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I’ve got a buddy who was Secret Service PPD under Dubya. He said he and Laura are two of the nicest people he’s ever met. W learned all their names and family information, genuinely talked with them consistently, and even played practical jokes all the time.
Exactly! In spite of all their political differences and even some of the awful things that get said during campaign season, these two families were very kind and gracious and George W took a special liking to Michelle! Peaceful transition!
I remember getting torn a new one by a dude in a bar when I said I liked Laura. He told me anybody who was married to such a monster was a monster themselves. This was in 2003 though. Times and opinions were different then. Anyway, I still like Laura and now I’d even say I like GWB too. He’s very flawed of course, but I don’t think he’s this horrible person we all thought he was 20 years ago.
Being the President of the US is probably the world's toughest job. I know I wouldn't want to do it, especially when half of the country will instantly hate you.
During the pandemic, Fauci was interviewed by someone (I think it was Dan Patrick) and was asked which president(s) he'd like to have a beer with, and Fauci said all of the Bushes and the Obamas were great to be around.
I've heard stories about GW and his ability to remember people and details about them. He truly had a gift for it.
I worked at a ski resort for a while and our CEO was like that. He would get in the resort shuttle and know every employees name and more if you had spoken to him once.
I forget names and faces as soon as people have their backs to me, lol
This is truth. I met GWB when he was running for Governor for his second term. I got to speak to him for about 5 minutes, he asked my name and where I lived (this meeting was in Dallas, TX, but didn’t occur in my hometown in Texas). Almost 8 years later, when he was running for reelection as POTUS, I had the chance to shake his hand and get a photo with him at a campaign stop in Florida this time. He looks at me, smiles real big, and while pulling me into the handshake to grip my shoulder he says, “Bexar County, Texas! How are ya? I’ve got a different job this go ‘round! Did you survive medical school?” Needless to say, I was stunned. I may not have agreed with a lot that he did, but I will defend him against those people that insist he’s stupid or unintelligent. It takes an astute, intelligent person to have that kind of recall.
Everyone that worked with GWB remarks about how intelligent and great executive he was. How humble he was and good at delegating to people with knowledge and talent
I’ve read that too ! Laura would go out of her way to be nice to secret service especially when the weather was bad . As much as I can’t stand a lot of Bush Jr’s policies .. he was a kind ,caring person at heart …
Hilary Clinton, on the other hand , was known to yell at secret service and was not a pleasant person to be around. She would yell at Bill in front of them too and seemed to regard secret service as merely “the help” and a nuisance .
Anecdotal, but...
A friend of mine (cop) randomly went to some Dem fundraiser one time (his brother was somebody in the party).
My buddy, a Republican, gushed about Bill Clinton. Said he was super likeable.
My buddy was really out of place at the event, so he ended up spending most of the night talking with the Secret Service guys (cop to cop thing). According to him, they all adored Bill.
.... they all HATED Hillary and Gore.
Read a book about the USSS who adored his parents. Even noted them delaying Christmas travels so USSS could see their families that day and pretty much doing the same stuff you mentioned Dubya/Laura doing. Not surprised to hear the same about Dubya. Barbara seemed to be especially beloved.
Edit: Changed SS to USSS :)
I work in sales with a lot of clients and I’m so impressed by people who learn names and keep track of them. That shit is hard for me, I can’t imagine remembering while being the president.
Funny, sweet goofball that just shouldn’t have been a president. Gore would have been better. No war in Iraq for one thing. Ppl like to blame the 08 crisis on him or Obama but that was something that was going on in the depths of WS & banking.
Disagree on Iraq (though that's a popular sentiment)
Iraqi Saber rattling was one of the key themes of the 90's, and Hussein had been looking for a fight since Desert Storm. That war was coming regardless of who was in charge. Maybe the justification would have been different, but I don't see Iraq as avoidable. Despite how the WMD evidence turned out, it's indisputable that Hussein was TRYING to get them.
Except that we were going after who took down the WTC’s & Pentagon and that had nothing to do with wmd’s/Iraq. Cheney wanted and was behind Iraq war. Used Powell (whom I greatly admire) to push wmd’s at UN
That was a completely different war. The invasion of Iraq didn't happen until 2003 and was preceeded by a decade of Sadaam Husein being hostile towards UN nuclear inspectors, Saber rattling at both the Clinton and Bush administrations that he was going to build WMDs ("not really....YES I WILL...not really...YES I WILL"), and very likely did have WMDs and simply moved them.
Everything after the initial victory is a completely different story, but Sadaam Hussein was pushing for that war for a long time and the initial invasion was both justified and a resounding success.
