Re: Scathing Review on Bush
all I would say is that where 'breaking bonds with the public' are concerned, GWB was in office for 5 years before that happened in earnest. We'll be lucky if Obama can sustain that position for 5 months (or even 5 days).
However, I would also give credit where credit is due ... to Geraldo Rivera and mainstream news media ... for successfully burying the reality of the Katrina situation re inaction by Gov. Blanco, Mayor Nagin etc., for successfully burying the LACK of similar problems in Mississippi and Alabama due to appropriate actions having been taken by their governors and mayors, and for successfully piling 99% of the 'blame' for the New Orleans situation on GWB and FEMA.
But hey, look at the bright side ! Louisiana is now very close to being a Republican state thanks to backlash after Katrina !
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Melonie
all I would say is that where 'breaking bonds with public' are concerned, GWB was in office for 5 years before that happened in earnest. We'll lucky if Obama can sustain that position for 5 months (or even 5 days).
I strongly disagree about the five years. The rest of that is just partisan speculation and wishful thinking on your part.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
^^^ well if it is partisan speculation, it's coming from the liberal side of the aisle
'Code Pink' promises
End the war in Iraq
Shut Down Guantánamo
Reject the Military Commissions Act
Hold direct, unconditional talks with Iran.
LGBT promises
new Hate Crimes statutes
Employment Non-Discrimination Act
Federal 'marriage' Rights
Federal 'adoption' Rights
Union promises
'card check' i.e. abolish secret ballot
'full funding and staffing' of federal gov't agencies
middle class promises
tax cuts for 95% of Americans
national health care
(snip)"Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.
Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.
Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.
“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.
OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”
Even supporters make clear they’re on the lookout for backsliding. “There’s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,” said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future.
Obama insists he hasn’t abandoned the goals that made him feel to some like a liberal savior. But the left’s bill of particulars against Obama is long, and growing.
Obama drew rousing applause at campaign events when he vowed to tax the windfall profits of oil companies. As president-elect, Obama says he won’t enact the tax.
Obama’s pledge to repeal the Bush tax cuts and redistribute that money to the middle class made him a hero among Democrats who said the cuts favored the wealthy. But now he’s struck a more cautious stance on rolling back tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year, signaling he’ll merely let them expire as scheduled at the end of 2010.
Obama’s post-election rhetoric on Iraq and choices for national security team have some liberal Democrats even more perplexed. As a candidate, Obama defined and separated himself from his challengers by highlighting his opposition to the war in Iraq from the start. He promised to begin to end the war on his first day in office.
Now Obama’s says that on his first day in office he will begin to “design a plan for a responsible drawdown,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. Obama has also filled his national security positions with supporters of the Iraq war: Sen. Hillary Clinton, who voted to authorize force in Iraq, as his secretary of state; and President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, continuing in the same role."(snip)
(snip)"During the campaign Obama gained labor support by saying he favored legislation that would make it easier for unions to form inside companies. The “card check” bill would get rid of a secret-ballot method of voting to form a union and replace it with a system that would require companies to recognize unions simply if a majority of workers signed cards saying they want one. Obama still supports that legislation, aides say – but union leaders are worried that he no longer talks it up much as president-elect."(snip)
(snip)"David Corn, Washington bureau chief of the liberal magazine Mother Jones, wrote in Sunday’s Washington Post that he is “not yet reaching for a pitchfork.”
But the headline of his op-ed sums up his point about Obama’s Cabinet appointments so far: “This Wasn’t Quite the Change We Envisioned.”"(snip)
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
all I would say is that where 'breaking bonds with the public' are concerned, GWB was in office for 5 years before that happened in earnest. We'll be lucky if Obama can sustain that position for 5 months (or even 5 days).
Um, go check Dubya's poll numbers up to 9/11.
Everything else you wrote is irrevelent as this isn't random people or people from another party saying this about Bush, it's his CLOSEST allies and aides. It's people who have a vested interest in making him look good even once he's out of office. Please tell me in our history when this has ever happened on this scale. Most of the aides and insiders bad mouthed him and spilled the beans when they were no longer part of the inner group, and now a large group at the very top are coming clean. If Bush himself admits he was a F***-up from day one will you be arguing with that as well?.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
arctic717
Um, go check Dubya's poll numbers up to 9/11.
