One lucky winner: George W. Bush

[skip fox]

Before now he was, hands down, the worst president since F.D.R.

He'll never be a rose, but Trump is so much worse that Bush seems to have enter the ranks of normal presidents.

What do you think?


(Note: I don't respond to the intemperate.)

[Blecht]

1. *hic*

[dixiechiken1]

2. Agreed...

Mr. Dixie & I often say we can't belieeeeeve how wrong we were when we thought "W" was - and would remain - the worst president in our lifetime(s). I'd take him in a heartbeat over this jackass.

[SCantiGOP]

6. I was wronger than you

I remember when I got out of college and my Dad asked me jokingly to name one thing that I had learned, and I said "that Nixon is the worst President we will ever have."
So I was wrong when Bush came along, and then I was really, really wrong again in 2017.

[genxlib]

3. I am reminded of an expression

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.

[JI7]

4. no, Bush was a shitty president. it doesn't take any effort to be better than trump

[lagomorph777]

5. Still hate him but he is now in 2nd-worst place.

And about to be lapped again.

[BlueTsunami2018]

7. Normalizing W because Тяцмр is so much worse is a real problem.

If we make a dudnderhead, war criminal like Dubya seem like a reasonable person, his egregious behavior becomes acceptable because at least he’s not as bad as the worse guy.

They’ve been doing this over and over.

[unblock]

8. the cool thing about drowning in your own phlegm is it makes hurricanes seem like a walk in the park

but yeah, i get your point. shrub at least pretended to care about all of america, even if his actions said otherwise.

but ranking horrible presidents is a matter of trivia. both have been utter disasters.

[Brainfodder]

9. We were praising W. compared to this, more than a year back.

W is ready for sainthood compared to Death Count Donnie.

[Patterson]

10. Should you have said, "Worst president since Hoover?"

[Gothmog]

19. I agree

I read the OP as implying that FDR was a bad POTUS

[Polybius]

11. W was into war much more than Trump

He's still my worst.

[Drunken Irishman]

17. No way. Trump would give anything to start a war.

This is just silly propaganda that suggests at least Trump is not a hawk. The dude has been itching for a war since day one. The only difference is that he didn't have a 9/11 to piggyback off of like Bush.

Trump is hands down the most devastating president to hit the US. His lack of leadership has directly lead to 135,000+ deaths in just four months.

[Polybius]

21. But he didn't start one

You can only base it as what was done, not "but he wants to." I don't see him being nearly as much of a warmonger as Bush, McCain, and any of the neo-cons were. He's still awful, but William Krystal, John Bolton, and their backers have never met a war they didn't support. Had they been in charge, we'd be at war with Syria and troops in Afghanistan would be increased, not decreased.

No-fly zones in Syria would have certainly led to war. Bush would have installed them for sure. As for Covid, yeah Trump has been awful. Hard to say how W would have handled it. I don't have much hope seeing how he handled Katrina. I also wouldn't say all 135,000 are on him. Probably like 75,000. Even countries with amazing leadership like Germany had deaths.

With that being said, drone bombings are way up under Trump. He has that blood on his hands. What he needs to do is bring home troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and get out of Syria.

[Drunken Irishman]

27. And Bush likely wouldn't have had there not been a 9/11.

Trump is just as much a warmonger as Bush and any narrative to the opposite is dangerously close to pushing the same bullshit we heard in 2016 when comparing Hillary and Trump that at least he wouldn't start a war - and she likely would.

Trump knows he can't just go start a war. Just like Bush knew too. The country is not going to accept a preemptive war without at least something significant. The only difference is that Bush got it from 9/11 and Trump, despite his continued escalating with Iran the last couple years, has yet to. But don't kid yourself. He'd love to be a real wartime president. That's why he initially said he was one at the start of the COVID outbreak.

There's a reason he's as hostile as he could possibly be with Iran and it's to provoke an attack to justify a response. He tried the same thing with NK early in his presidency but their leadership knew the best way to pacify him was by praise and it worked.

The only thing Trump likes more than war is praise about how good and smart he is.

He's not getting that from Iran, though. So, he's hoping for the next great thing - war.