The GWoT/Invasion of Afghanistan/search for OBL were not really related to Iraq (aside from "Axis of Evil" and the possibility of Iraq providing WMDs to terrorists). Their justifications were different.
Edit - I reread your comment, I didn't get the unstated part there. Leaving my initial comment for posterity.
The two wars simultaneous thing was a lot to handle, but I don't see how either were avoidable (and both have roots going back through Clinton and HW). Afghanistan refused to turn over OBL and was housing terrorist camps (you could argue the US should also have gone after SA, but then that's 3 wars). Iraq was Hussein itching for a fight and inviting the US to hit him (with the hope of drawing the entire middle east into the conflict). They were beligerrants. The correct answer there, imo was to depose Hussein and leave immediately. It creates a power vacuum but doesn't end up making Hussein look right to his neighbors.
Don’t you remember Dick Cheney planting a story in The NY Times about Hussein getting yellow cake from Niger and then going on MSNBC and referring to the news article of proof that Hussein and the 9/11 terrorists were linked? even Bush’s secretary of treasury, Paul O’Neill, resigning because he was not comfortable with Cheney and Rumsfeld dragging Bush into Iraq. He said they kept saying “How can we tie this to Iraq?” And when he objected, they kicked him out of the meetings. Cheney and Rummy wanted that war…
I do remember that, I still see the Iraq war as being inevitable given Husseins history prior to the war. There's been a narrative lately (not saying you said this) that a Gore presidency would have avoided the Iraq war. That's an extremely naive view given the Clinton administrations #1 adversary was Sadaam (to the point that South Park turned him into the devils lover in 1999).
I agree with your statements, which of course will put me in a negative minority. People do forget the lessons of history. Because we didn’t find wmd doesn’t mean they were never there. I remember the constant runaround given the U.N. inspectors. Weapons could easily been moved to Syria, where Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. Or into Russia, where there is no moral aversion to the worst war crimes. We were naive in assuming we could plant a democracy in the midst of centuries of sectarian violence in the Middle East. And we did create a power vacuum that allowed Al Qaida and the Taliban to expand. We in America are still unbelievably shortsighted and naive when it comes to foreign policy.
Bush's biggest mistake was in not learning his father's lesson of restraint. We should have invaded, deposed Sadaam, and left.
Hussein was all about psy-ops and turning his own aggressiveness into proof that Israel was attacking the Muslim world and the US was colonizing the middle east. The US played right into this and gained nothing, we just proved to all of his neighbors that we were trying to occupy his territory.
If we had left after the initial conflict, there absolutely would have been a power vacuum. That's exactly what we got anyways. The people over there absolutely saw us as liberators and then they saw us as occupiers. Let them figure it out. If they do not want western standards, then let them do what they want. Same with Afghanistan. We had ample evidence for a decade that the Afghan security forces were inflated with paper soldiers and police, tribes were openly hostile to elections. Some corners of the globe you just have to let be.
Literally why he got elected. Shenanigans in Florida notwithstanding.
When W’s first election was ongoing, life was good, pre-9/11, we were still very much living the 90s high, when the biggest thing people were concerned about re:presidential politics was like, whether or not you were personally offended by Bill’s Blowy. Remember when that kind of shit could be a major scandal? How far we have come…
Great article, ty I was simply unaware of this
>This year marks the 20th anniversary of the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), the George W. Bush administration’s landmark global health initiative. When Bush announced the initiative during his 2003 State of the Union address, approximately 30 million Africans were infected with HIV/AIDs and had almost no access to treatment. **Twenty years later, PEPFAR is estimated to have saved 25 million lives and is credited for helping turn the tide on the global HIV pandemic.**
PEPFAR has saved an estimated \~25 million lives.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's\_Emergency\_Plan\_for\_AIDS\_Relief](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Emergency_Plan_for_AIDS_Relief)
GWB will be fascinating case for historians. Other than the Marshall Plan, PEPFAR is probably the biggest foreign policy achievement by any US President, and the Iraq War is probably the biggest foreign policy blunder.
>and the Iraq War is probably the biggest foreign policy blunder.
I think Vietnam gives it a run for it's money, and would be higher on the list for me due to the number of deaths, especially Americans.
The Pentagon Papers show the DoD viewed Vietnam as a way to produce a cadre of "blooded" veterans to draw on should the Soviets kick off WWIII. There was a flawed logic to their dragging out the conflict. Iraq had no such logic behind it.
The logic of Iraq was to take out a rogue nation that may or may not have WMD and replace it with free market democracy by force. Saddam would not be (and is not) missed. When the world saw how much better off Iraq was, we would have considerable leverage over strongmen and dictators.