Everything else you wrote is irrevelent as this isn't random people or people from another party saying this about Bush, it's his CLOSEST allies and aides. It's people who have a vested interest in making him look good even once he's out of office. Please tell me in our history when this has ever happened on this scale. Most of the aides and insiders bad mouthed him and spilled the beans when they were no longer part of the inner group, and now a large group at the very top are coming clean. If Bush himself admits he was a F***-up from day one will you be arguing with that as well?.
Bush has done everything but admit that he was a screw-up. His one shining "success" that his apologists point to ? - " We haven't been attacked ON AMERICAN SOIL since 9/11." Alright, but so what ? We've lost over 4,000 people in Iraq. There has been a LOT of terrorism around the world since 9/11 - London, Madrid, Bali, Mumbai and of course Iraq and Afghanistan.
Economic policy ? While he had plenty of help, he did not push for necessary regulation.
Katrina- While Blanco and Nagin deserve the lion's share of the blame, Bush permitted himself to appear to be detached. Playing golf while the storm approached. Just flying over New Orleans instead of getting on the ground.
I could go on and on but Bush is clearly a "failed President".
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
it would appear that the entire Republican National Committee is prepared to shove GWB under the bus ...
(snip)"Republican Party officials say they will try next month to pass a resolution accusing President Bush and congressional Republican leaders of embracing "socialism," underscoring deep dissension within the party at the end of Mr. Bush's administration.
Those pushing the resolution, which will come before the Republican National Committee at its January meeting, say elected leaders need to be reminded of core principles. They said the RNC must take the dramatic step of wading into policy debates, which traditionally have been left to lawmakers.
"We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms," said Solomon Yue, an Oregon member and co-sponsor of a resolution that criticizes the U.S. government bailouts of the financial and auto industries. Republican National Committee Vice Chairman James Bopp Jr. wrote the resolution and asked the rest of the 168 voting members to sign it.
"The resolution also opposes President-elect Obama's proposed public works program and supports conservative alternatives," while encouraging the RNC "to engage in vigorous public policy debates consistent with our party platform," said Mr. Bopp, a leading attorney for pro-life groups who has also challenged the campaign finance legislation that Mr. Bush signed. "(snip)
can't say he doesn't deserve to be called a 'socialist' !
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Eric Stoner
Bush has done everything but admit that he was a screw-up. His one shining "success" that his apologists point to ? - " We haven't been attacked ON AMERICAN SOIL since 9/11." Alright, but so what ? We've lost over 4,000 people in Iraq. There has been a LOT of terrorism around the world since 9/11 - London, Madrid, Bali, Mumbai and of course Iraq and Afghanistan.
Economic policy ? While he had plenty of help, he did not push for necessary regulation.
Katrina- While Blanco and Nagin deserve the lion's share of the blame, Bush permitted himself to appear to be detached. Playing golf while the storm approached. Just flying over New Orleans instead of getting on the ground.
I could go on and on but Bush is clearly a "failed President".
Look at your own post, look at what he dealt with??? Terrorist attacks that Clinton let happen, a crappy economy he also inherited, a Natural disaster!
Bush got the shit 8 years and he gets blamed for it all, Clinton got a great 8 years and he get's all the credit. Neither one of them are amazing, but neither one of them are terrible.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jester214
Look at your own post, look at what he dealt with??? Terrorist attacks that Clinton let happen, a crappy economy he also inherited, a Natural disaster!
Bush got the shit 8 years and he gets blamed for it all, Clinton got a great 8 years and he get's all the credit. Neither one of them are amazing, but neither one of them are terrible.
I'm sorry but the best I can say for G.W. is that he was not a complete disaster. His policies certainly played a role in keeping us safe domestically after 9/11. They also served to squander the goodwill generated after we were attacked . It wasn't just invading Iraq. It was the hamfisted way we did it - not enough troops, disbanding the Iraqi Army, and the police, and firing all the Baathists, hiring Bremer, keeping Rumsfeld, Abu Gharib etc.etc.
Loyalty over competence; faith over facts; politics over policy.
Just as Clinton got credit for events that he had litttle if anything in causing; Bush gets the blame for things that went wrong on his watch.
His failures overshadow his few real successes. He actually did more to fight AIDS in Africa than all of his predecessors combined.
I still think he ranks among our five worst Presidents. Not "The " worst; but certainly one of them.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Eric Stoner
Loyalty over competence; faith over facts; politics over policy.
