Just interested: what was the general view of Bush Snr as President?

[Jackeens]

Does his little boy make him seem like Mahatma Gandhi in hindsight, or is down there with the most loathed of presidents? Curious.

[Captain Hilts]

1. GHWB actually wasn't a bad prez. His people actually believed in government...

and they actually reversed some of RR's most mean policies - such as funding for public housing, summer jobs programs, and getting the deficit down.

They understood the nuances of policy - that's why they got the whole damned planet to participate in Gulf War I. Brazil and the Argies were there for Dog's sake! They knew when to use force, when to use money and when to blackmail other leaders. It was brilliant.

But GHWB was an out of touch elitist who brought us Clarence Thomas. Ugh!

[PresidentObama]

2. Actually wasn't a bad President? Pass the ibuprofen.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Compared to RR and GWB, he wasn't. It's all relative. And he knew not to invade Iraq.nt

[M155Y_A1CH]

19. GHWB quote

During a speech given on September 11, 1990, U.S. President George H.W. Bush summed up the reasons with the following remarks: "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression." The Pentagon claimed that satellite photos showing a buildup of Iraqi forces along the border were the source of this information, but this was later shown to be false when a reporter for the Saint Petersburg Times acquired commercial satellite images made at the time in question, which showed nothing but empty desert. Polls showed that upwards of 80% of the American public supported the troop deployment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Desert_Storm



He didn't have to go into Iraq for that date to live in infamy.

[blm]

24. GHWBush put US at the lead of New World Order for the global fascist agenda.

Bush2 just made it more aggressive and obvious.

[PresidentObama]

40. Oh great, you're one of those New World Order people?

[blm]

41. GHWBush used the words New World Order at least 45 times as president and Kissinger used it recently

on CNBC. http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Henry_Kissinger_Obama_should_act_to_0106.html

What makes you believe otherwise? Do you truly believe there is no such thing as global fascism?

[PresidentObama]

42. So did Clinton. I always knew you were nuts.

But this just confirms it.

[blm]

43. So your point is that NWO is a harmless policy goal and those who see it as global fascism

are 'nuts'.......OK, you're welcome to your beliefs, but, I'll side with Naomi Klein on this one.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. He sucked ass just slightly less than Jr. Criminality certainly runs in the family. nt

[yardwork]

5. I think he's probably the source of most of the bad things that have happened in the past 50 years.

Spawning the evil chimp is only one.

[blm]

45. I agree. Bush2 is only acting out Bush1's fascist agenda more aggressively and more publicly

than Bush1 did. Those here who are downplaying Bush1's role in what has been going on are seriously underinformed about the last 5 decades.

[wndycty]

6. Better than his son, but he only served for one term. . .

. . .and he is a Republican so that about tells you all you need to know.

[Occam Bandage]

7. I think he was an ineffectual President with no real vision to speak of, but who instead

just stayed the Reagan course (and all that entailed at home and abroad) for four years. His willingness to occasionally compromise with Democrats and his brief moment of sanity in deciding not to invade and occupy Iraq now seem like particularly positive traits in comparison to his son, but that's a bit like saying that Dubya's reluctance to actually murder his political opposition seems like a positive trait compared to Stalin.

I don't particularly loathe GHWB in the same way I loathe Reagan and GWB, but I don't think in a hundred years he'll be any more remembered than Coolidge was.

[On the Road]

8. He Was Better Than GWB

For one thing, he was so concerned about the deficit that he sacrificed his political reputation in order to raise taxes and balance the budget. That was the beginning of the process that led to the Clinton surpluses. I have always appreciated that.

He was involved in early efforts to cut nuclear arms and get Soviet weaponry out of the hands of the breakaway countries (who in many cases didn't want it).

He takes credit (as far as I know justifiably) for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

He was involved in Iran-Contra, covered up the extent of his involvement, and pardoned the main players, but ultimately that was Reagan's scandal.

On other issues, he took the Republican line, but in a less divisive way than his son.

Someone will probably remind us of particularly unpleasant aspects of his presidency. Maybe it's just a relative thing.

On Edit:

Of course, the first Gulf War was a huge part of his presidency. He avoided the mistake of invading and occupying Iraq itself. But I have always thought that he could have avoided and all-out war and negotiated a Iraqi withdrawal, saving hundreds of thousands of lives. That's a big one. He also started the post-war economic blockade that led to great suffering in Iraq. Also encouraged a post-war revolt by the southern Shias and watched as Saddam butchered them. So while the war had bipartisan support and was typical of 20th century US diplomacy, it still doesn't speak well for him.