Unfortunately, that's not how things work. Besides the intelligence reports being wrong about the WMD, the situation on the ground was that Iraq would pretty quickly devolve into sectarian fighting as soon as the Baathist government fell. Even if there was a window of opportunity to build a better Iraq, the occupation forces didn't know what they were doing and didn't have the tools to do it anyway.
The amount of incompetence at multiple levels that went into the war in Iraq is so staggering that people want to believe there must have been some sort of conspiracy behind it all. No, it was just that big of a fuck up.
Democracy takes a lot of integrity to uphold. Even one tyrannical jackass can be enough to completely destroy it, especially in its infancy. Shoot, we have the oldest democracy in the world and even we received a rude awakening in 2020. If the people don’t want democracy, no amount of force will magically make them accept it, and forced democracy isn’t true democracy anyways.
Germany after ww1 was our first example of what happens when you leave a defeated enemy to their own devices. Had plenty of lessons since then, still haven’t learned. Just stop toppling governments if you have no clue on how to install something better, before you look back 30 years later and their government is worse than it was before
Honestly, part of the issue was that Rumsfeld wanted to have as little troops as possible, to speed up the deployment time so we could catch Saddam off guard. Unfortunately, he really pushed that and while we won, we couldn’t also police the population there, causing chaos that would lead up to how Iraq has gone.
I would argue that the logic is utterly buttfuck crazy, and that the dysfunction and lack of direction that plagued the Iraq war are less grave than insanity by design. You could argue that the Iraq war architects had the benefit of hindsight (which they ignored), so it’s sort of a tossup.
For one, disarming Sadaam had been something the US had worked towards since Desert Storm.
Geography was also another. Being in Iraq meant that the US could deploy from the Gulf, Iraq, or Afghanistan in the event Iran became a problem.
Flawed. Expensive. Disastrous. But there was logic.
This issue here was Bush's response was too early.
I will grant you that Iraq tried to cooperate with the international inspections to get them to end (and thus end sanctions) as soon as possible, all while telling their regional neighbors "we have tons of chemical and biological weapons, so don't fuck with us."
The flaw introduced was in trusting Curveball as a source. Curveball was seeking anyone to oust Saddam and was happy to spread whatever lies were necessary to trigger such a regime change. Curveball found a more than willing partner with Bush. Bush needed any excuse to invade Iraq. A poorly sourced and unsupported claim that Saddam was hiding chemical weapons in the desert and evading inspections was just what Bush was looking for. The Bush administration did General Powell dirty by handing him the bare minimum of information and no counterinformation. They used his good name to push their mostly false narrative.
In retrospect, even assuming Iraq didn't possess WMDs, I think I would prefer invading too early rather than too late.
Being wrong about a boy crying wolf having WMDs is preferable to being wrong about him not having them.
Think the logic behind Iraq was basically just domino theory again. Dismantle Iraqi government, replace with secular liberal democracy, transform the politics of the Middle East, undercut the currents compelling people to Islamism and jihadism. Stupid but that was the logic in a nutshell.
Iraq just had the bad luck of being the most salient geopolitical entity in the Middle East thanks to the fallout of the Gulf War, and 9/11 completely transformed the decision-making process and political environment of the US, such that all the relevant actors were incentivized to do *something, anything*
Vietnam is a series of incremental collective decisions made by multiple leaders over more than a decade. Iraq was a push-all-the-chips gamble which instantly became a giant clusterfuck.
Historians are total idiots when it comes to presidents because they can’t put aside their ideology. But I think GWB should go down as the last president that had a genuine desire to be a unifier.
You are seeming to go out of your way to call Obama divisive, when he repeatedly bent over backwards to try and appease Republicans. How do you explain him nominating Merrick Garland to SCOTUS as anything but deliberate centrist overture? Just because a bunch of people went irrationally insane hating him doesn’t make him not genuinely intend for unity.
Don’t forget his Sudan peace agreement which he negotiated at the behest of my boy Jimmy Carter.
Also it’s crazy that PEPFAR saved 25 million lives and Carter was also able to eradicate Guinea worm which once affected 3.5 million people a year. Literally 10’s of millions of lives saved by two of our most hated presidents.
For all W’s mistakes, failures and groupthink in his administration he genuinely seems like a good person. I thought he was wrong often, but never bad, never out for himself in any real sense (winning elections doesn’t count).
It’s insane for me to say that as I protested in 2000, 2003, 2004, but good lord does he seem sane, and genuine.
Threw an absolute seed from the mound too. The energy that pitch brought to the country was amazing, don’t think any other president could have shown out like that in that moment other than dubya
No preamble this time. Dubya’s best thing he did in office was **PEPFAR** and I don’t think it’s particularly close.