Yes, indeed. That is the conservative Republican M.O. in a nut shell.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lucy in the Sky
Yes, indeed. That is the conservative Republican M.O. in a nut shell.
Yes but the same can apply to the Dems. Especially on the "politics over policy ".
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
I don't believe Bush inherited a bad economy, though there were situations foreshadowing things that led to a bad one because of his administration's over-reliance on de-regulation. Nor do I believe that Bush got the bad years while Clinton got the good ones; for example both administrations were dealt a terrorist attack, and economic conditions that could have turned bad. Further, Clinton was handed a worse economic outlook that Bush was handed, but it turned out better because he handled it better. The excesses of the Patriot Act have caused big business problems as well as probably an irreversible loss of privacy to the average law-abiding American. The "No Child Left Behind" has strongly degraded the primary/secondary education system. Further I'm sure Clinton would have handled a NOLA disaster better than Bush did; for example, Bush rolled over FEMA into the DHS. Notwithstanding Bush's severe inability to communicate... on almost whatever measure you want, this Bush administration is a failure and will be regarded as such in history. Too bad; he did have a chance at it though.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
threlayer
I don't believe Bush inherited a bad economy, though there were situations foreshadowing things that led to a bad one because of his administration's over-reliance on de-regulation. Nor do I believe that Bush got the bad years while Clinton got the good ones; for example both administrations were dealt a terrorist attack, and economic conditions that could have turned bad. Further, Clinton was handed a worse economic outlook that Bush was handed, but it turned out better because he handled it better. The excesses of the Patriot Act have caused big business problems as well as probably an irreversible loss of privacy to the average law-abiding American. The "No Child Left Behind" has strongly degraded the primary/secondary education system. Further I'm sure Clinton would have handled a NOLA disaster better than Bush did; for example, Bush rolled over FEMA into the DHS. Notwithstanding Bush's severe inability to communicate... on almost whatever measure you want, this Bush administration is a failure and will be regarded as such in history. Too bad; he did have a chance at it though.
Sorry. One set of facts for everybody. When Bush took office, the Dot.com bubble had burst, the stock market was down and we were in a RECESSION. When Clinton took office we were already half-way OUT of one of the shortest and mildest recessions in our history.
Arguably Bush overreacted to 9/11 by invading Iraq. I think the most likely scenario is that Bush, Cheney and the NeoCons always wanted to take out Saddam and 9/11 just provided the excuse to do so. On the other hand, Clinton UNDER-reacted to repeated terrorist attacks. He, Sandy "The Burglar" Berger and others continually dropped the ball and missed chance after chance to take out Osama and cripple Al Queda.
The "average law abiding citizen" has nothing to worry about from the Patriot Act as currently constituted and used. Has your mail been opened ? Your phone tapped ? Have you been profiled ? However, that's not to say that Bush did not overreach in claiming unconstitutionally overbroad power as C in C. I think he did. There is plenty of potential for mischief and abuse in the Patriot Act. Hopefully, Obama and Holder will trim and curb the worst and close the most dangerous loopholes. We'll see.
It's ironic that you see "NCLB" as having a deleterious effect on education. It was a case of MORE gov't and MORE money making a bad situation worse.
Clinton would have APPEARED to handle Katrina better. He would have LOOKED more engaged and concerned. He would have done MORE than just fly over New Orleans. He MIGHT have had someone better equipped than Brown at FEMA although Brown's actual record is not that bad. Wasn't good but most of what went awry was neither his fault nor his responsibility. Those primarily responsible were Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco. They had the responsibility to order and facilitate the evacuation of New Orleans. The hundreds of schoolbuses we all saw parked and useless were under THEIR authority. Not Bush's. Not Brown's. The proof of the pudding is that Mississippi got hit just as hard, if not WORSE, but was much better prepared, weathered it better and recovered much faster. The difference was a competent Governor in Haley Barbour.
Bush is a poor public speaker. He's stubborn as a mule. His insecurity caused him to pick Cheney (" because he didn't want the job and had no ambition to be President ) and too many others like Gonzales based on loyalty and not competence. There are plenty of other failures and shortcomings. I think Bush has been a lousy President. One of our five worst - Buchanon, Hoover, Carter and Tyler being the others.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Eric Stoner
Sorry. One set of facts for everybody. When Bush took office, the Dot.com bubble had burst, the stock market was down and we were in a RECESSION. When Clinton took office we were already half-way OUT of one of the shortest and mildest recessions in our history.
