get just how fucked the world is).

    He's become the first person I've ever heard of to almost die by choking on a food which has large holes in it.
    reply
  • katecontinued

    1 month ago

    Zip for the public good.

    But perspectve is all when measuring success. Bill gave us a handy Chucklenuts checklist last December that had nearly every item checked off.
    reply
  • tatiana

    1 month ago

    Me, I get a kick out of how he didn't even manage to be
    'world's worst" because Mugabe is still around. Doesn't mean he didn't try his damnedest, though. But, hey, he did get to feel up Merkel!
    reply
  • Toonces (MeM)

    1 month ago

    And has just about broken the middle class. I'll bet he's very proud of that. Seriously.

    Hey, if you're too stupid not to get yourself born as a president's son then you pretty much deserve to be homeless, amirite?
    reply
  • nightshift66

    1 month ago

    oddjob,
    While I admit that DICK! has been a powerful force in this administration (both the man and the action), Dumbya pushed it, wanted it, and used everything from brute force to "executive signing statements" to get it all done. VP has no power independent of POTUS, none at all. Everything DICK! has accumulated has been through the White House.
    reply
  • savannahm

    1 month ago

    PEPFAR (the president's plan for emergency aids relief). Genuinely good thing. Sure, wrangling in Congress let Democrats keep the more inane parts out, and it might not do enough on prevention, but what is there is very good. I'm interning at a major NGO and all of them heavily push for it and depend on it for their AIDS care and so forth. Just take a look at the ONE Campaign blog--almost every other post this month is about the effort to get it reauthorized at full funding (and, albeit at $48 rather than $50 billion dollars, they did Wednesday! Hooray!)

    So, you know, even Bush has off days when he fails at screwing up the world.
    reply
  • Lalaroo

    1 month ago

    He's done a good job with trafficking. He passed the VAWA and strengthened the Trafficing Victims' Protection Act, and straightened out the Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons in the State Department, and he helped make it a more major part of US diplomacy. At the anti-trafficking NGO I worked for goes, they say "A lot of people hate Bush, but we in the anti-trafficking advocacy, he's okay by us."
    reply
  • Kristin

    1 month ago

    Clinton passed VAWA, not Bush.

    I guess Bush has been successful at clearing lots and lots of brush. Absolutely nothing else that is of any good to the country, though.
    reply
  • SunlessNick

    1 month ago

    Me, I get a kick out of how he didn't even manage to be 'world's worst" because Mugabe is still around.

    Yeah, but it's a pretty sorry bar when you have to resort to those who are actively trying to destroy their countries in order to find a worse president.
    reply
  • Jean

    1 month ago

    Unfortunately, I think Boy George Bush has many accomplishments, all of them exactly what they were supposed to be.
    He has undermined the Constitution he was sworn to uphold.
    He has continued the destruction of the middle class begun by Ron Reagan so many years ago, and carried on by his dear old dad.
    He has allowed the public airwaves to be sold to the highest bidder - Radio and television, once a great public trust have become corporate toys spewing the venom of the right.
    He has been complicit in the continued dismantling of the Food, Drug, Natural Resources and Land management regulatory administration of this country, which had been in place since FDR's time.
    He has gutted the Department of Justice.
    He has driven out so many career public servants that whole sections of the department of Education, for example, are run by political appointees who have no understanding of their mission nor the tools/skills to do their jobs.
    He has brought us to the edge of fascism; if we continue down this path, we will be a third world nation, inhabited and controlled by large corporations and private armies (Blackwater was already deployed in New Orleans following Katrina).

    George has admirably done the bidding of his owners.
    Do you really think this wasn't the plan?
    Now its up to us to pick up the pieces.
    Let's get to work.
    Peace
    Jean
    reply
  • Dean Lewis

    1 month ago

    I couldn't think of one, but I remember at one time reading something he did or funded and I agreed with it. So, I googled to see if I could find it. Unfortunately, I found a forum where someone had started a thread of good things Bush has done, and it made me vomit. Then I found 5 things Bush has done well, and it made me dry heave until bile came up -- especially the third item about him bringing more dignity to the office of the Presidency than Clinton did. Maybe the second one is being facetious, but it still made me ill. So, I can't type anymore until I finish cleaning my dinner off the keyboard.
    reply
  • lizpolaris

    1 month ago

    I surely hate President Pretzel, but Nancy Pelosi calling him a failure after the performace of the 110th congress is a bit rich.
    reply
  • SunlessNick

    1 month ago

    Jean: You forgot the establishment of indefinite military bases and a puppet government atop one of the world's largest oil suppliers.
    reply
  • angryyoungwoman

    1 month ago

    He's succeeded in alienating almost all of our allies! I'm sure that makes him feel all succesful and mavericky.
    reply
  • megpie71

    1 month ago

    I'm going to suggest a possible: if enough people put their money where their mouths are, he may well succeed in getting the largest voter turnout in a US election in the past 100 years.

    However, I'm not putting money on it. The Melbourne Cup happens on the same day, and with our population (Australia's) being about one fifteenth the size of yours, I'd still be willing to predict more people will bet on a horserace than will vote for the next president of the USA.
    reply
  • Hugh

    1 month ago

    Getting Nelson Mandela declared not a terrorist? Although if I remember rightly this took slightly longer than getting Gadaffi declared not a terrorist, but hey.
    reply
  • Ann

    1 month ago

    Come on, guys, he's not so bad.

    Well, he successfully instituted tax breaks for millionaires. All those starving millionaires and Fortune 500 companies can take a deep breath and quit worrying about where their next meal comes from. Whew!

    He gave everyone $600 they might not have already had. So they could spend it on the extra gas costs he caused.

    He bravely defended the institution of marriage in the face of all logic, humanity, civil rights, and common sense.

    He generously gave everyone in my hometown, New Orleans, a nice formaldehyde-rich FEMA trailer to stay in, after he destroyed our homes with global warming. That was sweet.

    He has tossed aside that pesky Constitution and strengthened the Presidency, just the way our old leaders did. Like Hitler, or Mussolini.

    Impeachment, schmimpeachment. Let's save that for important things, like lying about blow jobs.
    reply

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