[DaveW]

I know Shrub was pretty bad, but this git really takes the cake!
He ticks all the boxes, corrupt, , pompous, vainglorious, twisted, perverted and deluded.
about the best that can be said is "his military was to wimpy to invade anyone else"

Anyone have a 1st world candidate they recon can top him?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/7873879/Berlusconi-comes-out-swinging-after-conviction

 

[Silver]

Bush by a mile, it's not even close. The only other guy even in the picture might be Blair.

 

[Westy]

But Berlusconi is just normal for Italian standards, I think you have to adjust for local standards when comparing worldwide.

 

[DaveW]

But Berlusconi is just normal for Italian standards, I think you have to adjust for local standards when comparing worldwide.

Which would make Shrub only a mild aberration from the American norm.

 

[Westy]

Which would make Shrub only a mild aberration from the American norm.

He really would have been a perfect vice president, which in reality, he pretty much was.

 

[Pesqueeb]

Which would make Shrub only a mild aberration from the American norm.

Ouch.......

 

[$tinkle]

hugo.

 

[rockofullr]

Which would make Shrub only a mild aberration from the American norm.

Ah yes. If only we could muster such renowned world leaders as the great and esteemed country of New Zealand.

 

[?????]

Bush by a mile, it's not even close. The only other guy even in the picture might be Blair.

I must've been too young to really know any better, but what was really so bad about Bush? Seemed that the country was doing really well under him. Honestly, I'm just curious. I didn't have much in terms of responsibilties when he was in office, but if I had a completely unbiased opinion, I would say that the economy and job oppotunities between 2000-2008 were much better than they are now. From the Spring of 2008-2009 the number of firms coming to our school internship fair dropped off by 50%.

Everyone says that he's an idiot though, so I'm a bit tempted to believe it.

 

[dante]

I must've been too young to really know any better, but what was really so bad about Bush? Seemed that the country was doing really well under him. Honestly, I'm just curious. I didn't have much in terms of responsibilties when he was in office, but if I had a completely unbiased opinion, I would say that the economy and job oppotunities between 2000-2008 were much better than they are now. From the Spring of 2008-2009 the number of firms coming to our school internship fair dropped off by 50%.

Everyone says that he's an idiot though, so I'm a bit tempted to believe it.

We exited the 1990s with a fiscal surplus and a "peace dividend" where the reduced amount of money that we spent on our military was in turn funneled back into the national economy and used to reduce our debt/deficit. Bush took that and utterly pissed it away on tax breaks (primarily for the rich, although the peons got a check for a couple hundred from "Bush and Congress" so that they thought that they got something out of the deal) and increased military spending. We went from spending $300b on our military in 2000 to $700b on it today, and that's *not* counting the trillions we spent on the Iraq war.

In 2001 in order to pass his first tax cut he had to declare it an "emergency" to get around the PAY-GO (pay as you go) law that Congress had put in place in the 1990s, where any new spending (or revenue reduction) had to be offset by cuts or revenue increases elsewhere. By 2003 Congress had just eliminated that rule altogether, so his '03 tax cuts (and '05 Medicare expansion) would be able to go through even though it added to the deficit.

Then there's the Iraq war itself, a massive near-decade long "excursion" by Bush to invade someone who wasn't at all involved in 9/11 that was utterly and completely fought off-balance-sheet because it would have required coming up with some way to pay for it. Even on Bush's last budget, 2008 (and his '09 recommendation), the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were still being paid for with "emergency" funding because otherwise it would have made the overall budget look worse. When considering the overall costs of the war (including veterans benefits, refitting the military, interest on the borrowed money, etc), the amount we spent on a war of choice was STAGGERING.

Combine that with the loss of liberties from the Patriot Act and his bullsh!t right-wing social policies and you have someone who was the worst president in my memory. For the economy between '01 and '09, most of that was fueled by the housing boom. Something like 5 TRILLION dollars was taking out of the housing market, money that was created out of thin air. Let's say your parents own their house outright, and bought it long enough ago that the price that they paid doesn't matter. I come along and say that I'd like to buy their house for $1 million, and to do so take out a million-dollar mortgage. Now your parents have $1m that they didn't have before, money created (literally) out of thin air. Or they take out a Home Equity loan for that same $1m, doesn't matter. Still, they now have $1m to spend on cars, boats, appliances, and so forth, fueling economic growth. The downside is that now I'm stuck (or they're stuck) paying $10k/month on that million dollar mortgage, which depresses my spending going forward into the future and lowers *future* growth.

And even after all of that money was dumped into the economy, Bush ended his two terms with a net job *loss*. It takes a fvckup of spectacular magnitude to accomplish that...

