Attitudes Towards Bush

[Epee_Pox]

On average (not issue-specific), what has your general attitude towards Bush been since he was sworn in 6 years ago?

I'm interested not only in what you feel, but what has caused you to feel that way.

Again, this is just your overall general attitude. (If you like him with respect to A B & C, but dislike him with respect to X Y & Z, figure out what feeling best sums up the whole.)

[JackOfHearts]

I voted other. I harbor no ill feelings toward the president, but perhaps some pity. I seriously believe he has no idea what the hell he's doing, so he's falling back on what his "friends" interests are. No weapons of mass destruction? Oh, and I see your cities and villages are in disrepair, but no worries! Uncle sam will fix it right away with an exclusive multi-billion dollar contract to Mr. Cheney's former company. The indifferent american citizens out there will gladly foot the bill for that, and higher gas prices, as will the christian zealots who voted for him, all in the name of god! More money for security measures that make it easier for the government to spy on YOU, all the while highschool drop out rates steadily increase. But that's alright, we're going to need someone to pick the fruit, mow the lawn, scrub the toilets, and sew trendy clothing in sweatshop like conditions for less then minimum wage in dilapidated buildings located in downtown Los Angeles once we kick out all the illegal immigrants.

[Feltan]

I like Bush. I don't love him and don't think his every decision is great....nope, he has made more than his share of mistakes. His current polling numbers show that even people that voted for him previously are not pleased with some of his current policies/actions.

However, the man got dealt a crappy hand of cards stepping into his job -- and most of his faults started with an external genesis. On the up side I think he is an honest hard working and pricipled guy; on the down side the man has no charisma -- things that would bounce off other Presidents stick to him like glue, and he will never be a great leader because of it. Clinton and Reagan (both highly charismatic leaders) could have a cartload of dung dumped on them, and come out of it smiling and not worse for the wear.

I also think he gets bad press. Take the economy for instance. If the press was a tacit supporter of him, the good news would be wall-to-wall coverage -- you probably would be challenged to find a negative story. But, since so many are predisposed against him, you are challenged to find a good story despite relatively wonderful economic news.

He is never going to get a fair shake from the media. This drives down his poll numbers, and accentuates the problems he faces. He is portrayed far in a far worse light that is warranted.

My guess is that 20 years from now, he will be viewed as an average or slightly above average President.

Regards,
Feltan

[Peach]

I have not been able to take the man seriously, ever, and I was astonished the first time he was elected and even more so the second time. This merely shows my essential innocence and the fact that I don't understand the realities of politics sufficiently.

[epeeisky]

Well the recent reasons I don't like him are for his immigration "reform" and his response to hurricane katrina. My grandparents had to fight to get into this country and had to learn English before they came to the states. People should not be rewarded for doing something illegal.

Katrina brouht up alot of problems within the nation and within the adminstration. Cronism(sp?) was brought to light with that whole Brownie thing. Everytime Bush came to the region he caused more problems than he solved. When airforce one came to LA sirtrafic had to be shut down, including the rescue helicopters and the medical lifeflight helicopters. This was one case when staying at Texas would have been better. HE was slow to react and still does not want to fufil his promises he made in speech in Jackson square.

[D.O.A.R.]

A more accurate choice for me would have been "pre-911, neutral (although grateful he is not Gore), then post 9-11, became a GW fan (and extremely grateful he is not Gore, or that french guy).
Feltan, I agree with most of what you have said, although I disagree with your view about his charisma (especially with our troops). I like how he always seems to have a smirk on (especially when addressing those who don't like him), and how he doesn't mind making fun of himself. In one of his speeches, he mentioned something about how people think he carries himself with a certain arrogance, that in Texas they call "walking". How can you not appreciate that sort of humor?
I agree with much of his ideas, and the principals he stands for. That he is not the most gifted speaker doesn't bother me that much. JOH, I think the president would be highly amused that you pity him. I can picture the smirk.

[Slim]

I liked the guy from the start, primarily since he wasnt Gore. And I agree that he was dealt a crappy hand, and has done a pretty good job playing it out. I also think he knows how to put together a good team (Cheney, Rumsfield and Rice). Liked him much more post-911, even more after defeating the war hero, but there have been a few things making me think his time is up:

1) Harriet Miers (WTF? )
2) UAE port deal (yes, I know. But it looked really, really bad)
3) Illegals + dealings with Fox

The NSA surveillance program earned him some points in my book. At this point I'm somewhat neutral on the man, but overall, thumbs up from me.

[fencerbill]

Before he was elected I thought he was as dumb as a box of rocks and continually since then my opinion of him has gone down.

I think he was the figurehead choice of arch conservatives and Christian zealots who wanted someone in office who would do whatever they told him to do, take his daily naps, reduce taxes for his rich political contributors, and steer bloated contracts to his cronies.