[Captain Hilts]

9. He and GWB are NOT close and GWB had a lot of folks around him that GHWB loathes...

Becoming prez was kind of a competitive, get even kind of thing between them.

They have little in common. Remember, GHWB fired Rove for being a creep and would have nothing to do with Rumsfeld.

[galaxy21]

22. I've heard they don't talk anymore

I think it's pretty telling that poppy seems to get along better with Bill Clinton than he does with his own son.

[blm]

10. Read the BCCI report - Bush2, 9-11, Iraq war, and global economic crisis should NEVER have happened

and it was GHWBush and his powerful cronies who constructed the entire criminal operation that's been propelling the global fascist agenda this nation has been leading in so many ways over the last 5 decades.

Reagan became a useful tool to hide behind....but, it was definitely GHWBush who was in charge of all the oil regions and China.

[nebenaube]

11. My friends and I called him King George as well.... n/t

[phleshdef]

12. For a Republican he wasn't the most terrible ever. Then again, he was/is a Republican.

[Maru Kitteh]

13. Wimp.

Deserved or not, I remember he was generally viewed as a weak man of limited substance and Dan Quayle was an outright laughing stock.

[jaksavage]

14. George Herbert Walker Bush

Listed in a note from JE Hoover as ' a cia opperative"

Around this time he ran for office. The first time on the Eugenics ticket.
why would a cia op run for congress is that legal?

GHWB was in dallas when JFK was executed. He was never called to testify.

When reagan was getting fuzzy Bush and sec state were in charge.
Bush was at the top of Iran contra. W casey died the day before he was to appear to answer the question, "Who told you to deal with the Iranians?

Bush was in contact with Saddam and chose not to stand in his way. Kuwait got sacked, we irradicated a large number of retreating forces. US companies got huge contracts to rebuild.

He is like your grandfather, except he plays our world like a chess game.

His father,poppy bush, of course, did the same things.

If you look at his great grandfather, you find a large fortune in shipping to and from China. A trade that included opium, quite legal then.

No good Bushs

[DevonRex]

15. At least he knew better than to overthrow Saddam at the time and

occupy Iraq. I think he did believe that government should work well. But I didn't agree with his policies. I don't believe he would have handled situations like Katrina like GWB did.

I also think he was a spook of the spookiest order, who can't be trusted. His role in Iran/Contra was indefensible. And that's just the thing we know about. I tend to be a little more tinfoil hatty about GHWB than most people, but not nearly as much as a guy I know that I used to think was batshit crazy. Funny thing, though, he appears to have been right about several things regarding GHWB. Just because he's crazy doesn't mean he's wrong all the time.

[rurallib]

16. Like comparing one toilet to the city's sewage plant

They both stunk. One was just the biggest, most awful stink imaginable. The other sort of like being trapped in the port-a-potty.

[TheKentuckian]

17. Sane in Republican terms in general but is almost surely one of the most diabolical

bastards ever behind the scenes. GHW Bush is one of the true powerbrokers and is culpable for much of the ills in the world.

[WeDidIt]

18. One thing's for sure, he's got to love his son

Wihtout his son, he definitely would have been the worst president since Hoover.

[dbt]

20. Judy Tenuda captured the essence of Bush 41:

"He's not a president, he's a substitute teacher!"

[galaxy21]

21. For a republican, he wasn't bad

He handled the Gulf war well, and appointed Souter and Kennedy. Even though Kennedy is a mixed bag, he still deserves credit for appointing a moderate rather than a fundie.

I saw Oliver Stone's movie, and he comes off as quite sympathetic in it. In the movie he's a lot more intelligent and educated than his son, and was very competent. And I think the film was quite close to real life.I don't think its entirely fair to blame him for what his son did either. People aren't responsible for their kids do.


Not a great president by any means, but a competent one.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

23. Speaking from a foreign perspective

A lot of my friends here in Australia, including many on the left wing, actually liked him and regarded him as both a competent leader and a skilled foreign policy statesman. I tend to share those views.