 

[Beef Supreme]

I must've been too young to really know any better, but what was really so bad about Bush? Seemed that the country was doing really well under him. Honestly, I'm just curious. I didn't have much in terms of responsibilties when he was in office, but if I had a completely unbiased opinion, I would say that the economy and job oppotunities between 2000-2008 were much better than they are now. From the Spring of 2008-2009 the number of firms coming to our school internship fair dropped off by 50%.

Everyone says that he's an idiot though, so I'm a bit tempted to believe it.

+ rep for the lulz

 

[Serial Midget]

I' sticking with Hitler and you can quote me on that. Oops, wrong century.

 

[$tinkle]

what was really so bad about Bush?

he believes in teh baby jesus

Everyone says that he's an idiot though, so I'm a bit tempted to believe it.

ibid

<lazy partisan bitching>

so it sounds like you have nothing but sharp words & condemnation for a president who is not a faithful steward of his office.

tell me more about the debt/deficit, gitmo, unemployment rate, fuel prices, gov't regulation, illegal immigrant deportation numbers, the unprecedented growth of public assistance applicants (hint: "work requirements"), patriot act legislation & wiretaps, student loan crisis, etc., as addressed by BHO.

IOW, if bush was so horrible, an intellectually honest view would also see obama as giving him a run for his rmoney


seriously, look more closely at hugo. pure bastard.

 

[dante]

he believes in teh baby jesus
ibid
so it sounds like you have nothing but sharp words & condemnation for a president who is not a faithful steward of his office.

tell me more about the debt/deficit, gitmo, unemployment rate, fuel prices, gov't regulation, illegal immigrant deportation numbers, the unprecedented growth of public assistance applicants (hint: "work requirements"), patriot act legislation & wiretaps, student loan crisis, etc., as addressed by BHO.

IOW, if bush was so horrible, an intellectually honest view would also see obama as giving him a run for his rmoney


seriously, look more closely at hugo. pure bastard.

Lol, "work requirements"? You claim that I have a litany of lazy partisan bitching and then bring up the right-wing talking point that's been thoroughly debunked?

In July, the Obama administration offered states the opportunity to receive a waiver from the 1996 law&#8217;s work participation requirements under the condition that more recipients find jobs. If not, they said, the waivers will be denied or rescinded.

Let's see, for the rest of your talking points:

Debt/deficit - Obama subscribes to the Keynesian economic theory of running a deficit during a recession to provide economic stimulus (same as Bush). The question isn't what the deficit is during a recession, but whether there's any backbone to reduce government spending after it's over... And considering that any modern economist is warning about the "fiscal cliff", ie lower the deficit through tax hikes and military spending decreases, I'd say that Obama might be on to something here?

Gitmo - Blocked by Republicans

Fuel prices, unemployment rate, student loan crisis - I'll let Fox News explain about gas prices, and you can extrapolate for the rest:

etc.

But at the end of the day Bush was handed a (mostly) balanced budget, zero wars, and a damn fine economy from the 1990s. He left us with losing 800,000 jobs per month his last month in office, a $1.5T deficit, 2 wars and so on. It's a case of starting out with everything running pretty well and utterly ran it into the ground. Even if Obama was just treading water he'd be light-years ahead of Bush...

 

[johnbryanpeters]

...seriously, look more closely at hugo. pure bastard.

Dunno what to think of Hugo Chávez. He's brutal but he's telling the bankers to **** off, which I think would be overall a Good Thing, albeit with a lot of attendant painful readjustment. Greece ought to be doing it, Spain ought to be doing it. We caused so much disruption and engendered so much torture and murder in the southern cone when we messed around there in the sixties and onward that it's hard to make current judgments.

 

[$tinkle]

obama = ineffective b/c of republicans

got it.

 

[dante]

obama = ineffective b/c of republicans

got it.

I know, it's shocking to find out that Obama's not the omnipotent messiah that the right continually makes him out to be!

The right wing complaining that Obama didn't get certain things accomplished (after specifically blocking those things) is like an arsonist complaining that the fire dept didn't get to his house fast enough after he set it on fire...

 

[Pesqueeb]

telling the bankers to **** off, which I think would be overall a Good Thing, albeit with a lot of attendant painful readjustment. Greece ought to be doing it, Spain ought to be doing it.

Iceland did too, and they are recovering quite well.

 

[$tinkle]

The right wing complaining that Obama didn't get certain things accomplished (after specifically blocking those things) is like an arsonist complaining that the fire dept didn't get to his house fast enough after he set it on fire...

so who're the good guys here? the union-run fire dept?

pish-posh

 

[JohnE]

Shrub. Hands down.