MetaFilter posts tagged with bush and president

Maher and Feather

Christ, what an asshole — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:57:43 -0800

Bill Maher's criticism of Obama? Be more like Bush. ...And just like Lindsey [Lohan], we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something. Follow up of his statements with Keith Olbermann. ...But where's the beef? And it's easy to make speeches; what's hard to do is stand up against corporations. Corporations and their incredible strength are what have ruined this country so far, and this president -- we thought -- might be the one to stand up to them. I'm losing hope. I still have audacity, but my hope is fading.

"The writer is the president of the United States."

JVA — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:45:46 -0800

In 2007, Dubya wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal. Obama has followed suit with an op-ed article in the Washington Post. Both sites mention that The writer "is the president of the United States." Have we entered a new era of the bully pulpit?

Who said what now?

blue_beetle — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:08:12 -0800

Wired: Obama Sides With Bush in Spy Case. "The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants."

The Onion Vs. President Bush

Del Far — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:28:06 -0800

The whole eight years of Bush in Onion articles. (Via)

So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

RedEmma — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:26:26 -0800

Dear President Bush, Thanks for the memories. You will be missed. Thanks for making people care. And don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Wishing you all the best, A Citizen.

A Formal Debate About George W. Bush With Some Unusual Players

WCityMike — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:34:19 -0800

On December 4, 2008, at NYC's Symphony Space, NPR's Intelligence Squared program conducted an Oxford-style debate. As their future debate schedules in Australia, England, and America show, the propositions of such debates are routinely phrased strongly to provoke debate, and this was no exception. The motion that was put forward was: "Resolved, that Bush 43 is the worst President of the last 50 years." [mp3, 23 MB, 50 min.] What lifts this above the reams of media and multimedia already spent on this issue is that, moderated by ABC's John Donvan, this premise was debated — under formal debate guidelines — by Jacob Weisberg, Sir Simon Jenkins, Bill Kristol, and ... Karl Rove. The BBC airs "Intelligence Squared", in which Oxford-style debates are conducted. In Oxford-style debates, experts take opposing sides of a proposition. Each has an opening statement, which are followed by rebuttals, audience questions, and two-minute closing statements. (The show itself would be worthy of its own front-page post, given the caliber of intellectual discussions that take place.) The American version of the show is distributed by NPR, who makes a free podcast of it available (iTunes, RSS). Jacob Weisberg, Slate's editor-in-chief, argued for the premise, as did Sir Simon Jenkins, a Guardian columnist, formerly of the Sunday Times. Arguing against the premise was Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard's editor-in-chief and the chief of staff to former vice-president Dan Quayle (in 1990, his debate opponent had called him "Dan Quayle's brain"), and Karl Rove, who has advised Bush since his initial 1977 House run and served as his Deputy Chief of Staff (for West Wing fans, think Josh) from February 2005 to August 2007. The debate opened with opening argument from all four debaters.

Weisberg stated he was sympathetic to many of Bush's causes, which he felt were executed badly, and said that the invasion and occupation of Iraq were mismanaged, constitutional rights were trampled, goodwill was ruined, and the economy was mismanaged.
Kristol stated we've been safe since 9/11; that we've won Iraq; that they increased the economy by 18%; began offering the prescription drug benefit; that, when Bush entered, al Qaeda was ascendant, Hussein wasn't contained, and North Korea and Iran were developing nukes; and that "Obama's presidency will be the major respect and continuation of the Bush presidency."
Jenkins opened by saying he liked Bush initially, but that what made America's reputation was the moral founding of our actions, and that Bush "snapped the backbone."
Rove apologized to any audience members sensitive to sulfur or brimstone¹ and proceeded to address what he termed the "drivebys" in the other arguments: that No Child Left Behind was per-state because the states should be engaged; that the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief had offered 2 million retroviral drugs; that 21 of the 22 Democrats in favor of NAFTA voted against for CAFTA and free trade purely for politics; that March '00, under Clinton, had the Dow down 38%, the NASDAQ down 78%, and the S&P down 50%; and stated that as to Iraq, "Look, do we wish ... that the weapons were there and it was justified under those terms? Yeah." (The audience at that point booed loudly.)