Now that recession was a stupid one caused by people not having any idea how those companies could even earn money on the web; the analog was same way as magazines did. Predictable and easliy avoidable. Clinton was distracted by the Republican moralists (trying for religious votes I suppose) in his last 2 years or so.
Quote:
The "average law abiding citizen" has nothing to worry about from the Patriot Act as currently constituted and used. Has your mail been opened ? Your phone tapped ? Have you been profiled ? However, that's not to say that Bush did not overreach in claiming unconstitutionally overbroad power as C in C. I think he did. There is plenty of potential for mischief and abuse in the Patriot Act. Hopefully, Obama and Holder will trim and curb the worst and close the most dangerous loopholes. We'll see.
Probably mine and yours too. How would I ever know? Ever heard of data mining? And with the Attorney General's office in disarray and non-independence, no one could ever tell what was happening.
Quote:
It's ironic that you see "NCLB" as having a deleterious effect on education. It was a case of MORE gov't and MORE money making a bad situation worse.
All teachers I've talked to (and I socialize with many) have only really bad things to say about it. And BTW it was Bush's 'MORE.'
Quote:
Clinton would have APPEARED to handle Katrina better... Those primarily responsible were Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco. They had the responsibility to order and facilitate the evacuation of New Orleans. The hundreds of schoolbuses we all saw parked and useless were under THEIR authority. Not Bush's. Not Brown's.
Clinton was always more socially concerned and wanted the FEMA a primary agency. THe fault is not entirely Bush's but FEMA was incompetent and that is his fault.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Quote:
Originally Posted by
threlayer
Now that recession was a stupid one caused by people not having any idea how those companies could even earn money on the web; the analog was same way as magazines did. Predictable and easliy avoidable. Clinton was distracted by the Republican moralists (trying for religious votes I suppose) in his last 2 years or so.
Probably mine and yours too. How would I ever know? Ever heard of data mining? And with the Attorney General's office in disarray and non-independence, no one could ever tell what was happening.
All teachers I've talked to (and I socialize with many) have only really bad things to say about it. And BTW it was Bush's 'MORE.'
Clinton was always more socially concerned and wanted the FEMA a primary agency. THe fault is not entirely Bush's but FEMA was incompetent and that is his fault.
I see you like non sequitors. YOU claimed that the "recession" Clinton inherited was worse than what Bush had to deal with. When it's pointed out that the actual facts are to the contrary, you start talking about Cinton's last two year's when the economy was doing very well.
Notwithstanding some scaremongering, the ACTUAL abuses under the Patriot Act have been isolated and anecdotal. The POTENTIAL for abuse is there but there haven't been any actual documented cases.
NCLB was Bush's baby but let's not forget who actually WROTE the legislation. It was TED KENNEDY.
Except for some bad contractors ( e.g the trailer fiasco) FEMA did NOT perform all that badly. In Mississippi, where there was a competent Governor; where they got hit by the SAME storm and in fact suffered MORE storm damage; they had far fewer deaths and injuries and recovered much faster. Same storm. Same FEMA. The difference was they didn't have corrupt and incompetent Louisiana politicians
in charge like NOLA did.
FEMA's function is disaster RELIEF. Their SOP is to prepare to go in and then go in A F T E R a hurricane hits. Storm preparedness and evacuation were state and local responsibilities.
The levees broke because NOLA and La. politicians had been STEALING the Federal appropriations for maintenance and repair for DECADES.
Name one thing Clinton did in EIGHT years to shore up the levees.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
The NOLA disaster arguably broke Bush's rapport with the public and took the wind out of his sails too.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Seven most horrible things about Bush presidency
Commentary: An alternative to commander-in-chief's view of his time in office
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The remarkable thing about President George W. Bush wasn't that he was a horrible chief executive; it's that he was horrible in so many ways.
Contrary to the president's own assessment of his tenure earlier this week, it was an astonishing eight years - and not in a good way. The country suffered two recessions, and two shooting wars. The government botched its response to a brazen attack by terrorists on two cities, and then four years later utterly failed to react when another city was consumed by a natural disaster.
