News George W. Bush Rewrites History (Again)
January 13,2009 
The last desperate act of a failed and disastrous presidency.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
The last desperate act of a failed and disastrous presidency.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Oliver and the MSM rewrite history. Again.
You guys need to chill. Bush will be gone next week, and it will all be good.
That was an embed fail on my part, but yes, I’m totally going to believe a right wing op-ed over a news report on NBC.
Especially by someone with as much self-loathing as Gay Patriot.
I’m totally going to believe a right wing op-ed over a news report on NBC.
Seriously. Please step out of the feedback loop, Farris.
Thanks for the update, Ferris, good to know that the jokers who bring us America’s Worst Mother (TM)and the future Libby pardon don’t approve of universal health care in Massachusetts.
I guess according to you: Bush FAIL < Romney FAIL
Of course, as a former Massachusetts resident, I can tell you that the system, while imperfect, is a first step, not a failure. The main reason for problems was not the forced inclusion of expensive procedures, but the insurance companies, who jacked up rates due to a desire to maximize profits and preemptively strike against Universal Health Care.
Without projecting can any liberal clearly state what exactly GWB “FAILED” at? Here we are a week away from a Dem president, Dem control of the House & Senate and instead of celebrating the loons are too busy twisting the knife in Bush and the GOP–any wonder your wing can’t be taken seriously?
Except the system (and others like it) aren’t sold as “first steps”, they’re sold as the end-all and be-all. Then, when they inevitably fail to live up to their grandiose projections, it’s never a question of scaling back and re-questioning the program’s original purpose, scope, and overall usefullness. It’s always “well, we just need to spend more money. THAT’LL fix it!” It happened with welfare, it happened with Medicare, it happened with Social Security, it happened with SCHIP, it happened with education, it’s happening with bailout-palooza, and it happend/is happening/will happen with universal health care.
As for those dastaradly insurance companies, how DARE they raise their rates to cover expenses! Who do they think they are, for-profit companies? They should have just gone bankrupt and forced the state to bail them out!
For those of you who have been asleep for the past 8 years, Bush has failed at running the country and it is not likely to be something from which we recover quickly, i.e. it’s not “all good.”
Here are my short list of failings. I am sure others could come up with their own list:
1) Federal Debt: Bush took a government surplus and gave it away. The debt will live with us and our children (and potentially even our children’s children.)
2) Loss of Prestige: For 8 years, we had no moral authority in the world because we were just as guilty of human rights abuse as any of the tin pot regimes we opposed.
3) Environmental Degradation: under Bush we managed to turn golf ponds into wetlands, clear cut forests into healthy forests, mercury pollution into clean skies.
These are the ones that are likely to stick with us well beyond Bush, but others might include other failings: Katrina response, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, war on science, stem cell research stultification, etc.
In short, Bush has been the worst president in the history of the Republic.
MrGreyGhostL Without projecting can any liberal clearly state what exactly GWB “FAILED” at?
You’re right! I mean, after 9/11 Bush built a lasting coalition with other nations that brought the perpetrators to justice. And the standing of America around the world has done nothing but grow under his leadership so that the US is now seen as the beacon of justice and the rule of law. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been unqualified successes. Human rights organizations of all stripes praise the humane treatment shown to prisoners in Gitmo. The economy is booming and the health of both our industries and environment have never been better.
In short, I can’t think of a single thing that isn’t far better after 8 years of Bush in charge.
“It happened with welfare, it happened with Medicare, it happened with Social Security, it happened with SCHIP, it happened with education,”
“As for those dastaradly insurance companies, how DARE they raise their rates to cover expenses!”
But when wildly successful government programs need more money to cover expenses, wingnuts whine. Even as they benefit from those very same programs.
“Then, when they inevitably fail to live up to their grandiose projections, it’s never a question of scaling back and re-questioning the program’s original purpose, scope, and overall usefullness. It’s always “well, we just need to spend more money. THAT’LL fix it!” It happened with welfare, it happened with Medicare, it happened with Social Security, it happened with SCHIP, it happened with education, it’s happening with bailout-palooza, and it happend/is happening/will happen with universal health care.”
Hmmm…
In the reality-based world, the opposite is happening.
Right-wingers want to shrink necessary public services. Then, when the services don’t work, the finger is pointed, “I told you that program isn’t working & needs to be privatized!”
Grover Norquist- “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years,” he says, “to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
I’ve got a story for you*. See if you can understand the meaning:
“A man discovered that he could feed his cow a little less each day, and the cow didn’t notice. So he tried to see how far he could take it. He had the cow down to almost nothing. But then the cow died, ruining the experiment. Sheer bad luck, the farmer thought.
