We beat Afganstan in 3 months in 2003. That war was over long time ago. Not sure why were are there again. Afganstan is not working on WMD's.
Bush did a good job but the administrations salesmanship was abysmal. They let the Left control the debate. You can see the nonsensical, sophomoric, inane, illogical and flat out deceitful talking points from liberals ad nauseum throughout this forum. While I personally wasn't a die-hard fan of the Iraq War, it wasn't the worst war America has ever fought. In actuality it signaled why America must go it with our own coalitions regardless of the United Nations and I commend Bush for having the balls to do so. In 1991 Saddam signed a surrender agreement with the U.N. including the following provision. 32. Requires Iraq to inform the Security Council that it will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory and to condemn unequivocally and renounce all acts, methods and practices of terrorism; http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm Well what happens a little over a decade later? As reported on March 13th, 2003 by our far right wing friends at CBS News (and reported also by every other news organization in the world): Saddam Hussein has distributed $260,000 to 26 families of Palestinians killed in 29 months of fighting with Israel, including a $10,000 check to the family of a Hamas suicide bomber. In a packed banquet hall on Wednesday, the families came one-by-one to receive their $10,000 checks. A large banner said: "The Arab Baath Party Welcomes the Families of the Martyrs for the Distribution of Blessings of Saddam Hussein." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/14/world/main543981.shtml That folks right there should have been grounds for the U.N. to yank Saddam right out of Dodge. But because the U.N. as a democratic body is no friend of Israel it was up to America and the U.K. to do the deed. I'm an isolationist but I also wish 90% of U.S. Jews would pack up and move to Israel, so keeping Israel safe is a noble goal. For the same reason we should have kept that Liberia thing more attractive.....
Bush inherited a recession and after a couple of years the economy was stellar by any metric you want to use.... the malpracticing news outlets that feed ghetto monster types their facts had them convinced that we were in a depression at the very peak of the economy... a poll got 40% saying we were in a depression.... Bush started to incentivize the school system, Bush did a LOT of things that were correct and right.. he reversed environmental rules put in place to cause forests to burn with rules that allowed brush clearing for example.. Obama is overturning that as we speak of course.. on the down low... Speaking of environment, we had a massive fire in California recently, brush clearing would have eliminated the fire hazard, people that lost their homes said on TV that they could not get the permits to clear the brush around their houses... envirobastards want people out of the forests entirely, and herded into population centers btw.... so there is this massive fire but I didn't see any environmentalists wringing their hands in regard to the loss of wildlife... wolves, mountain lions, deer, squirrels, snakes, etc.. by the millions had to have died in that fire but not a word from the people that protect Bambi's Mom at all.... wow, give them an oil tanker spill and they are on TV with tears streaming down their faces....... but they caused this one and they just kick back and say "take that you goddam private propery owners"... I heard a story about an environmentalist [they are attorneys, they know little of nature really] that was masturbating and watching a huge fire in Yellowstone... Wattenburg on KGO said the guy was just gleeful...
Sigh. So, I suppose Reagan, who had Dems the entire time in the House, was just utterly hobbled by it? Now if I really wanted to be silly, I could argue from the below graph that the economy really began taking off in mid 1986 because everyone began looking forward to complete Dem control of both houses in the final two years of his Admin, and that growth was stronger in those last two years because of complete Dem control of Congress. But that would, indeed, be silly. At some point, the excuses for his utterly inane Admin have to stop. Yes, he inherited a recession. He also had eight years to deal with the economy, just like Reagan, who inherited a far worse recession on top of dealing with Dems for more of the time than did Bush 2, and just like Clinton. Neither of them left behind the mess he did. And as for all this talk about all those wars, the enemies had names. They were: bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar. As far as anyone knows, all three are still alive and free and killing people. He failed on that one too, just as miserably. If anyone had asked me on Sept 12, 2001 whether I would be saying that eight years later I would have looked at him like he had two heads. But here I am, writing that sentence. That is a shame. A true shame. <img src="http://i27.tinypic.com/2ez1ira.jpg"/>
the problem is, you post a couple of events (which is statistically meaningless), and keep assuming it is the presidency that had anything to do with it. The economy generally ignores who leads. Did a particular president create 9/11 or the telecomm/internet bubble collapse or the Y2K scare or WW2 or the Korean or Vietnam war or the Panic of 1907 or the runup in gold prices a number of years ago or the oil embargo or any of the other hundreds of events in our history? Again, western economies have little to do with the leadership.
Agreed. Bush was a TOTAL FAILURE. The excuses that the right wing of the GOP continue to make for his 8 years in office are downright silly and absurd.
If Gore had become President we would all be dead by now. Bin Laden would of killed everyone in the US.
In a parliamentary system, yes. We have a strong President though. That's especially true if he's got a Congress of the same party, as Bush 2 did for six of his eight years. He had/has no excuse for what he left behind. For the right to be beating up on Obama so badly in his first year given the performance of his predecessor is just unbelievable.