Glenden BrownDubya - you’re not Harry S Truman
George W. Bush’s legacy as president is being created day by day - and it is not a legacy that will inspire pride in future generations.
Bush’s disinterest and mismanagement allowed the first attack on US soil since World War Two (and the first on the continental US since the war of 1812). His cronyism and corruption led directly to the ruin of New Orleans. His lies and deceptions led us into a quagmire of a failed war in the Middle East and let the actual people behind the attack on the US get away. On his watch, the crash of ‘08 is expanding in every direction while the government sits impotently on the side lines hoping they can throw enough cash at the problem that it will go away. Without exception, the Bush administration has pursued failed policies on all fronts.
Despite this, the apparently insane Charles Krauthammer wrote an embarrassingly ass-kissing article, published in yesterday’s D-News, entitiled History likely to recognize Bush’s internal fortitude :
When I asked President Bush during an interview Monday to reflect on this oddity, he cast himself back to early 2001, recalling what he expected his presidency would be about: education reform, tax cuts and military transformation from a Cold War structure to a more mobile force adapted to smaller-scale 21st-century conflict.
But a wartime president he became. And that is how history will both remember and judge him.
Krauthammer, however, isn’t done in his pathetic hagiography:
In this respect, Bush is much like Truman, who developed the sinews of war for a new era (the Department of Defense, the CIA, the NSA), expanded the powers of the presidency, established a new doctrine for active intervention abroad, and ultimately engaged in a war (Korea) — also absent an attack on the U.S. — that proved highly unpopular.
So unpopular that Truman left office disparaged and highly out of favor. History has revised that verdict. I have little doubt that Bush will be the subject of a similar reconsideration.
As with so many Bush apologists, Krauthammer is missing the point. Truman, just as an example, was honest. He didn’t lie the nation into Korea. He didn’t staff his administration with incompetent cronies and pretend that criticism of his actions was the same as treason. Truman was actually a decent human being.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Krauthammer always liked W, always liked the idea of invading Iraq. I think Truman’s greatest successes were NATO and the Marshall Plan. What does W have to compare?
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Leo - Which is a large part of the point isn’t it?
Truman was nevertheless a good leader. He did his best to honestly persuade people to his view, to craft policies that created long term stability and security for the US; he was, at heart, a strong internationalist who knew that we couldn’t go it alone. I think many of Truman’s failings as president can be traced to his relationship with FDR, who didn’t much care for him and kept him far from decision making and other important duties. Truman was shocked upon becoming President at how much FDR had kept him out of the loop. FDR’s low estimation of Truma’s abilities was probably unfair, but it left Truman at a distinct handicap when it came to running the nation.
Bush, by contrast, has actively rejected advice and input from anyone who disagrees with him, and covers his lack of knowledge with certainty. Dubya’s legacy will be a legacy of deliberate blindness and failure.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I agree with most of your points, but, I have to offer the WTC bombing of 1993 as an attack on our soil, even if it didn’t have the results that the terrorists desired.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
AND! The Truman Commission shows that Truman, unlike Bush, was against just the sort of things that Bush and his cronies have perpetrated upon America.
They both may have been stubborn, but, the difference, the GIANT difference, that Krauthammer misses is WHAT they are/were stubborn about.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Truman dropped the nuclear bombs on people, twice. Right or wrong, that is his greatest legacy. Depends on point of view. Hero or psycho?
So the ball began rolling, with nations operating in their choices from the possibility of this terror weapon of mass destruction being unleashed upon them.
It hasn’t stopped rolling since.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
If you’re giving “credit” to Bush for the attack on 9/11, then you must also give credit to Clinton for the USS Cole attack in Oct, 2000 as well as the first WTC attack in 1993.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Are you kidding, Glenden? Did you forget that the first attack on the World Trade Center happened under Clinton’s watch, along with a long string of other attacks on U.S. interests? Did you also forget that Clinton had an oportunity to arrest bin Laden? What was Clinton’s big response to one act of terrorism? Oh, yeah… he blew up a bunch of civilians in an asprin factory. He apparently was to busy getting BJ’s in the Oval Office and lying under oath.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Richard,
Clinton may have hit the wrong building, though I doubt because he was getting BJs in the Oval Office.
Bush hit the wrong COUNTRY while APPARENTLY playing with himself in the Oval Office while his rich buddies were feeding at the trough of the American taxpayer.
Wrong Country: $1 Trillion dollars
Wall Street Bailout ” $1 Trillion dollars.
You certainly are a scraper ain’tcha Richard? If I weren’t such a gentleman, I’d call you a punk for throwing that last punch.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Clinton caught and jailed the WTC bombers from 1993. Bush said he didn’t really think about Bin Laden all that much in the 2004 debates with Kerry.
I can’t help thinking that the world may have been a better place without the A-bomb being dropped on Japan. It was, after all, the single most barbaric act in history and from a safe distance to boot.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Bush isn’t even a Dan Quail! And to think how worried I was about HIM becoming president. At least it would have been legit.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Larry, as you correctly state, Bush is far from Quayle. ROLMFAO!!!!