The president took on tyranny by embracing torture. He fought a war for freedom by trampling human rights. He enriched the already rich, excused their excesses, and then bailed them out of trouble and handed us the bill.
He politicized everything, promoted incompetents, and -- whenever things got tight -- appealed to our basest instincts of fear, greed, ignorance and hate.
Bush had all the luck of Jimmy Carter, the attention to detail of Ronald Reagan, the adaptability of Lyndon Johnson, the abiding respect for the Constitution of Richard Nixon, the humility of Teddy Roosevelt, the rhetorical skills of Calvin Coolidge, the fiscal restraint of Franklin Roosevelt, the cronyism of Warren Harding, and the overreaching idealism of Woodrow Wilson. And his election had all the legitimacy of Rutherford Hayes'.
None of the disasters of the past eight years can be entirely blamed on Bush, of course. No president is all powerful, and Bush was handed some raw deals, especially in that first year with the recession and then the nightmare of 9/11. But other presidents - Lincoln, Roosevelt, and the incoming Obama come to mind -- have had to deal with worse. The test of greatness is what you do when faced with the impossible.
Here's my list of the seven worst things Bush did during his time in the White House.
7. Bush politicized parts of the government that should be nonpartisan. From NASA to the Justice Department, professionals were forced out or silenced if they departed from the true Republican way. What was good for the Republican Party trumped what was good policy for the nation. Every administration is political to some extent, but the Bush administration took it too far. When Paul O'Neill was forced out at Treasury, it was clear that every major decision would be determined by Karl Rove's calculus.
6. Bush squandered the budget surplus. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Bush had a near-religious faith in the ability of tax cuts to deliver prosperity. Tax cuts were the panacea that would cure all ills. Economy too strong? Cut taxes. Economy too weak? Cut taxes. Stock market falling? Cut dividend taxes. Investment weak? Cut capital gains taxes. But tax cuts didn't make the economy stronger; they merely blew a big hole in the budget. Now, when we could really use that surplus to pay for the bailouts and the stimulus, it's gone.
5. Bush comforted the comfortable and afflicted the afflicted. The Bush years were the ultimate test of trickle-down economics, the theory that says the government should favor the rich because the benefits will flow down to the rest of us. The results of that experiment are clear: We've had the weakest job growth since the 1930s. We've had the biggest increase in debt ever. We've had the highest share of national income going to profits since the 1920s. Income inequality has soared while our public and private investment has slowed to a trickle. Instead of building a fundamentally sound economy, Bush nurtured a Ponzi economy based on get-rich-quick schemes.
4. Bush rewarded incompetence. Because politics and personal loyalty were all that counted, Bush appointed incompetent people to vital jobs. He hired interns to run Iraq. He hired a horse expert to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He wanted to hire Harriett Miers to be a Supreme Court justice. Top jobs were reserved for sycophants, toadies and failures.
3. Bush lied us into war. Every argument for war against Iraq was a delusion, and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost as a result.Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11 in any way. He was not a danger to the United States. The Bush administration ignored or dismissed mountains of evidence that showed that Saddam was not building an arsenal of chemical or nuclear weapons. Bush rushed to war without giving diplomacy or weapons inspectors a chance. Later, administration officials blew the cover of a CIA employee whose husband told the truth, and then lied about their involvement.
2. Bush has exposed himself to war crime charges. By his own admission, Bush authorized interrogation practices that are illegal under U.S. and international law. His administration at best looked the other way and at worst ordered prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to be tortured. Not only is torture an immoral and heinous crime against humanity, it is ineffective in the fight against terrorism. Nothing has given Osama bin Laden more support than Bush's immorality. And our nation's reputation has been tarnished, possibly forever.
1. Bush weakened our democracy. Bush has embraced a theory of dictatorship. Bush, under Vice President Dick Cheney's guidance, encouraged an imperial presidency answerable to no one. Working with a complacent Congress, Bush gutted the constitutional checks and balances that are supposed to keep any part of the government from growing too powerful or too corrupt. In the name of an endless war against an amorphous enemy, he canceled our most fundamental rights of habeas corpus and the right to be free from unreasonable government spying.