[Polybius]

30. Probably not with Iraq, but likely with Afghanistan

The war resolution to go to war with them had only one vote against it. Even Bernie and Ron Paul voted for it (Bernie admits his mistake though). I think Gore would have went to Afghanistan too after 9/11. At the time it made sense.

As for Iraq, they had nothing to do with 9/11 and Bush knew it, so he made up a "weapons of mass destruction" lie. To this day, he defends it and has no regrets. At least Trump calls it a disaster, despite initially supporting it with an "I guess so" answer on Howard Stern when asked. A year later, he started speaking out against it. Much more than I can say for that monster Bush. I don't blame Cheney either. Bush was the President, he could have told his VP to get lost. He was a grown man, he was in charge no matter what people try to say.

[Drunken Irishman]

33. I mean, if there's no 9/11, there is no need for Afghanistan.

The country only became supportive of the war effort after 9/11. Had there not been a 9/11, I just don't see Bush having the political clout for either, unless Iraq did something extreme like invade Kuwait again.

That's my overall point. If you actually listen to Bush in 2000, as he was running for president, he kind of took a pretty pragmatic approach to war and nation building (opposed nation building and the US policing the would). Obviously that changed after 9/11.

Now clearly, the way Bush stacked his administration with neo-cons, war was an issue.

Trump is so egotistical that I don't doubt he'd love a war if he could sell it to the American people. I think he's just as much a warmonger as Bush and the neo-cons in that administration. He just hasn't been given the opportunity to go to war like Bush. But that wasn't without a lack of trying. I really, truly believe he was trying to antagonize Iran into a strike so he could justify war. He really wants to go to war with Iran for some reason (well that reason being he thinks he can win it and will go down in history as a great president who conquered Iran).

[Polybius]

35. I supported the Afghanistan war at the time

Looking back, I don't think it was worth it. As for the war in Iraq, Bill Clinton was technically justified for going to war with them, but he didn't. Iraq repeatedly violated its sanctions, and on numerous occasions ignored the no-fly zone and kicked out UN weapons inspectors. Clinton bombed them several times, and Saddam hated him for this.

Now, I don't recall Iraq violating anything in from January 2001 (Bush's inaugural) to the time of the war, but I'm sure they did. If there was no 9/11, he could have went to war. Yes, it would have been a weak excuse for war, but Bush could have just added what he did before with the "hiding weapons of mass destruction" BS. He wouldn't be impeached for it, and the general population would still have rallied behind him.

I agree his administration was stacked with neo-cons. At the time, the entire Republican Party was neo-con, save for a few.

I also agree with you that Bush ran against war and "nation-building" as he called it. Something changed him. Perhaps it was 9/11. Perhaps it was the neo-cons in his administration beating the drums of war everyday. Or perhaps he was just lying. I have no idea.

I do think Trump would start a war if he knew it would help him in November. I think he could have went to war with Iran after they struck us back for killing their general. The neo-cons were actually mad at him for holding back.

Now, I don't think he's a dove. But I do think he's less pro-war than Kristol, Cheney, Bolton, McCain, and Wolfowitz. Can we at least agree on that much?

[Drunken Irishman]

38. Trump is nothing.

That's where you're getting confused. Trump is neither a hawk or a dove. He's about his own image. There's a reason he buddies up with dictators, because he likes the image they represent. With that also comes the want for war. But that want doesn't make him a hawk or more hawkish, or as hawkish, as Cheney or Wolfowitz or whatever, because their want for war is built out of an ideology. There is no ideology there with Trump. It's just about the facade. Trump looks at a war time president as tough - someone who is history making. He may look at himself as Patton. It's all about him.

Trump's whole idea of the presidency is a Hollywood-idealistic version where he's Thomas Whitmore boldly stating, as he leads his people into battle, that, "today is our Independence Day!" or James Marshall, who, after terrorists take over Air Force One, declares, "Get off my plane..."

Those are bad-ass, tough guy presidents. Trump doesn't want to be a peacenik like Jimmy Carter. He wants to be a macho president. Someone like FDR or even Ronald Reagan. Presidents the history books remember for their standing tall in defiance of world conflict.

For Trump, the best way to get that is through war. He is itching at war more than any president in recent history - including even Bush, believe it or not. He just hasn't been given the opportunity. But that's not to say it won't present itself in four more years if he wins.