Indeed, we can only wonder of the accomplishments Quayle might have provided when compared to the disaster after disaster that Bush has wrought.
How folks can vote for additional years of the same is mind-boggling, truly! But, then again, I thought the same in the months leading to 2004.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Well Larry here is an honest to God story from a WW2 Vet, Asian theater, my best friends Dad. I deposed him at 82 years of age, reluctant though he was.
He served on a 12, 16 inch gun, shallow draft battleship. Iowa class I believe. During that time the vessel suffered a friendly collision, masses of Kamikaze attacks, and were sent to do the job of shoring up on enemy atolls and “sinking” them with their 16 inch guns.
His description was that they would wallow in as close as their draft would let them, give ‘em hell, blow the vegetation completely off the atoll, and all Japanese life, then watch the sea wash whatever remained into Davey Jones.
I recommend a book, “War without Mercy” by John W. Dower.
In those days Marines were carried in the belly of the beast, the battleship herself, quartered until needed. Prior to the atomic bombing the conventional assault of the Japanese mainland was heavy upon those men, that knew what the beach landing meant. After Iwo Jima, and the Island campaigns, they all knew that the likelihood of their deaths was a distinct possibility.
Then came Truman and the nuking of the “gook bastards”, as Bill called them. He went on to explain how at the declaration of surrender after the frying of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Marines on his vessel, “wept with joy” at the prospect of living, and not having to beach assault the mainland of Japan.
We can forgive Bill his racial epithets perhaps. Those he named were after all trying to kill him. He is dead now, but last visit, my friend and I tore through the attic of the family home, and found the scrap of aluminum from a Mitsubishi Zero that they blew to pieces, and had the bulk of crash upon the deck of their ship.
Bill was an officer of a Bofers 40 mm Quad mount on deck. The business end of Kamikaze destroying.
The crew chopped it to bits, and awarded each Sailor and Marine a piece of the enemy aircraft. Read Dower’s book. It is very revealing, and will likely leave you pondering Truman’s decision.
One way or another, he made the call, and the war, she was done.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:29 am
Dan Quayle is a proud member of the dumbfucks cast in concrete PNAC group, founded by the godfather of the neocons: Irving Kristol, (yes, father of Bill.) Watch little Bill, the warbringer, squirm in this video with Steven Colbert when the subject of PNAC is brought up.
I spelled Dan’s name wrong previously. I usually look these things up if it’s important, but since I live on Quail Vista Lane, I messed up. Sorry Dan!
I’m really asking for it, aren’t I? But I’m not the only one. I’m one of millions of Americans who are fed up with these drug czars and pigs in lipstick, (no offense to pigs, of course.) Hey, It’s not like they don’t know where I or any other moniker on this blog lives and besides, I don’t hide from creditors anyway. I’m “in the book.”
Vote Mccain and live in shame!
Or…
Vote like a blind man - in secret. Vote Diebold! Shhhhh! Vote like a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:58 am
Okelberry - if the president getting blowjobs will get us back to the peace and prosperity of the 1990s, I say, let’s form a committe that takes personal responsiblity to make sure the president gets blown regularly. It’s a small price to pay.
Of course, you can’t defend your boy’s record so you do you darnedest to attack Clinton.
Let’s look at the record. The Trade Center bombing occurred on Feb 26 1993. Clinton had been president for 35 days. Six people died and 1000 were injured (most suffered smoke inhalation from the fire); the Clinton administration treated the bombing as a wake up call and worked effectively after that to deal with terrorism; they did so without attacking our civil rights or trashing the constitution. The Clinton administration hunted down and brought to justice the perpetrators of the WTC bombing. The Clinton admin had to fight of a sex mad republican majority in Congress for years - which provided a significant distraction. You want to blame someone for the terrorism of the 90s, how about Newt Gingrich and his panty sniffing moral scolds who thought blow jobs were reason for impeachment.
Ronald Reagan did nothing in response to the attack on the Marine Barracks in Beirut in the 80s. That the first George Bush left Saddam Hussein in power.
On August 6, 2001, Dubya had been in office just under 8 months. He received a Presidential Daily Briefing that, the parlance of such briefings, screamed that Bin Laden was planning an attack inside the US. Bush’s response was to tell the person delivering the briefing, “You’ve covered your ass,” and continue his month long vacation. Despite his vows otherwise, he hasn’t brought bin laden to justice but he has started two wars, one of them against a nation that had nothing to do with attacking the US in 2001.
In his book Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke described Bush as the worst president he has worked with in terms of dealing with and understanding terrorism. Clinton, OTOH, took the issue seriously and successfully dealt with a wide array of problems, i.e. the Millenium Plot. The missile attack on the factory wasn’t the best strategic move, but US intelligence recommended it, Clinton followed their recommendations, as opposed to your boy who has twisted intelligence to serve his political and personal whims.