Prioritized, Specified List of Your Bush Complaints.

That's a nice list you've compiled, Sofia. I voted for the first one. Bush is feeble-minded and he believes God talks to him and directs his decision-making accordingly.

I'd rather have Amy directing Jimmy than God directing GW.

Lol. Where to begin.

I live in Austin, Tx... When GW was elected, I wasn't thrilled, but I kept telling my hippie friends to give him a chance. Man, I hate that they were right.

1. He's run our economy into the ground.

2. Bush lies/evades the truth on a variety of subjects.

3. His administration did not adequately plan the occupation of Iraq.

4. Bush made us more vulnerable by failing to concentrate on Al Quaeda until the job was done. Now they are strong as ever.

5. He runs his country according to strange religious beliefs.

Good things he's done? Hmm.

1. He was an appropriately strong leader after 9/11. Misguided? I think so, but either way, he certainly didn't act weakly.

I'm sure I can think of more later.

Cycloptichorn

Hard poll to answer.

I voted for "he neglegted proper planning in Iraq's reestructuring", but I believe answers 2 to 7 are deeply intertwined.

Reason for my answer: I may disagree with his manicheistic view of the world and his authoritarian temptations, but I think it is disastrous to have such an ambitious plan and not getting enough into "details" that are at the foundation of the plan itself.

I really take umbrage when a national figure is guided by his church, rather than the Constitution, in matters that impact on the country.

I said other and the biggest disappointment I have from Bush is his giving the left so much to talk about. I wish his administration would be more honest and forthcoming with ALL the information at once instead of having stuff leak out.

I agree with McGentrix; Bush should be more honest and forthcoming.

It does give the impression that there are many more hidden agendas than might be suspected. When will politicians learn that with today's instant media through the Internet and 24 hr. cable networks that trying to hide something is very near impossible, especially when all the leads are then followed up by some of the most stringent investigative reporters we've ever had on this planet.

First and foremost, he embarks on quixotic crusades involving our soldiers and our money, like Iraq, without regard for facts or consequenses.
2nd, he is anti every important social program.
3rd, he and his cronies tell any lies of expediency, all to the profit of themselves.
4th, he and his cronies conspired to steal the votes in Florida and may be in the process of repeating via the computerized voting machnes.
5th, he is dumb as a rock.

Many thanks to all participants for your time and consideration of the subject. It has helped cut through some bluster, and provide clearly defined opinions!

Hope they keep coming.

Sophia

I chose: none of the above--I'll write it in.

I'm very disappointed about not putting enough troops in after the war to hunt down and kill and or disarm every terrorist and pro-Saddam trouble maker.

Along the same lines I am totally disgusted that we didn't have enough troops to guard and destroy the thousands of tons of conventional weapons dumps and storage areas-----that to me is/was criminal and there is absolutely no excuse for it. Those same weapons are now killing our guys and helping prolong the war.

Way to focus the issue, Sophia.
I'll need to "write mine in":

1) More than ANYTHING that Bush has done, IMO the most upsetting thing about him is the way he handled the Taliban and Osama. He struck hard at first, then TOTALLY redirected his energy on Iraq, which posed absolutlely no "iminent threat" as he so constantly harped on.

What's the result? The Taliban was hurt, but the lack of focus on them has allowed them to regroup, gain more members, and OSAMA IS STILL ON THE LOOSE.

I watched the first tower go down on 9-11 (and felt the fall of the second from within the shelter of a nearby office building), and the whole time I was thinking "There is NO WAY the person responsible for this is going to get away with this". Turns out he did. And his organization is gathering strength once again. We had to focus 100% on that problem before we could move onto something else, and it didn't happen.

Its like smacking a daffodile. Yeah, you do damage, but then the seeds get scattered into the wind and go all over the place. (bad analogy? Oh well, its the best I can do at 2:50am).

I can't even talk about this anymore. Everytime I think of this, I become infuriated. We didn't stop Osama. We just delayed his next attack, and given people around the world more of a reason to harm us. God help us all.

I voted "came to office intent on invading Iraq", but its much bigger than that of course.

Here is a candidate who sold himself as something of a centrist, a "compassionate conservative", scraped in on the narrowest of victories, and somehow took that combination as a mandate to implement the most far-reaching and uncompromising agenda since Reagan.

The predetermination to "do Iraq" was part of that, but only as a part of a broader, highly ambitious but also highly ideologized foreign policy program, which denied the existence of greys and set America on a binary mission of the Good against the (Axis of) Evil. That was bound to backfire: too ambitious, too antagonistic, too blinded to how other peoples and countries see America and will take (and react to) such a mission.

A consequence of the ideologized intentions is an inability to anticipate on unexpected results and reactions and an unwillingness to acknowledge faults or accept criticisms, whether by one's own dissident advisers or civil servants or by outside observers (a determination to smear anyone who would dare to blow the whistle, in fact). It resulted in both domestic and foreign political strategies (towards Congress, towards allies, let alone towards actual outsiders) that relied on strongarming and demonisation of those who refused to be strongarmed. It resulted in the most closed-shell administration in recent history: hardly any press conferences, tightly orchestrated, rare Q and A sessions and interviews, positive enmity to critical media, refusal to provide anything like full and transparent disclosure when something goes wrong.

