Rather enlightening

Who cares? Bush's policies are killing us regardless of how his house compares to Al Gore.

Let's do a better comparison. Let's compare George W. Bush to all the past presidents and let's see how low he rates? Worst president ever!

President Bush will eventually be rated in the top 10.

"President Bush will eventually be rated in the top 10."

Yes, he'll be ranked in the top 10 worst ever, that's a given!

President Bush is currently like President truman, when he left office, he was considered a disaster, it took 30 years, before he was finally recognized as a great president.

In 20 or 30 years, the rest of the American people will realize how important it was for him to remove Saddam from power.

Just think if Roosevelt had had the wisdom to remove Hitler in 35.

Hey Magic, don't forget to add in the vacation home shared by all the Bush family in Maine.

I hate to correct you Vitalogy, but Shrub will make the list of the list that has only one spot: The one that has the worst president in history.

Nwokie writes:
President Bush is currently like President truman, when he left office, he was considered a disaster, it took 30 years, before he was finally recognized as a great president.

You misread history. Truman today isn't rated highly because of the Korean War - on the contrary, it's considered one of the black marks on his record. Truman is highly rated because of many other decisions related to the Cold War, the Marshall Plan, etc. We are still burdened by Truman's blunder into Korea, even today. America didn't need another one of those like George Bush has given us.

The better comparison is to Lyndon Johnson, who committed the US military to Vietnam, unlike the dabbling of his predecessors. Johnson left office in disgrace, a failure for the war, and 40 years later he is still not well regarded, other than for a few courageous moves in civil rights, Medicare, and his well-meaning War on Poverty. Bush has no such accomplishments to fall back on. Any summary of his presidency will include not only Iraq and WMDS plus 9/11 but also Hurricane Katrina, and huge tax cuts for the wealthy while the national debt increased by another $5 Trillion.

Andrew

IRAQ = Vietnam Part Deux! No way to win and the exit will be ugly!

I think Lloyd Bridges would do a good George W.

---

quote:

President Thomas 'Tug' Benson: Here's the target area.
Gerou: That's Minnesota, sir.
President Thomas 'Tug' Benson: Damn it, man, that's the genius of my plan. Why go over there to fight? We can do it right here at home, and get in some good fishing while we're at it.
Gerou: Sir, the enemy is over there.
President Thomas 'Tug' Benson: Then we'll fly them over here. Their families too. We'll teach them to skate... Do I have to think of everything?

---

"Just think if Roosevelt had had the wisdom to remove Hitler in 35."

Eloquently stated, Nwokie.

And to those who don't think Mr. Bush will be seen as a fine president, consider this: Mr. Nixon was openly bashed for years. Only now have historians and the public realized how truly outstanding he was. Now many on the left concede he did a LOT of things right. And not just by founding the EPA and getting us out of a democrat war, either.

Mr. Nixon held firm against commies like Russia, who begrudgingly had to respect him. Were it not for Mr. Nixon doing some serious heavy lifting earlier on, Mr. Reagan might have had an even more difficult task in tearing down the Berlin Wall.

Herbert Milhous

Herb, you forget that though Nixon was bashed by the end of his service, he was praised many times during it for such things as the department of education and breaking the thaw with China.

Shrub has not done one damn thing to be praised for in eight years.

And Johnson did not get us into Vietnam, it started with Eisenhower and expanded with Kennedy. Johnson had the good grace to admit he could do nothing to stop the war and that is why he did not run again.

Roosevelt had no legal grounds for stopping Hitler in 35, though he would have gone to war with Germany sooner if the nation had not been so supportive of being isolated.

I minored in history in college, so I know that Shrub will rank among the worse president ever.

"[Mr. Bush] has not done one damn thing to be praised for in eight years."

As my French pals say, Au Contraire, Radioblogman.

Particularly if freedom continues to spread in Iraq, Mr. Bush will be seen as near-prescient.

Herb

There ain't no freedom yet, until Iraqis get water and electricity and Sunnis and Shiites stop killing each other. Plus a great many doctors and other professionals are still afraid to come home, leaving the people without proper medical care.

The average Iraqi is starting to think life was better under a dictator.

It may appear that way now. However, presidents often have intel not generally available to the public.

Besides, the surge is working.