And that's what makes him way more dangerous than Bush ever was. Because it's about vanity. There is zero rationalizing with his vanity.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. W seriously sucked, but in a relatively conventional way.

I always thought he was mostly just a feckless doofus who was in way over his head - he never should have had a position of more responsibility than the night manager of a 7-11. He was Michael Scott of "The Office," and in most situations the willing tool of smarter and more evil people, like Dick Cheney. W is at his core an entitled frat boy with daddy issues who was a weak and incompetent president, but I don't believe he is actually evil. I do believe Trump is truly evil all the way to the bone.

[Javaman]

13. Same coin different side

george w. Moron* got us here with the patriot act two wars of pleasure, black sites and torture. And both heavily played the god savior card.

Bothe are equal amounts of bullshit and evil. I will never ever cut moron* an inch of slack. The orange asshole has killed how many Americans via his lack of ack at last count? 136,000

And george w moron* had almost 5k US service men and women killed in Iraq but est. number of Iraq people well over 100k on the low end and as high as a million in others.

So you tell me who’s worse? They are bothe pieces of shit

[Kid Berwyn]

31. We'll always have Barr.

Dastard has worked miracles for Capitalism’s Invisible Army cough Swiss banks and Wall Street since Poppy Bush and Ed Meese were stacking Courts for Reagan.

[jacksonian]

14. And a bonus question - is tRump the absolute worst American of all time?

There's been some nasty people in our history but really, I can't think of anyone who even comes close.

[Awsi Dooger]

18. Absolutely the worst American of all time

I've made that point on one particular football forum for 3 years, to inflame the crowd there, that Trump will go down in history as not only the worst president but worst American.

He traded in intriguing businessman for exponentially higher profile but historical mockery as worst/worst

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

15. I think he now seems like a slightly less foul turd. In comparison to the

projectile diarrhea we have now.

[lame54]

16. What's Katrina?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. Hurricane Katrina, which W treated like Trump is treating COVID-19.

[Buckeyeblue]

29. Yes. W was equally as incompetent with both Katrina and Iraq...

Had Covid-19 come along under Trump, he would have done poorly.

[In It to Win It]

22. I would pay actual money to have Dubya as POTUS right now

I'm not kidding.

[tinrobot]

23. It's like comparing second degree burns to third degree burns.

Neither is good, but one is definitely worse.

[katmondoo]

24. I protested G.W. Bush for 8 years and got the same response from the Busher's as the Trumpers today.

The Trumper's destroyed signs praised Bush for killing the Iraqi people even the killing of babies and small children. Same rhetoric as the Trump lovers and same nasty gestures. Even so I will admit Trump is far worse. Bush lied about the WMD's but Trump lies about everything.

[no_hypocrisy]

25. I'm giving Shrub the First Runner-Up crown.

[Wounded Bear]

26. "Better than Trump" is a pretty fucking low bar...

[UTUSN]

28. "I don't respond to the intemperate." - Excellent!

Here's mine:

I don't side with fanatics, purists, zealots, inquisitors, and nannies - (Michael) MOORE, or here on DU.

[Bettie]

32. W was still a terrible president

but he can act like a human being, clearly he has emotions and can show empathy.

Trump is an inhuman monster incapable of any real emotion.

That's the primary difference.

[roamer65]

34. Bu$h was awful, but Dump has rescued him from being the worst.

That’s our sad state of affairs now.

[MrScorpio]

36. Shrubya wins out because he could at least behave like a human fucking being from time to time

For the most part, he was an adult.

Trump, on the other hand, is an over-grown toddler in a human suit who always has to engage in a ridiculous clown show no matter what he does or says.

He's literally the most dysfunctional creature alive.

[Kaleva]

39. given a choice, I dare say most of us would prefer Bush in the WH to Trump.

Unlike Bush, Trump will never be friends with the Obama and Clintons.

[jcgoldie]

40. Been saying this for 3 years...

I never would have thought anyone could have made W look competent and smart... of course he wasnt either but relatively speaking to Trump he was at least a human being.. 😒

[Silent3]

41. I was shocked when I saw some video of Dubya giving a speech from a few years back...

...and suddenly (only by virtue of the low, low standards created by having to deal with Trump for years now) he sounded more intelligent and rational than I'd remembered.