and he still has a little time left to add to his record of negligence.
Most Disastrous President
Crossposted from SmokeyMonkey.org
George W. Bush is the worst and most disastrous president ever.
I am loathe to publish this article before his term has actually, finally, ended, because there is still time to be attacked by nuclear missiles from Russia or something.
The Bush administration has presided over the worst disasters in our nation's history, from terrorist attacks to both natural and manmade disasters of epic proportions. And through it all, this wannabe president showed more than just incompetence; the administration was criminally negligent.
Worst Terrorist Attack
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were the most destructive attacks on our nation's soil since Pearl Harbor. In fact, 9/11 is the deadliest terrorist strike ever. The Bush administration ignored warnings that this attack would happen, and as a result thousands were killed, our air traffic was grounded for days, our markets closed, a recession deepened, and an iconic cityscape was forever altered.
"Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism," Richard Clarke told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview ... "He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."
There is no excuse that any can give that it was not the responsibility of the Bush administration to prevent such an attack. And because it was the worst attack ever, Bush deserves full credit for having not prevented it. Further, despite protestations to the contrary, our allies have been attacked repeatedly since 9/11, dispelling any notion that the Bush administration has kept us, or anyone else for that matter, safe.
Worst Foreign Policy Blunder
The so-called 'war on terror' is nothing but an ideology wrapped in military action. Neither the invasion of Afghanistan nor the invasion and occupation of Iraq have achieved any geopolitical success whatsoever. In fact, both have resulted in declining world opinion of the United States and an increase in the recruitment of radicals to do violence against us. So far, only one has spawned a civil war, but Afghanistan is far from stable.
The U.S. image abroad is suffering almost everywhere. Particularly in the most economically developed countries, people blame America for the financial crisis. Opposition to key elements of American foreign policy is widespread in Western Europe, and positive views of the U.S. have declined steeply among many of America's longtime European allies. In Muslim nations, the wars in Afghanistan and particularly Iraq have driven negative ratings nearly off the charts. The United States earns positive ratings in several Asian and Latin American nations, but usually by declining margins. And while the most recent Pew Global Attitudes survey finds that favorable views of America edged up in 2008, only in sub-Saharan Africa does America score uniformly favorable marks.
The execution of illegal means of surveillance and interrogation by the Bush administration also makes them guilty of both unconstitutional action and crimes against humanity.
Worst Natural Disaster
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita combined in the summer of 2005 to annihilate a large United States city, New Orleans. Thousands were killed in the initial storm, and thousands more died of neglect from the inaction of the Bush administration. The city, and indeed much of the coastal region, have yet to recover to any significant degree.
Rehabilitating the city's devastated neighborhoods is expected to take years. Rebuilding the confidence of many of New Orleans' residents could take even longer.
Yes, the disaster was unprecedented in some ways, but there is no excuse for the whining about unforeseen disasters when FEMA, the very federal agency under the administration's charge responsible for reacting to that kind of disaster, had conducted an exercize simulating a major hurricane strike to New Orleans just a year before. Again, these warnings were ignored, and a historic city nearly died. A clear case of criminal negligence.
Worst Economic Disaster
It is yet to be seen if this disastrous economy will impact our way of life in the same dramatic way that the Great Depression did our grandparents, but I think it is indisputable that the collapse of the housing and credit markets represents the worst financial crisis in two generations. As it is happening at the end of the Bush administration, there is absolutely no debate that they could have done something to prevent it.
Two limited federal housing policy interventions could avoid hundreds of thousands of foreclosures, help to stabilize home prices at a post-bubble lower level, and preclude more drastic intervention in the future, including direct government ownership of troubled assets.
We've seen a continuation of this disaster precisely because the Bush administration is still in charge and still neglecting the country's needs. By taking affirmative steps to make the situation worse, or at the least, to ignore it, the Bush administration is, again, guilty of willful and negligent behavior.
Worst Environmental Disaster
Most recently, the legacy of the Bush administration's deregulation of the coal mining industry has resulted in the worst environmental disaster this nation has ever experienced. In eastern Tennessee, a coal-ash pond spilled 5.4 million tons of toxic coal soup into the neighboring area, not only destroying homes but polluting the entire region for decades to come. Their response to this disaster has been as effectively incompetent as any of the disasters I've described above.
Neither the [Tennessee Valley A]uthority nor the E.P.A. has released the results of tests of soil or the ash itself. Authority officials have said that the ash is not harmful, and the authority has not warned residents of potential dangers, though federal studies show that coal ash can contain dangerous levels of heavy metals and carcinogens.
While this is clearly the worst of his environmental disasters, the Bush administration has presided over several, including the worst oil spill on the north slope of Alaska ever. These are not accidents, they are a direct result of the negligent policies of the Bush administration.
Summary
I will update this list if something comes up in the next few weeks, but I don't think anything even needs to be added to conclude this was not only the worst president ever, he has set the bar so high for that title that none may ever surpass him.
Heckuva job, Bushie! Original
It seems that the Republican Party in general just has a massive case of stupidity and ignorance. I say this because it seems that Bush's brother, Jeb, is getting set to run for a Senate seat in Florida, and the GOP is having a party about that one! If another Bush, in any form, is the best that the GOP has to offer, I look forward to the party being in the minority for a very long time.
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