Audience questions proceeded.

An audience member asked that if the gross American population is generally wise en masse, and if what Rove said about Bush's successes are true, why is his approval so low? Rove replied it was an unpopular war and a tough economy, and that four had lower approvals: Carter, Nixon, Johnson and Truman.
Jenkins was asked if Bush's low approval rating was good for Obama (in terms of how he would be compared to Bush), or bad for him (in terms of what point from which he starts his Presidency). Jenkins said that 9/11 was Bush's starting point, and that we'd done what the terrorists wanted: restrict liberties and behave in a certain way. The moderator noted Kristol had said elsewhere that we won, as the terrorists were on the run. Kristol replied that al Qaeda was now a losing proposition; that we curbed civil liberties less than Roosevelt post-WW2 or Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon during Vietnam; and that Goldsmith and Mukasey moved some of those curtailings back. Weisberg noted that Goldsmith was drummed out for that. Kristol said that terrorists don't get civil liberties, Rove noting that terrorists shouldn't get Miranda rights. Weisberg didn't think so either, but said they should have some. Rove replied that the policy wasn't as if they were going to round up the audience, but that if they ran into a U.S. citizen on a battlefield abroad, he'd be treated as a terrorist, not a citizen. Weisberg noted acquittals, and Rove championed that as the system working. Kristol went on to indicate America didn't go to war against Muslims; Jenkins disagreed, saying that there were "lists of people who vanished." Rove called this lunacy.
Jenkins was asked by an audience member that if Bush had gone only to Afghanistan, what would Hussein have done: been neutral, allied himself with us, or supported al Qaeda? Jenkins responded he didn't believe terrorism to be state-sponsored. Weisberg indicated he was in support of Hussein's removal, but not without allies and not unilaterally.
Kristol was asked who he believed the worst President in the last 50 years to be, and responded that he believed Johnson made the worst mistake (Vietnam), but did great things with civil rights and Medicare; that the most corrupt was clearly Nixon, and that the most incompetent was Carter.
Rove was asked if the intelligence had been accurate, would the invasion have still happened? Rove responded no; that Bush was concerned about human rights abuses and Iraq's disregard for U.N. resolutions, but would have pursued a containment strategy.
An audience member asked that if Bush got credit for our post-9/11 safety, does he then get the blame for 9/11 itself? Rove responded that they wish they had been more alarmed. Weisberg noted that Clarke's book said that because Clinton had been focused on Iraq, Bush wasn't interested as he was actively reversing all of Clinton's policies.
An audience member asked as to the Bush Administration being the biggest domestic spenders, excepting Homeland Security and Iraq. Rove responded that Clinton's last budget (FY01) increased discretionary domestic spending by 15%, and that Bush reduced it to 7% (FY02), 4% (FY03), 2% (FY05), and 0% (FY06-8). Kristol indicated the biggest domestic expenses were for the two most popular implementations: the tax cuts and prescription drug benefit.
Weisberg and Jenkins were asked to name courageous decisions by LBJ and Carter, and to compare Bush and Iraq to JFK, LBJ and Nixon and Vietnam. Jenkins noted he had been in Vietnam at war's end, and felt its withdrawal was more competent ... that we had just lost by a bit, and could've stabilized it had we stayed longer. He felt that the punitive element was one of the fundamental problems of Iraq. Weisberg noteed that Johnson said goodbye to the South for Democrats for generations in order to further civil rights.
Weisberg and Jenkins were asked how Obama should deal with "Islamofacism" and how such dealing would differ from Bush. Weisberg responded that the focus should be on Afghanistan, on withdrawing from Iraq without it reverting, and questioned whether our lack of post-9/11 incidents was due to policy or chance. The audience member said that he didn't feel that the answers were responsive; that Hussein was supporting terrorism with payments, medical treatment, and a training camp; that Democrats such as Sen. Kennedy had echoed the WMD claims; and that Gaddafi had been successfully cowed by our actions.

Two-minute summaries closed the debate.