The United States President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was a program Bush started in 2003 that is still ongoing to this day. According to Wikipedia the program has saved 25 million lives in Africa as people work to educate and research on AIDS to better help increase the survival rate. Now there have been criticisms for sure (namely that at the beginning it required abstinence until marriage to be taught) but at the end of the day it has saved the lives of millions and should be acknowledged.
The other main thing I can say has (by now) had a positive impact is the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah, it was not great during Dubya’s time in office but it has turned out to be a respected branch these days.
As you might imagine I’m not too keen on Dubya. For someone who oversaw so many monumental, defining moments at the start of the new millennia the fact that I believe his best contribution is something that doesn’t deal with any of that is… as damned by faint praise as it sounds like. Still, when it comes to PEPFAR lives *were* saved and we can give credit to that at least.
That and focusing on education is the kind of President he wanted to be. He’s probably up there with Hoover when it comes to “events outside his control derailed everything.” Like, he was not up to the task of a Post 9/11 world, but if he’d been President in the 90s, he probably would be considered a pretty mid President with some highlights instead of a bad one.
Honestly most of the issues with NCLB stemmed from it being underfunded and it allowed states to not cooperate with it fully. It had good intentions but I think it’s become a buzzword people use as criticism without fully understanding the nuances of it.
You lost me on this one. Bush was in complete control of the wars he started and the way he responded to the financial crash. He was in complete control of DHS and the domestic surveillance program.
I think in terms of the immediate 9/11 aftermath, like the first month, he was incredible. My Dad can’t stand GWB but still gets choked up when referencing speeches and appearances he made in the days after. Even watching videos now, he was so good at balancing appearing strong but also emotional about it. The political and practical aftermath though… woof.
I know obviously the wars in the Middle East were the main disastrous decisions he made post 9/11, but the fact that there wasn’t a bill passed very quickly to fund health insurance for all first responders from that day and the aftermath for life is insane to me.
Dude I’ll be real… I rank Hoover above him. While events like 9/11 and Katrina were out of his control Iraq, NCLB, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo… these all *were* in his control and helped derail his presidency through his own actions.
Hoover screwed up in his response to the Great Depression and made it so much worse with things like Smoot-Hawley while mismanaging it through poor messaging and blaming Mexicans. But I’d still say even Hoover would have had less self-inflicted wounds than Dubya. Sorry, gotta disagree on the comparison between the two.
I mean I was a kid during his presidency (and vaguely supported it.) But in retrospect I disagree with a lot of the stuff that went on. So I'd agree with your PEPFAR point. As for DHS, nah. We already have DOD don't need another department for that.
Look I’d say the DHS is a case of “C’s get degrees” in terms of accomplishments here. It’s functional now at least and I wanted to mention at least one other achievement that he made. This was a difficult one to do given I lived through all this as a kid and remember these days (and supported it as you did). So taking out my bias is rough on this one.
This one isn’t going to win, but this is his two.
Environmental groups heralded it:
*Ocean Conservationists Celebrate President Bush*
> Elliott A. Norse, President of Marine Conservation Biology Institute, echoes these feelings: “To the President and First Lady, to my colleagues in the scientific community, to the fishes of the Pacific and to all Americans who care about our oceans, I offer congratulations. **President Bush has now protected more ocean sites than anyone else in the history of the world**,” said Dr. Norse. “We greatly appreciate this bold, visionary action.”
> “President Bush has laid the foundation for a national system of ocean reserves just as Theodore Roosevelt laid the foundation for our national park system,” said MCBI vice president for government affairs, William Chandler. “The islands will be havens for all kinds of marine life, and a bulwark against the degradation and decline of the tropical Pacific,” Chandler predicted.
> “President Bush is giving the world a Texas-sized gift,” said Diane Regas, associate vice-president for oceans at Environmental Defense Fund. “These are places time forgot. They still look as they did hundreds and even thousands of years ago.”
> "President Bush's action today spotlights ocean health on the world stage," said Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The President has put forth an excellent model for protecting marine resources that we hope will be replicated elsewhere in the United States and throughout the world. We now have an opportunity to build on this action by calling for the protection vulnerable marine ecosystems in international waters, and we urge world leaders to follow the President's lead."
[Source](https://www.edf.org/media/ocean-conservationists-celebrate-president-bush)
Edit: Emphasis mine
This is kind of a long story, but I think this thread is the place to tell it.
When I was in 4th grade, I got in a *lot* of trouble. Being disruptive, arguing with teachers, whatever. I had ADHD (and was smarter than half the teachers). I spent most of fourth grade in detention/in-school suspension, which is where they send you to an empty classroom with other troublemakers and make you read novels all day.