He was a draft dodger who let his cronies do a character assassination of a Viet Nam combat veteran, a figurehead baseball owner, a figurehead governor and now he is a figurehead president. He is the worst president in at least the last 70 years and our children and grandchildren will be paying off his deficit.

[yeoldearmourer]

I like Bush at first but the way he is treating Vets is beyond believe we put on lives on the line for this country and afterwards we can't get the medical treatment needed for problems most people dont understand. My family as fought in every war this country as been in since the founded of this country.I would like to see the Depart of Education budget cut to funded VA heatlh care myself.

[D.O.A.R.]

I think he was the figurehead choice of arch conservatives and Christian zealots who wanted someone in office who would do whatever they told him to do, take his daily naps, reduce taxes for his rich political contributors, and steer bloated contracts to his cronies.

Well, he hasn't closed the borders, granted us vouchers for private schools, reformed social security, or make the tax cuts permanent. And what about banning abortion, gay marriage, and teaching creationism?

He was a draft dodger who let his cronies do a character assassination of a Viet Nam combat veteran, a figurehead baseball owner, a figurehead governor and now he is a figurehead president. He is the worst president in at least the last 70 years and our children and grandchildren will be paying off his deficit.

Ugh! He wasn't a draft dodger, he volunteered for the Air National Guard and flew fighter jets when he wasn't AWOL. Didn't you read the forged CBS memo?

[fencerbill]

Ugh! He wasn't a draft dodger, he volunteered for the Air National Guard and flew fighter jets when he wasn't AWOL. Didn't you read the forged CBS memo?

I respect and admire him for successfully qualifying to fly fighter jets. But that's about all.

I have enormous respect for Bush Senior.

As far as I know:

Flew one of the most dangerous types of warplanes (not that any of them weren't dangerous) in combat and pressed home the attack.

Successfully administered a National Agency.

A successful diplomat.

Not only didn't drag us into war, he defended an ally and was smart enough to get us out and avoid a quagmire like we are in now. He accomplished the military mission with minimum loss of US troops and, probably, minimum loss of Iraqui military and civilians.

But, flying jets is all I admire 43 for.

[BrianH]

I think Bush jr. is doing a heckuva job, just like Brownie.

He has always seemed to me like a nice enough guy, but a blank slate, allowing us all to pencil in our own ratings of his intelligence, honesty, compassion and competence. I don't think any of us really knows him at all.

I'm not sure how history will rate him; I'm not a good judge of that. I mean, I was an adult when Nixon was prez, and I've recently surprised myself by coming to see him as a decent president rather than the jerk he seemed to be in the 1970s.

I believe with all my heart that Bush has made some tremendous mistakes, but they were not his ideas or his implementation; Cheney and Rummy had much to do with it.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


It has frequently been said that Bush jr. is not that smart. I have not seen any vehement denial by himself on that score. From this I deduce two possibilities:

1. He is not very smart.
2. He is smart, but chooses to mask the fact.

Both possibilities are big negatives with me.

With "smart" I here mean ability and inclination to perform analytical/logical thinking. The kind of thinking that makes one good at chess (or fencing!), mathematics, natural sciences, etc. It also shows up as high IQ test scores. Bush jr. does not appear to be PhD. material, something that I find a huge plus when deciding whom I will vote for. If I conclude that one viable candidate is PhD. material, while the other viable is not, it takes a tremendous amount of other stuff to tip the scales against the smart guy. (When both - or neither - candidate are smart, then I have to grade by other criteria)

USA has some 200 million inhabitants (my guesstimate) which are old enough to be elected President. If I set a minimum intelligence level at the top 2%, that still leaves 4 million people who are up to the job, from that respect. Surely, there must be among those 4 million people who fulfill all other reasonable criteria, for all parties? Top 2% is actually not all that much. It is comparable to choosing the smartest kid among two school classes of 25 students each.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

BTW: I remember seeing a poll here on f.net where 70%+ were rooting for Kerry in the 2004 election. Furthermore, I once counted USFA members according to the data in the USFA membership sheet reported on webpage. About 68% of USFA members lived in blue states. With those stats, the poll results here will be a bit skewed.

[Epee_Pox]

I was no fan of his when he ran the first time, and voted for Gore. I felt that he was not well-informed enough to effectively make hard decisions, and that he lacked firm and reasoned principles that would guide those hard calls. I considered his past performance to be a good indicator of future fecklessness.

Since then, however, he has mostly erased those concerns for me. The man is not brilliant, and he has chosen not to confront his own party to keep it in line, and he has made some boneheaded decisions. However, I am now convinced that he does have firm principles guiding his actions, has surrounded himself with smart people to help him make the tough decisions, and has been mostly predictable and a man of his word.