All this being the case, don't be surprised if Mr. Bush looks pretty good in a few decades.

I hate war and want us out ASAP. However, we appear to be making progress and millions have been freed from a ruthless dictator as a result.

Herb

We are not making any progress until our troops start leaving. To say otherwise is ignorant.

Significantly reducing bloodshed is hardly a lack of progress.

Our nation's founders didn't see instant victory, either. But go right ahead and align yourself with the likes of Benedict Arnold. I'll go with General Washington.

Herb

People in Glass houses shouldn't Stone Poneys

Herb, have you ever heard of modern warfare.

You can't compare a quill pen musket war more than 200 years ago with this Internet age war.

The only reason it took this country so long to become united after the Revolutionary war was that many folks cared less about even having a government and it took so long to get information out to everyone.

We live in an instant society that expects instant results. I know that is impossible, but something positive should be coming out of the so-called Iraqi government that even Shrub cannot do anything about.

Yes, "W" toppled a government system that has been in place forever and is forcing democracy on them, can you say quagmire?
Now if only our children could graduate from High School with better then a 5th grade reading level then maybe it'd be money well spent.

1.20.09 can't get here fast enough! Even Hillary would be better than this idiot!

If you want to compare Bush to another president, compare him to Andrew Johnson.

•Iraq & Afghanistan = Post Civil War Reconstruction (both botched)

•Neither well educated*, claim their instincts serve them well

•Johnson elected as a pro-Union Southerner, Bush as a "compassionate conservative" - both change their colors almost immediately after attaining the presidency.

•Public sentiment favored one course of action (equality of former slaves/end of Iraq war) but president chooses to back big business (plantation owners/big oil and military-industrial complex)

•Both presidents increasingly polarize nation politically throughout term of office.

•Both ranked as poor presidents from the start, with their legacy actually deteriorating with time.

•Both presidents impeached (Johnson in Feb. 1868, Bush in Sept. 2008)


(*though Bush got an MBA, it clearly didn't stick.)

You forgot: both were alcoholics also. Johnson famously was drunk when as VP at Lincoln's 2nd inauguration in 1865, Johnson gave an incoherent, rambling speech and needed to be escorted off stage.

Andrew

PBS had a special on Andrew Jackson a couple of months ago. What a complex and bigoted man. Someone you wouldn't want to cross.

This ( the original topic ) was brought up earlier and relatively recently.

I still sorta don't give it the weight or care. I fail to see what I am supposed to do with this information.

...Johnson gave an incoherent, rambling speech and needed to be escorted off stage.

Sounds like Bush's last State of the Union.

"In 20 or 30 years, the rest of the American people will realize how important it was for him to remove Saddam from power."

He didn't have to lie and manipulate about it. That's my whole beef with this guy in a nutshell. They don't want to have to answer to the people that put them there and that's just not how it works here.

It's the same for the terror, wire tapping, secret courts, neutering oversight bodies in general.

We may find that killing off Saddam was a really great thing. That's a bonus, a good thing, if it all works out.

However, we will never find that lying and manipulating --essentially committing crimes to get it done was a good thing, and that's the whole nut right there.

The idea that this will go unchecked really does us a lot of harm globally. Our system of checks and balances lies at the core of who we are and what we stand for. If we surrender that --and make no mistake, we are doing exactly that when we go down this road, we are no better than a lot of other nations.

It's a general lowering of expectations around the globe to some lowest common denominator. This is not something we should feel good about.

It won't take 20 or 30 years. We know less than 5 years after Saddam was removed that it was a mistake and not worth the cost, AND, we're far from tallying the final cost. Unfortunately, the bodies and borrowed dollars continue to stack higher and higher.

Fact is, Mr. Bush's IQ is higher than both Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry, whom he both beat.

You democrats can never answer why, if those liberal candidates were so smart, how could they get beat by such a 'dumb' guy like Mr. Bush? After all, if Mr. Bush is dumb, both of those sore losers are inarguably dumber.

Answer: Effete' leftist snobs have a major problem...namely, underestimating their often smarter opponent.

Herb

I'm there too.

What I don't get is the whole, "you just wait and see, the GOP was right!" bit. It's this bizzare mindset where it's perfectly ok to lie, cheat, steal, etc... so long as the result is somehow gonna be just great!