In terms of foreign policy, I think President Bush Senior would probably rank (alongside Gerald Ford) as the best Republican President this century. As a former diplomat, he seemed to put his knowledge and expertise in this field to good use. He ended many of Reagan's excesses in Latin America and elsewhere, he rejuvenated the Middle East peace process (which had largely remained dormant under Reagan), he pursued a multilateral approach to the Persian Gulf War and he continued the process of seeking to end tensions with the Soviet Union. Additionally, unlike his son, he showed a tolerance and respect for governments of different political ideologies around the globe.

He had his flaws certainly. I suspect that he was naive at best in his dealings with the Saddam regime before the Persian Gulf War and he needn't have participated in fabricating the story about the babies being thrown out of incubators -there was a perfectly good case for going to war with Iraq in 1990 without the lies. And let's not even start talking about Clarence Thomas. But I think he for the most part a qualified leader and visionary statesman and his presidency marked a high point in US foreign policy that Clinton improved on and then * the Stupid ultimately destroyed. I would have taken two terms of him over one term of any of his children.

[leftynyc]

25. Clarence Thomas - nuff said (n/t)

[TeamJordan23]

26. He was at least intelligent. nm

[Sebastian Doyle]

27. I despise the Bush Crime Family in general

And while his daddy might have been an accessory in the biggest crime of the 20th century by funding and enabling Hitler, it's Poppy who has probably been involved in MORE crimes against the American people and the rest of the planet than anybody else. Including the Florida theft that put his idiot son in the White House.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

28. Speaking as somebody who really wansn't "politically aware"

pre-Clinton and relying on only some basic information about his presidency, he seemed like a halfway decent President (for a Repub anyway). Of course, I think that GWB has indelibly and, to some degree, favorably, colored my views of most contemporary Presidents (even Reagan) prior to GWB. If GHWB did nothing else right, he at least cared enough about working with other countries to assemble a GENUINE coalition to remove Saddam from Kuwait and, more importantly, he, Cheney, and Powell STUCK to the mission and refused pressure from the neocons to invade Iraq and remove Saddam after his military had been ejected from Kuwait.

[pipi_k]

32. Same here

Pre-Clinton I had lots of other stuff going on and I wasn't politically aware either. In fact, I was politically blind and uncaring, but that's another story.

In any case, he seems in retrospect to be way more sane than his stupid son. GHWB and Babs sure did dredge the bottom of the gene pool when they created Georgie...

[ClassWarrior]

29. I think he was a lot less popular -- and a lot more toxic -- than most realize.

Progressives didn't have the media megaphone we have today. It was Corporate Media shilling 24/7 back in those days.

NGU.

[peekaloo]

30. His mother was always tagging along, interrupting him and wiping

up his vomit at dinners.

fascist is as fascist does (New World Order).

[mrreowwr_kittty]

31. I recall that people liked him the whole time he was Prez.

But it was the economy, stupid, so that's what did him in in the end.

[Jennicut]

33. He was intelligent on foreign policy but dreadful on domestic issues

He had a tin ear on the problems of the recession in the early 90's. He knew enough not to try and take Saddam out because once you did, you would own it and would have to occupy it. He suffered from "I know I am right" disease but not the level of what his son has. I was a teenager when he was president so to me he seemed old and out of touch, that is what I remember the most. Clinton was younger and seemed to care about what happened to people, he "felt your pain" while Poppy Bush seemed cold and uncaring.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

34. That's why Dumbya adopted the cornpone schtick

People forgot what a patrician elitist his dad was and embraced the "guy you can have a beer with" persona of the son.

[Jennicut]

38. Well, the Bushes WERE from Connecticut, my home state, but refuse to admit it

All these years of all this fake Texas bullcrap made me crack up everything I heard it. The Bushes were from New England.

[blm]

44. 9-11 and this Iraq war are direct results of Poppy Bush's foreign policy agenda - the covert agenda

revealed in IranContra, BCCI and CIA drugunning operations he ran.

[WI_DEM]

35. A louse, A liar--but not quite as bad as W

[Yukari Yakumo]

36. I would class him as mediocre overall

But, as you said, Dimson makes him look FDR-like in comparison.

I think you can attribute this all to Babs. If you look at what she said in recent years, you can definitely tell where Chimpenfurher got his callous streak from.

[Sebastian Doyle]

52. Both Babs and Poppy came from evil bloodlines.

Poppy was the son of Nazi Prescott Bush. Babs was the daughter of Aleister Crowley.

Not that genetics excuse what Chimpy has done, but he certainly didn't start out on a good note.