He does make dumb decisions, and takes too long to fix errors (as with the Miers fiasco). He also has made critical errors of judgment in electing not to go before the American people early and often to justify his policy decisions and to go to bat for those carrying out those decisions, particulary with respect to the Iraq war. He continues to make the critical error of not confronting his own party, not vetoing a single thing, in the hope to avoid conflict over his policy decisions, with the effect that his party has been weakened perhaps fatally by its own excesses while at the same time he has lost any credibility he might have had to threaten a veto or other discipline.

But that said, he is a man who increasingly is becoming the lone voice in the wilderness crying freedom. He sincerely believes in liberty and freedom for all, and is willing to sacrifice his reputation to do what he firmly believes is right. He firmly rejects the expedient foreign policy of his predecessors, who tolerated the "friendly" dictatorships that fomented the nasty situation he now must deal with. It would be the easier, more popular approach, but he would rather be right than popular. I admire this. He is not what Churchill would have called a fanatic, one who cannot change their mind and will not change the subject. But he is principled, acts predictably on those principles, and his principles are, I think, shared by most Americans.

I do think he makes stupid calls. But so would any president.

What is important is to have a purpose, an underlying principled basis for his actions. The actions themselves can adapt or change, but the policy driving them should not. That's Bush. Contrast this with Clinton and Bush Sr., who fecklessly ignored principles for the expediency of the polls (Clinton) and short-term stability (Bush Sr.). In so doing, they sent the message that the USA would not finish the job, would not use the saber that was rattled, would turn a blind eye to expedient injustice, and would not punish those who harmed us. This message essentially told the terrorists: we're going to support the regimes that make you miserable, and you can feel free to attack us. Even with all his faults, Bush doesn't make those kinds of mistakes.

So that's a long way of saying he can have done much, much better, but all things considered I do now like him.

[bezoar]

I used to love him. I still like him, but must say I have been disappointed. I think he has done a particularly poor job in choosing his inner circle. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz remain, while Colin Powell is out. I agree with his Supreme Court choices, but dislike how the RNC (and for that matter the DNC) try to micromanage the choice of candidates for local and statewide posts.

[mrbiggs]

I used to dislike him because I thought he was stupid.

Being older, I realize that he's not stupid, and far from it. I'm not sure if he's trying to look stupid, but he definately is trying to be down to earth, and I don't think he's a very good speaker, which probably combine to give the stupid impression. He didn't do all that well at Yale, but he did do OK, and stupid people couldn't do that.

Now I hate him, or more precisely, the way his administration is being run. I don't like what his administration is doing. First, I'm a liberal so I don't like their policies. Secondly, I don't like the way they use the threat of terror to justify actions that some would view unconstitutional. (Which is a thread in itself. But I do view them that way.) Third, I don't like the way they're always covering something up. It's not like any party is particularly honest, but that doesn't excuse dishonesty, in my opinion. Even Clinton came clean eventually.

[jeff]

I don't hate him. "Despise" is a better word. Even before his first election, I thought of him as a spoiled rich fratboy who got everything in life handed to him on a silver platter. I never thought he was a moron, just somebody of average intelligence (which aint much), weak work habits, a lack of knowledge or curiosity, and a smug assurance that he was right in everything and that all that mattered was that he get his way. A fatal combination, or so
it has been to many of our servicemen. With a few honorable objections, I think he's gotten a free pass from a cowed and cowardly media, which has been afraid to point out the obvious mendacity he has shown time and again.

I just read a comment from an ex-CIA officer that 3 months before the Iraq invasion he didn't know there was such a thing as a Sunni or Shiite. Why bother knowing what you're doing when you've already made your mind up. That applies everywhere from Iraq to stem cells to tax policy.

[Orla]

hate is a strong word, but the way the guy strong arms america is practicasly setting us up for failure. this a a guy who his own party wants to disown him. not to mention the infighting amongst his party. Personaly the only way i see that republicans can even win is by hoping people are lazy, and with less that half of this contry voting, i dont see them taking that bet off any time soon.

If this contry had more people voting, they would quickly change thier tune for everything to be a corperation, and outsourcing jobs everywhere, not to mention the national debt, which i might add took us 200+ years to accumulate 4.5 trillion in debt, Bush did that much in 6 years

[bmcfencer]

I think he is a robot remote controlled by a malnurished sheep continually poked with a safety pin by a large angry marsupial.

Not really, obviously.

I don't hate anyone, but I find it very painful to listen to Bush speak.

[gojujay]

I'm kinda' neutral about him. I don't consider him the source of all evil as some seem to, attributing selfish, foul motives to his every action. But I don't think he is the best man for the job either. He's better than anything the Dems have managed to put up, but that ain't saying much. Didn't vote for him either time, I voted my party line.