Heck, does that mean any of us can go around and kill a bunch of people, that we think the world would be better off without, with our supporters saying, "just wait and see! We don't need those people!"

That makes just doing something illegal, essentially passing solo judgment on somebody, totally ok then? Like some old west cowboy justice?

Really the ends can't be used to justify the means. It's a travesty of the law and leaves us wide open to abuse and totally without any kind of respect in the world.

Everybody, with a brain, is gonna be thinking, but what if history doesn't prove that out? Didn't we then just blow an assload of resources and lives for nothing? Were there NO alternatives to consider?

That kind of dilemma is exactly why we have the system we do.

Kings and dictators pull that kind of crap and their people just have to deal. We are better than that. We need to be better than that.

" Fact is, Mr. Bush's IQ is higher than both Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry, whom he both beat."

Fact? How could you possibly know that as a fact? I have never heard that. But that doesn't make it not true. I'd love to see your list of Presidential IQ's as it's been something that has always interested me.

Bush is a dumbshit. There's really no other way to say it.

So true!

We all know people who have high IQ's and/or are brilliant (Obviously Bush is NOT one of them) but who have a hard time doing the simple stuff like tying their shoes, driving safely, or have an ordinary conversation or relate to people.

We all know people who didn't graduate high school but can fix anything, have great common sense, and are among the the smartest people you know.

IQ is not a predictor of "smarts" or even common sense. My college room-mate went on to earn several degrees, but is dumber than a box of hair when it comes to everyday life, but I love her dearly anyway.

I can't wait to see Herbbocrites's factual list and source!

If Bush has such a high IQ, then why does he seem SO dumb? Come on, Herb. You think this guy exudes intelligence? I mean, in the traditionally measured way of Intelligence Quotient? A savant, maybe. He's definitely shows a penchant for things. Even a knack. But I don't think I have ever noticed a display of high IQ.

Frankly, I think I am smarter than Bush on just about any level you could test me for IQ.

Maybe he just likes to not flaunt it - and never use it. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Sure, you could say that he got into the White House..TWICE..but are you saying that THAT fact PROVES he's got a high IQ? By that rationale, everyone who's ever held office has been the person with the highest IQ when compared to his opponents. Which, forgive me for not being open minded or diplomatic, exhibits a low IQ to believe that.

Fact is, Mr. Bush's IQ is higher than both Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry, whom he both beat.

Ah, I think we are all confusing what "IQ" means.

In the case of the shrub it stands for "Ignoring Questions."

Yes, I will concede, he has ignored more questions that any President in United States history.

It sure is a helluvalotta work to make sense of Herb.

"Fact is, Mr. Bush's IQ is higher than both Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry, whom he both beat."

Bush IQ: 123
Kerry IQ: 120
Gore IQ; 134

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/kerry_iq_lower.htm

Fact is Herb, you seem solidly below all three.

And if Bush is so intelligent, why doesn't he use it more constructively, instead of simply finding ways to enrich his cronies or cover his ass?

(Ouch, I just hurt myself laughing.)

The only people that think Bush has some redeeming value will all be dead in 30 years. Only then will dumbth be conquered.

The Johnson comparison is probably the best one that comes to mind, at least in modern times, Andrew.

Unlike Bush, whom I honestly don't think gave two shits about helping the poor or anyone else besides those loyal to him, Johnson had grandiose plans to help those less advantaged. He also spurned his Southern constituents with his signing and strong support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a move that he knew would make the Southern states swing straight to the Republican vote, something they had not done since pre-Lincoln. He did these things with a conscience knowing he was doing the right thing.

His Great Society train got derailed by Vietnam, and his hand was largely forced there by his own party and the American people at first because of the Red scare. The Democratic party was still looked at as the party that let Mao Tse-Tung and the Communists over run Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists. It was under JFK that the efforts to remove Castro from power flopped monumentally. He HAD to look strong.

Now we have Dubya. His ideas are faith-based, but open only to people of HIS faith. He has slashed spending for hundreds of social programs across the board. He never had any plans for helping the poor, the disadvantaged. He started a war based on false pretenses, to clear his daddy's name. The economy is in the growler, jobs are going overseas at an alarming rate, things are looking BAD.