I like the Bush admin best when it is pragmatical and unencumbered by traditional prejudice, like when it experiments with immigration policies. I've been exasperated at times by the pragmatism of the Clinton, Blair, Kok (in Holland) governments - nothing wrong with actually daring to act on your beliefs - but without the ability to recognize one's mistakes, welcome outside input and quickly adapt and correct when necessary, ideology becomes dangerous. Besides, I do believe that in a democracy, the government needs to represent its people to a credible degree, and that a government that came in on an actual minority of the popular vote thus has a responsibility to reach out to the center and beyond, rather than antagonize it.

"His AA stance?"

What does that mean?

His Alcoholics Anonymous stance? Well, I can't imagine the country being in worse shape with a drunk George W. Bush at the helm. In fact, I think we'd all be better off if GWB would fall off the wagon and go on a truly heroic bender. We need fewer right-wing holy-roller teetotally uptight failed businessmen in charge and a lot more party animals -- like Pauly Shore or Alan Greenspan.

So, that's my vote.

so hard to chose.....

He is a practicing hypocrit. I guess that's one of the most vexing qualities about the man, in my opinion. Like nimh said above, he says one thing and does another. And to me, it seems that THAT IS his political strategy.

preemptive strike

I began to loose faith with the tariffs on Canadian timber, followed by protective tariffs on many steel imports. Protectionism isn't my idea of conservativism.

Iraq? I was up for it based in a belief in the various WMD combined with Saddam's prior willingness to use them, and invade foreign countries. I would expect a US president to have better information to work with than the average bookkeeper.

I consider him a total failure as a human being, and every other negative aspect of him flows from that.

I realize that sounds unspecific, but in reality it is quite specific and heartfelt by me.

I suppose the fact that he campaigned as a great uniter and then purosefully made no attempt to unite in his speech and actions unless trying to bend others to his will would be what I resent about him the most.

As a person I have no problem with Bush. I think he's probably a nice guy. Thing is, his politics are diametrically opposed to mine and I think he is one of the worst US presidents in history.

My qualms:

1) Cutting down on the government through deficit.

Without winning political battles to cut governmental spending Bush is going to win a big conservative war simply by deficit spending.

It's like intentionally going for broke to win an argument about how much we should spend.

This is what I think will be Bush's lasting legacy. I think he'll set up a pinch that coincides with the aging of the baby-boomers and the US will have to radically change our social programs under the gun.

2) He subcribes to a very militant ideology. The principles of the "New American Century" are some of what I consider the most misguided ideologies and his polices match them.

3) He practices protectionism for personal political reasons and then flip-flops on them.

The steel tariffs roger mentioned is a good example.

I strongly support free trade and am happy that in recent times US politicians from both parties have supported it.

Bush practiced protectionism and on stupid items (like steel). This is duplicitous. We preach free trade, we hammer it into nations who are seeking loans. And then we practice blatant protectionism because he wants to pander to a tight state.

4) He often acts in ways that contradict our core values.

Capitalism/free trade is something we positively preach. It's not just the way we do things but we demand that others do it that way as well (which I don't mind given that I think they should as well).

When preaching free-trade as a cure-all and as a pre-requisite for us allowing nations to get loans through the IMF we should not practice protectionism.

When touting democracy on a national scale (e.g. democracy for Arab states) we should not practice might-makes-right and ignore democraty on the tntra-national scale so blatantly.

5) Like many on the right Bush does not appear to wish to solidify international institutions. From the vantage point of history's greatest power it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that international institutions are unecessary or even obnoxious red tape, but they represent the evolution of society and our greatest hope for the future.

The UN has few fans in America, but I am one of them and I think furthering the evelution of global rule of law through such institutions would be the greatest thing America could do for their post-power legacy.

It's a damn shame that some are so shortsighted as to wish to undermine the institutions merely because we have the power now and don't need them now.

6) Social conservatism. I can respect fiscal conservatives and to a lesser degree militaristic conservatism. But social conservatism strikes me as social retardation and I have a qualm with it.

I don't think Bush is a racist, homophobic and prejudiced man. Frankly I think he has shown enough to say that he is not.

He does, however, support many of the politics of those individual and things like caring about whether gays marry is something I find a step backwards and his efforts to support these social conservative politics bother me.

The way he labels judges "activist judges" bothers me. His push for a ban on gay marriage is activism. Interpretation of the law is not. he's the one who wants to change the constitution for this social retardation and he's painting it as if it were rogue judges who are pulling the wool over our eyes.

I think he's a great guy, but on social issues I think he takes up the positions of some of our most socially retarded people.


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Some things I like:

1) Mid-east. While I disagree with many of his policies I like his interest in the mid-east.

2) Policy on Mexico. While he has yet to implement the policies I speak of I applaud his pre-9/11 policy on Mexico.