{"id":119,"date":"2009-01-17T17:22:51","date_gmt":"2009-01-17T17:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/?p=78"},"modified":"2009-01-17T17:22:51","modified_gmt":"2009-01-17T17:22:51","slug":"george-w-bush-the-worst-president-ever-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/01\/17\/george-w-bush-the-worst-president-ever-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"George W. Bush \u2013 The Worst President Ever, Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"George
\nIt really kills me how Bush has been touting his record in the last week or so, listing as one of his major accomplishments that since 9\/11, there have been no further foreign terrorist attacks on US soil.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With his approval rating running at a meager 22% – the lowest rating in history for a sitting president, I guess Bush feels like he has to try and clear his name. But his arguments don\u2019t stand up to scrutiny.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a quick look backwards and examine the validity of Bush\u2019s claims.
\nOkay, Bill Clinton served from 1993 till 2001. There was one actual foreign terrorist attack on the US during Clinton\u2019s presidency \u2013 the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center where six people were killed.<\/p>\n

However, since the attack took place only a little over one month from the time Clinton took office, it\u2019s kind of hard to lay the blame on his administration.<\/p>\n

Okay, so who was the slacker president that let this 1993 bombing happen? Why it was daddy Bush, that\u2019s who. George H.W. Bush served as president from 1989 to 1993.<\/p>\n

Looking back from 1993, we find that, well \u2013 there really aren\u2019t any other attacks by foreign terrorists on American soil.<\/p>\n


\nThe Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor doesn\u2019t count. That was an actual country attacking us, not terrorists.<\/p>\n

Looking further back, you come to the War of 1812 where the British sacked and burned Washington DC. But here again, we were at war, and it was British troops, not terrorists that did the damage.<\/p>\n

So when it comes down to it, there really haven\u2019t been any other attacks by foreign terrorists on American soil \u2013 ever. Just the two that happened during the presidencies of Bush 41 and Bush 43.<\/p>\n

Given the fact that only two presidents in all history have ever allowed foreign terrorist attacks on US soil \u2013 George W. Bush and his daddy \u2013 then how in the hell is it an accomplishment<\/em> to have no new attacks since 9\/11?<\/p>\n

What a load of tripe!<\/p>\n

The most devastating foreign terrorist attack ever on American soil took place during the watch of George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

Then afterwards, Bush bungled the hunt for the perpetrator \u2013 Osama bin Laden, when he withdrew all the troops from Afghanistan and sent them to Iraq. This allowed bin Laden to easily escape. Good job, Georgie!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look for a minute, at Bush\u2019s other grand accomplishments.<\/p>\n

Number one, the war in Iraq was a terrible, horrific mistake. A mistake Bush deliberately<\/em> led us into \u2013 with malice and aforethought. He lied and distorted pre-war intelligence \u2013 the \u201cWeapons of Mass Destruction \u2013 the WMD,\u201d and he lied and distorted the facts trying to tie Saddam Hussein into 9\/11 as the other part of his justification for the invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n

The facts of the matter is that Saddam Hussein was a despicable tyrant but he had no ties at all to the 9\/11 terrorists, and he had no WMD \u2013 he was not a threat to anyone outside Iraq. There was no just cause for the US to invade Iraq and Bush knew it.<\/p>\n

The real basis of the US invasion is that Saddam had tried to murder Bush\u2019s daddy and Bush was trying to get even \u2013 and then also, there were the bucks \u2013 the other main motivation was that through the war, Bush and his oil buddies (can you say Halliburton<\/em> \u2013 Dick Cheney\u2019s company) were able to rape and pillage Iraq, raking in countless millions and millions and millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

This is absolutely horrendous.<\/p>\n

The fact that the US invaded another sovereign country with no just reason or provocation is a horrible, disgusting black blot on the good name of the United States. We may never recover from this.<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u2019s more.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, Bush tried and to a large extent succeeded in turning the United States into a police state \u2013 taking away our civil liberties in the name of protecting us and making us secure. Warrantless domestic wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus for terror suspects, holding terror suspects indefinitely without charging them, even demanding library patron lending records without warrants (using a \u201cNational Security Letter\u201d) to see what books people were reading, and on and on, along with all the other changes under the \u201cPatriot Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Bush had his way, we\u2019d all have a bar code tattooed on our foreheads at birth. Joe McCarthy would be so proud.<\/p>\n

And then how about the Bush administration\u2019s use of torture? They admitted the use of waterboarding on terror suspects \u2013 which is the controlled drowning of a subject. And they admitted the use of all the other standard, lesser techniques like sleep deprivation, degradation and beatings and so on (which are mostly prohibited by the Geneva Convention).<\/p>\n

There was the Abu Ghraib Prison episode, where it became public US soldiers had been torturing prisoners (remember Lynndie England walking her naked prisoner on a leash?)<\/p>\n

While the Bush administration was able to distance themselves from this and publicly disavowed the events there, I suspect the real facts are that the soldiers were acting under orders from on high. Right from the top.<\/p>\n

But all that was nothing compared to what some lucky people got.<\/p>\n

When they really <\/em>wanted to romp on someone, the Bush administration used \u201cextraordinary rendition.\u201d It was for those times when simple torture just wouldn\u2019t do, and they wanted to really torture someone with absolutely no holds barred. Using rendition, they simply kidnapped the people and sent them to a country where torture was legal \u2013 countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, and Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u2019s even more.<\/em><\/p>\n

No list of Bush\u2019s grand accomplishments would be complete without including the current world financial\/economic crisis.<\/p>\n

Okay, I suppose it isn\u2019t fair to credit Bush with bringing about all <\/em>the current economic woes, but he should certainly get the lion\u2019s share of blame.<\/p>\n

His policies of lax regulation with little or no government oversight allowed the business world to run rampant. And it was their blind greed run amok that brought on much of our current misery.<\/p>\n

So now home foreclosures and business bankrupcies are hitting historic highs, unemployment is rising to record levels, and we\u2019re lurching into what looks like the most signitficant economic downturn since the great depression. Our children\u2019s children will be paying these bills.<\/p>\n

Thanks, so much W.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s absolutely crystal clear that George Bush ran the United States right into the ground, on nearly every level that counts.<\/p>\n