How can anyone say that even in a million years, that Bush will be looked on favorably in any way?

Big Business will! They do publish history books too.

Bush is the pinnacle of the efforts to undo the New Deal, that really started with Reagan.

Big OIL, maybe. And many big businesses that have taken advantage of all of these frivolous free-trade treaties to move their operations overseas, leaving the American worker high and dry.

Is this REALLY a legacy you want attached to your name?

Edselehr, your post about IQs and the link are confusing. Maybe it's my own low IQ, but what you posted in your comment isn't supported by those stats you posted. Nor does that website you linked seem to show any proof of IQ. Was it even supposed to or was I just over-eager about the whole thing?

W does indeed have a large IQ. "Idiot Quotient"!

With a 126, I beat both Shrub and Kerry, but I show my real intelligence by never considering a run for public office.

OK, lets pretend George does actually have a high IQ, the phrase "Book Smart and Bone Stupid" would surely apply then. You ever been around one of those brainiac's out in a public place? It is fun to watch them as they are usually clueless how to act in the public setting. They struggle when it requires thinking out of the box and lack the ability to think on their feet. I bet George can't even walk and chew gum at the same time. It's even quite possible he rode the short bus to school.

President Bush used to fly jet fighters, and was rated by his commander as an excellent pilot.

So I think he can do more than one thing at once.

Well, I guess he can walk and lie at the same time:

---

quote:

BOGUS BIO: Bush "spent two years on active duty, flying F-102 fighter interceptors."

FACT: He served 18 months on active duty, not 24. Of those, 13 months were spent in

basic training and USAF flight school, NONE of it flying F102s.


BOGUS BIO: "For almost four years after that, he was on a part-time status."

FACT: After becoming combat qualified in ANG F102s, Lt. Bush flew just 22 months.



Because of personal problems, such as excessive drinking, poor airmanship and a

reported fear of flying, he quit interceptors in April 1972. The self-grounding left him

30 months short of the asserted six-year period, which he had promised to complete

under his sworn Guard obligation as a pilot who received flight training costing over

a million dollars.





BOGUS BIO: Shrub flew "occasional missions to help the Air National Guard keep

two of its F-102s on round-the-clock alert."

FACT: On August 1, 1972, ANG Major General Francis Greenlief grounded him for failing

to take his required annual USAF medical exam. Thus Lt. Bush wasn't qualified to fly

F102s during the time claimed in his falsified biography, much less perform alert duty as

alleged.

---

CJ: "Edselehr, your post about IQs and the link are confusing."

Yes. My post is cryptically short and the link is long and rambling. I didn't read it through completely, but here's what I got out of it.

I didn't see that either Bush or Kerry had the results of any IQ test available. So, based on indirect metrics (SAT scores, military aptitude tests, etc) the two IQ scores for Bush and Kerry were derived. Gore however had taken two IQ tests in high school that scored 133 and 134. His SAT scores are in line with an IQ in the 130's, so this seems an accurate score for him.

Does this help de-confuse the situation?

President Bush will eventually be rated in the top 10.

You've got to be kidding? Nwokie that was a joke right????

Give me the reasons why?
1.
2.
3.
4.

4 is... too many but go ahead and give me one.

"Does this help de-confuse the situation?"

Sort of. I'll just hold my breath until Herb posts his source too...

Nwokie...
We all ALL waiting....

1. President Bush, like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt 1 and 2, Truman and Nixon decided issues on what is right for the country, not what is popular. It will tqake years or decades for the nation at large to understand that.

2. President Bush has dragged the nation , kicking and screaming into the international economy, it is painful at first, but as the Us has the best trained and educated work force the world has ever seen, it will do pretty good in it.

3. The president restored the militaries faith in the executive branch.

4. The president has put the working people first, changing the tax laws so working people can keep more of their hard earned money.

3.

Hmmm......Suddenly I have a tune running through my head...."A World of Fantasy" from Triumph! You're obviously familiar with it Nwokie!

Damn, that's good kool-aid!

Made from De-nile!

Must be the waters.

Nwokie...
You did what DUHbya would have done...
Went from 4 BACK to 3....
WOW!
Your meds need to be increased. You've really haven't LEFT the South mentally have you???