Kristol compared Vietnam body counts (55,000 servicemen and 2 million citizens) to Iraq (4,000 servicemen), believing Vietnam to be far wose than Iraq.
Weisberg said that Bush's failure to unite the country as he himself did as a Texas governor and as Roosevelt did after Pearl Harbor showed a lack of character: that he wasn't interested in policy, and didn't tolerate dissent or opening his mind to alternatives.
Rove stated that dissent was allowed, echoed Kristol's Vietnam claims, and stated that "[t]o suggest that he's not interested in ideas is that pecuiliar form of Bush hatred that causes people to lose their rational senses about the man."
Jenkins noted 2 million Iraqi citizens were camped outside Damascus because of their fear to return home, and that 66% of Iraqi Christians had been driven out of the country; he said he liked Bush's initial courtesy, moderation, and belief in humble governance, but that he believed Bush allowed the politics of fear, the "most corrosive of all forms of politics", to ruin him; and that America's power obligated it to show restraint, which it had not.

Intelligence Squared judges who "wins" a debate not by who has the greater number of people agreeing with them at debate's close, but instead by how many people changed their opinion during the course of the debate. The debate opened with 65% believing Bush was the worst President in the last 50 years, 17% disagreeing with that, and 18% undecided.² It closed with 68% (+3%) agreeing to Bush being the worst, 27% (+10%) disagreeing, and 5% undecided; since Rove and Kristol had acquired the larger portion of the undecided, they were considered to have won the motion. ¹Not editorializing by yours truly, he actually did. ²Upon hearing this, Rove joked, "I demand a recount."

Shoes thrown at President Bush in Iraq

xorry — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:07:36 -0800

Shoes thrown at President Bush in Iraq. As America prepares to give him the boot, President Bush was forced to do some atypical sole searching during a press conference in Iraq when an Iraqi television reporter flung both shoes at him. HuffP has MSNBC video without ads and adds: "In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam Hussein with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground after the 2003 invasion." This is a "gross insult in the Arab world." Value added video.

Is this 18.5 minutes of tape anything important?

Horace Rumpole — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:01:39 -0800

It's been a busy week for presidential libraries. The Nixon Library released 200 hours of tape (excerpts) and 90,000 pages of documents (excerpts) that detail his obsessive attempts to destroy his political enemies. The LBJ library released MP3s of dozens of phone calls, including one where he accuses Nixon of treason for stalling Vietnamese peace talks in advance of the 1968 election. Finally, the Reagan Library released 750,000 pages of documents (NYT, reg. req.) to researchers. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Washington to Obama

Glibpaxman — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:09:04 -0800

America has come a long way. There is the official version of history or the peoples' version. There are artifacts and rankings. They had some quirks and were occasionally men of their time. If you prefer audio or visual references those are available as well. Common knowledge has it that one GW was our first President but the title of first is under dispute. 230 years later another GW is making a run for worst. That is also under dispute by the nations best brains. For better and worse, the story of the Presidency is the story of America.

FWD: fwd: Fwd: RE: nuclear launch codez

Rhaomi — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 20:08:55 -0800

U.S. Presidents have had an uneven relationship with technology. The Clinton Presidential Library has more than 40 million White House emails on record (but only two are from the man himself). The Bush Administration, on the other hand, junked the Clinton archival process and replaced it with a comically inept alternative that has lost more than five million messages, many concerning official government business. (President Bush, for his part, gave up his longtime address -- G94b@aol.com -- just before his inauguration). Even the Reagan White House had its share of problems with the digital age. Now, as tech-savvy Barack Obama prepares to implement his technology plans, does he have a shot at dragging the Oval Office into the 21st century? Or will he have to surrender his laptop, his email account, and his beloved Blackberry?

Final Days

djgh — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:46:26 -0800

"On the weekends, he favors two-hour bicycle rides at a Secret Service training facility outside Washington, where he sometimes asks companions and agents to ride behind him so that he can have the illusion of riding alone." With all the focus on the upcoming election, what of George W. Bush?