Well, for the past eight years the governing party in America seems to have followed a similar course, raising prices but not wages, cutting back on health entitlements, unemployment insurance, and so on, so that the billionaires could get rapidly richer at the public expense. Then, by sheer bad luck, the economy died. They never saw it coming. I have another analogy: the greedy kids got control of the candy store. They had a ball, eating all the candy without paying for it. Finally the store ran out of candy and the kids were in sad straits. They wanted someone to pay off all the unpaid debts so they could restock the store with more candy and continue eating, but no one was interested. It seemed never to occur to them to act responsibly, with an eye to the future.”
*- Ripped from a Piers Anthony newsletter.
Ghost:
1. Failed to get OBL.
2. To pacify Afghanistan.
3. To establish a legitimate casus belli for war with Iraq (despite the shameful acquiescence of Congress, the war was ultimately his decision).
4. To send enough troops to keep the peace after the invasion.
5. To change strategy for years after it was obvious that “staying the course” wasn’t working.
6. To take proper care of our veterans.
7. To take prompt action when state and local efforts proved inadequate re: Katrina.
8. To follow through after Katrina.
9. To properly regulate financial markets, etc., leading to his share of the blame for our current economic clusterfuck.
10. To uphold his oath to the Constitution, instead politicizing DoJ, issuing “signing statements” to avoid enforcing duly passed laws, authorizing warrantless wiretapping in violation of the FISA act, buying silence by his clemency in the Libby matter, etc., etc.
Shall I go on? Where you been?
MrGreyGhost: Without projecting can any liberal clearly state what exactly GWB “FAILED” at?
Bruce Henry and I have both given lists of just some of the “fail”. So now let’s turn the question around, Mr Ghost. Without projecting, can you or any conservative clearly state exactly what Bush has succeeded at?
can you or any conservative clearly state exactly what Bush has succeeded at?
Haliburton stock value increased 800%.
But when wildly successful government programs need more money to cover expenses…
If a program requires more money to cover expenses, then it cannot be by definition “wildly successful”. Wildly popular maybe, but popularity and success are two different animals.
Right-wingers want to shrink necessary public services.
Please point to at least 2 programs in the past 40 years that have seen their actual dollar amount DECREASED over a year-by-year basis. I’ll bet you can’t. Only welfare has been actually cut.
SDM: can you or any conservative clearly state exactly what Bush has succeeded at?
Duros62: Haliburton stock value increased 800%.
Yeah. I seriously considered if I should specify “good” when I originally posted that (“state exactly what good thing Bush has succeeded at”). Because he’s certainly succeeded at running up the deficit, trashing the environment, increasing the size of the government, gutting the Constitution and making us less safe.
“If a program requires more money to cover expenses, then it cannot be by definition ‘wildly successful’.”
That depends on how you define success. If all you care about is profitability, then you are correct. But if all you care about is profitability when it comes to the health of a nation, then you are a fucking ‘tard.
George Bush will always remembered fondly by me as the President who f’d up the economy so bad I had to move to Korea to find a decent job.
And I like Korea, so I guess I can thank him for that.
But for Americans who didn’t have the educational opportunities that I did, things are probably a lot worse as they lose their homes and jobs.
Please point to at least 2 programs in the past 40 years that have seen their actual dollar amount DECREASED over a year-by-year basis.
Your framing of the question in terms of actual dollar amounts is disingenuous at best, since of course a true comparison is only valid in constant dollars.
1. The REAL dollar value of the Pell Grant has decreased by 16% since it reached a peak value in 1976, all the while the price of higher ed has increased. Paying for college now requires a larger share of low-income families’ annual income (82 percent) than it did when the Pell Grant program began (43 percent).
2. Likewise, the monthly benefit of the GI Bill (in REAL dollars) dropped precipitously during the mid-seventies through the late nineties, and has not kept pace with the cost of higher education. The current purchasing power of the benefit hovers around 75% of the cost of a four year public education, down from nearly 90% at its inception.
Okay, that’s two. Tag, anyone?
So all you can find is decreases in rates of growth, not actual cuts. Thanks for making my point.
Ah, but that’s not what you asked, is it?
I really snorted when Chimpy stated he had so many months of uninterrupted job growth….(which didn’t even keep pace with illegal immigration during his terms).
All gone in about a month in his final year in office.
Most people lost money during Bush’s reign…just those upper one percenters made out like bandits.
ah, but that *IS* what I asked. Southern Quaker thought he’d change the question before giving an answer.
Please point to at least 2 programs in the past 40 years that have seen their actual dollar amount DECREASED over a year-by-year basis.
Perhaps you meant to say CUT or REDUCED instead of DECREASED.
SaveFarris: “ah, but that *IS* what I asked. Southern Quaker thought he’d change the question before giving an answer.”
At best you are splitting hairs.
“The government didn’t cut spending, they just let inflation do that for them.”