[ddeclue]

37. Senior much better than Junior.

GHWB better than GWB or Reagan - better especially on international affairs.

GHWB had no clue on domestic policy or the economy however and not as good overall as Clinton.

[Hekate]

39. I thought he was a sanctimonious hypocrite, but that was just me. His son, though...

... is orders of magnitude worse.

Hekate

[Hieronymus]

46. Poppy was a lousy president.

[Jackeens]

47. So, everyone's agreed then?

:hide:

[blm]

49. If you want to know the real GHWBush read about his IranContra, BCCI and CIA drugrunning operations

that certainly led to 9-11, this Iraq war and even to the establishment of Walmart as the first major, PUBLIC ploy the fascists shoved down this country's throat.

Those separating Bush2's aggressive show of fascism from Bush1's preference for covert manipulations and downplaying his role in the last 5 decades are not exactly well-informed.

[BeyondGeography]

48. Out of touch on domestic issues

Which killed him when the economy went south. You couldn't touch him on foreign policy after he won the Gulf War, but the election was more than two years later and nobody cared anymore.

[blm]

51. Couldn't touch him on foreign policy? BCCI report was about to touch him REALLY HARD and he needed

to lose before it was released in Dec1992. Good thing for Poppy that his partner in some of BCCI's crimes Jackson Stephens had his boy in Arkansas ready to go.

[BeyondGeography]

55. Wrong

"It's the economy, stupid."

Duh.

[blm]

56. You think Bush1 ran the worst incumbent campaign ever accidently? The economy was in recovery by

the fall of that year. GHWBush EXPECTED impeachment after the BCCI report's release in Dec 1992.

BTW - you believe everything the way the media tells it? Economy was a factor but not THE factor.

You must also believe that Jackson Stephens backing of Clinton over his longtime friend GHWBush was altruism in its purest form.

I am actually surprised that you would claim that Bush1 couldn't be touched on foreign policy - sounds like corpmedia's attempts at revisionist history actually works, even on Democrats.

[BeyondGeography]

57. Perception always lags behind recovery

And the overriding perception/reality of the fall of 1992 was the country needed a new direction because it was in a deep economic hole. Why did Ross Perot win 18.9% of the popular vote? Was it because of BCCI? An inside baseball scandal if ever there was one, when it comes down to its real-world impact on the ground. Nobody went after Bush on foreign policy; there was no point to it, as the perception/reality was the world was a much safer place. We crushed Saddam and communism collpased. The End. And then Bush showed he didn't know what a scanner was and looked at his watch during a town hall debate. BCCI my ass.

Good that you stick to flamethrowing here. Your political instincts are horrendous.

[blm]

58. Bush NEEDED to lose or face hearings on BCCI report and certain impeachment

The Bush machine CAN run effective campaigns when they WANT to. There was plenty of dirt on Clinton that could have been used effectively, but you never saw it surface from or get used by the REAL players in Bush's machine.

You think Jackson Stephens's role in who succeeded GHWBush was just coincidence?

BTW, BeGeo, why the personal sneer?

[Rabrrrrrr]

50. Sr. was very much focused on himself first (like all the Bushes), but wasn't entirely so -

he might not have cared much for the poor, but he also didn't feel the need to piss and shit all over them like Reagan and Junior and most of the Republicans.

I think in his heart he really cared (and cares) about The United States in a genuine in legitimate way, in ways that Reagan and Junior never had/have; but like his brethren, Senior wanted to cut his piece of the pie, and then his friends' pieces of the pie, before anyone else in America got any.

And one thing I also like about Senior (which is still basically like saying that at least the trains ran on time under Mussolini) is that he didn't (and still doesn't) wave the Jesus Flag like Reagan, Junior, and so many other Republicans, and I don't think he was too concerned with how the Religious Right felt about stuff too much.

He was and still is an evil prick, but not a total one. Kind of like Nixon. Lots of bad shit, but managed to pull out some sunshine for the country once in a while, too.

Very unlike Reagan and Junior.

[Harry Monroe]

53. My view??

I despise the son of a bitch for siring Dubya!! The best part of Dubya ran down his daddy's leg.

[jumptheshadow]

54. More moderate than Jr., way out of touch with the middle class...

was a tad brighter than Jr., was considered weak by some of the macho types, was 100 percent better at building alliances than his son, won the Gulf War in a relatively short time, presided over the first Bush recession, had the same talent as his son for making pronouncements that came back to nip him in the hindquarters.