Who Watches the Watchmen?

scalefree — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:51:26 -0800

In February President Bush issued an Executive Order changing the role & reporting structure of the PFIAB, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. At the time the order was criticized & analyzed as a move to consolidate power within an organization that was already full of Bush cronies. But it now looks like all the pundits were wrong. The real reason? There was a spy in the PFIAB.

Leave Him Alone.

brownpau — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:09:41 -0800

"He's a human. And all you Democrats want to do is knock him down." [via ]

... Karl Rove, a handful of the party's most tech-savvy computer gurus and the former Republican Ohio Secretary of State, created, owned and operated the vote-counting system...

amberglow — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:44:57 -0800

Network Hosting Attorney Scandal E-Mails Also Hosted Ohio's 2004 Election Results --...more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's firing of eight federal prosecutors. ...

What if it happened?

Deathalicious — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 22:59:39 -0800

Death of a President...the first six minutes [youtube]. This slick mockumentary imagines the assasination of George W. Bush. So far, most critics have panned it; apparently the filmmakers have managed to take the premise of Bush being killed and made it...boring. Still, for those of you who'll gladly pay $8-10 to watch Bush get shot, here's where it's going to be playing (and yes, some theater chains have refused to show it)

Zen and the Art of Mountain Biking with the President

gottabefunky — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:10:54 -0800

Mountain Bike One. What it's like to hit the trails with the President: a little Zen, a few Band-aids.

It's like they saw the future

scalefree — Thu, 18 May 2006 21:48:32 -0800

1 DEPLOY GUNS AND BADGES. Josh Bolten's Five Point Plan is in full effect. "It'll be more guys with guns and badges," said a proponent of the plan. "Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV."

State of the Union

I Love Tacos — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:01:57 -0800

The State of the Union Address was tonight. C-Span not only has the video, but transcripts of every State of the Union address starting from 1945. Howard Dean responded.

the most caricatured president ever?

funambulist — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 10:12:04 -0800

'He's God's gift to today's political cartoonist': Misunderestimating the President through Cartoons, an exhibition of the work of leading political cartoonists from both the UK and the United States focusing on their depictions of George Bush, opens today in London at the Political Cartoon Gallery. Watch the video report from Channel 4 and read essays on the history of political cartoons.

Checks and No Balance

Postroad — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 08:14:14 -0800

Checks and No Balance While previous presidents have at various times claimed the legal right to authorize searches and electronic surveillance without court warrants so as to gather foreign intelligence, those decisions have undergone scrutiny by either courts or congressional hearings. It's fair to say that Bush had no intention of allowing public scrutiny of his act, since he personally summoned the top executives of The New York Times to a private meeting on December 6 and pressured them not to run the story about the domestic spying

Bush Buzzword Bingo

FeldBum — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 16:01:03 -0800

Bush Buzzword Bingo - If you can't stand listening to the president speak, try playing this game. Like the Thanksgiving version, you get a bingo card randomly printed with Bush's favorite buzzwords, bushisms and talking points. First to get five in a row gets bingo, but probably will just end up feeling bad about the world. For more bush/bushism fun, try the "Give Bush a Brain" game from egreetings. (see if you can beat my high score of 8)

November 2nd - A day of protest

Chris_awesome — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:02:35 -0800

Take this opportunity to get involved. November 2nd - A day of protest With possible indictments of senior Bush aides this week Bush has to be feeling the pressure. Reports point to a down and disillusioned president.

Flip-Flop faux-paus at the White House.

cpchester — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 08:08:21 -0800

Flip-Flop faux-paux at the White House. On a recent visit to the White House, the 2005 national champion Northwestern women's lacrosse teams choice of footwear is causing quite a stir. Let the Kerry jokes begin.....

Square knots in the Oval Office

digaman — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:38:30 -0800

No "beeper violations" or loosened ties in this White House, mister.

George W. Bush or Bust...

panoptican — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 20:41:54 -0800

In the market for a George W. Bush bust? That's what I figured. Luckily, you have some ch oi ces. And if you're little Bush head gets lonely, you could get Lincoln, Washington, Quayle (if you don't mind stealing), and the rest of the gang to join him. Just make sure you have a couple thousand to spare.