One final note: Bush had the opportunity to be a great president. After 9/11, the nation was as united as it had been since Pearl Harbor, and Bush rode a wave of popularity that he could have used to turn around the nation's politics, security and economy. Instead of uniting us as he promised, he divided us instead. http://i.mktw.net/mw3/News/greendot.gif
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
You folks deserve better leadership than this. I'm looking forward to your new President's inauguration on Tuesday, in fact, I'm planning on taking time off to watch live coverage of the event on our national broadcast channel. It's an important event.
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
It's interesting to look at the state of the nation Bush inherited from Clinton and opposed to what Obama will inherit from Bush.
Also, for all those who point to Bush inheriting a recession from Clinton here are some interesting facts to the contrary. All it completely believable to me with Karl Rove involved.
By Jon Perr Tuesday Dec 02, 2008 6:45am
It's official. According to a statement from the , the United States has been in a recession since December 2007. But while that conclusion from the non-governmental NEBR differs from the traditional definition of two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction, by any accounting the Bush recession will be well underway by the end of this year. And by either measure, the conservative talking point of a Clinton recession "inherited by George W. Bush" remains a myth.
The is just the latest confirmation of the . , the Commerce Department revised its third quarter (July through October) gross domestic product decline to 0.5% from 0.3%, while predicted a Q4 drop-off of at least 3%. Two weeks ago, the quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters by the concluded that the United States already entered a recession in April. Today, the , which includes a broader range of factors beyond GDP, concluded that the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007. As :
The NBER said that the deterioration in the labor market throughout 2008 was one key reason why it decided to state that the recession began last year.
Employers have trimmed payrolls by 1.2 million jobs in the first 10 months of this year. On Friday, economists are predicting the government will report a loss of another 325,000 jobs for November.
The NBER also looks at real personal income, industrial production as well as wholesale and retail sales. All those measures reached a peak between November 2007 and June 2008, the NBER said.
Facing the avalanche of grim news Monday, the to use the term "recession" to describe the economic calamity that Barack Obama will inherit from George W. Bush. Two months after press secretary claimed, "I don’t think anybody could tell you right now if we’re in a recession or not" and one month after he himself rejected a question as to whether the U.S. was in a recession as "," Bush spokesman today said of the slowdown, "What's important is what is being done about it."
Of course, back in 2001 the new Bush administration and its amen corner in the right-wing media weren't shy at all when it came to blaming a sluggish economy on Bill Clinton.
While the NEBR determined the actually began in , the shows that the traditional definition of recession - two straight quarters of GDP decline - was never met during either the last year of the Clinton presidency or the first of Bush's tenure:
Undeterred, the Republican Party and its echo chamber have for years continued to that President Bush "inherited a recession" from Bill Clinton. As detailed, the sound bite was introduced before George W, Bush even took the oath of office. On December 3, 2000, Dick Cheney told Tim Russert "I think so" when asked if "we're on the front edge of a recession." Within days, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich ("the Bush-Cheney administration should be planning on having inherited a recession as the farewell gift from Clinton") and House Majority Leader Dick Armey ("this new president may inherit a recession") followed suit. By August 2002, Mitch Daniels, Bush's head of the Office of Management and Budget, announced on Fox News:
"He [Bush] inherited that recession from the previous administration. Case is closed."
Predictably, the drumbeat from the Bush team was from the always reliable media. While Fox News' Sean Hannity made the argument during the November 2002 mid-term election "this president -- you know and I know and everybody knows -- inherited a recession," CNN made the case for him two months earlier. On September 18th, 2002, CNN's John King announced, "That's why the president, in almost every speech, tries to remind voters he inherited a recession." Five days later, his colleague Suzanne Malveaux regurgitated the same line, reporting, "[Bush] took up that very issue earlier today, saying -- reminding voters that the administration inherited the recession."
To be sure, the Republican propaganda effort worked its magic. In 2004, pollster Geoff Garin showed that 62% of Americans believed the demonstrably false claim that an "economic recession actually began during Bill Clinton's administration, before George W. Bush took office."
Now as Barack Obama prepares to assume the presidency, the right-wing noise machine is at again, though this time with a twist. Literally within hours of his election, conservative mouthpieces including Rush Limbaugh, Fred Barnes and Dick Morris for the current Bush recession.
Of course, the numbers, unlike the Republicans who willfully ignore them, don't lie. By almost any measure, the American economy is (or within days will be said to be) in recession. And this time, there will be no doubt as to its paternity.
This is .
Re: Scathing Review on Bush
Interesting research effort there.