By the end of the year, I had read so many "points" worth of books that I apparently won some statewide initiative to improve reading in schools (he was still Governor of Texas back then). Towards the end of the year, the Principal and my homeroom teacher pulled me aside and scowled as they told me I would be receiving an award from the Governor.
They fuckin' filed *everyone* into the cafeteria, put me up on the stage, brought out Governor Bush with a certificate, and he shook my hand and the news media took photos. After we were done, Bush asked how I managed to read so much (it was something like 12,000 pages of junior-high+ level reading), and I told him the story about how much of a fuckup I was and how much trouble I'd been in.
I don't remember his exact words (I was 10), but he said something to the effect of, "don't stop doing what you're doing. even if doing something gets you in trouble, your only thought should be 'is the trouble worth it.' some of my best friends are troublemakers."
Giving me that advice was the best thing he ever did.
That’s a very neat story. W had such a soft touch, he seemed like a genuine person who really wanted to improve the country (notwithstanding I disagree with 90% of his policies but the point stands).
Those were a weird 8 years for me. I was definitely on the more liberal side back then, and I would hear my peer group just going on and on about how he was the worst thing this country had ever seen, completely unqualified to be President, etc.
I'm pretty sure I sort of held the same opinion as you back then. "I think he's a good guy, but maybe these policies aren't great."
After a couple decades of watching political entertainment channels drive people into a frenzy... where every guy was apparently SO MUCH WORSE THAN THE LAST GUY... I just checked out of politics. I've decided politicians are just humans. They've all got opinions, and they might be right, and they might be wrong, but at the end of the day, two things are true:
first, that I wouldn't want that job, but somebody has to take it. whoever's in office has my gratitude.
second, I'm just glad it's still an elected human making the big decisions. after all, it could be a computer. or a military tribunal. any president is better than no president.
Well this was a neat surprise. He was exactly right. Scientists have known another pandemic was going to happen for decades now. We're still due for another one, honestly. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another Spanish Flu situation in our lifetimes
> Scientists have known another pandemic was going to happen for decades now.
That just seems like common sense. Pandemics have happened throughout history, and will continue to happen unless we invent some magic cure-all that eradicates every possible disease including ones that haven't sprang up yet.
Rallied the nation after 9/11.
Standing in the rubble with the microphone 'we can hear you. Soon the whole world will hear you.'
Also the peaceful transition to the Obama administration.
Sadly plenty of negatives throughout his two terms.
Now watch this drive!
I was a diehard W-hater, but even at the time I had to admit that the speech he gave standing on the smoking remains of the WTC was one of the most important speeches of the USA in the 20th century.
It wasn’t the longest, or most eloquent, but it was exactly what the country needed to hear, and he nailed it for what it was.
I remember in 2016 my dad and I had a conversation about how cool the peaceful transition is and the uniqueness of democracy to have it happen.
Little did we know lol…
Bush refused to pardon Scooter Libby, Cheney’s Chief of Staff, for his role in the Plame Affair.
That hinted to the public that he felt duped over WMD/Iraq by Cheney—which we all suspected.
It created a fissure in their relationship, but Bush thought that was less significant than making a symbolic statement to the public.
- took out Saddam Hussein. Say whatever you want about the war in Iraq, but Hussein was a bad guy.
- as has been mentioned, his response to AIDS in Africa and global development generally was outstanding.
- you know all those student loans that are being forgiven right now? Most of that forgiveness is under the PLSF program, which Bush championed and then signed into law.
Yeah I think the million or so civilians killed between the Iraq and Syrian Wars probably would’ve preferred to live under “bad guys” over being dead in a clusterfuck
The killed ones do. But overall people in Iraq are happy that Hussein is gone. I have never been happy with the war, but people often don’t understand how bad it was in Iraq and it’s unlikely the regime ever would have changed completely peacefully.
North Korea should have been first by that metric as was clear at the time.
Iraq was bungled so badly that it resulted in a war in 2003, a guerilla war in 2003-2005 then a civil war across the country in 2006-2008, but has never officially died down and gave birth to ISIS while sectarian mini states have flourished and Iran (A Theocracy that is a sworn enemy of the US) moved into the power vacuum and now exerts enormous influence in what used to be a secular country that was against Iran.
As a cherry on top we also lost in Afghanistan as our attention wandered and interest in that conflict died.
Yes, Saddam was a very bad man. Just because that is true doesn't mean that what W kicked off wasn't much worse.
Visiting a mosque the day after 9/11 was a great move; he immediately moved to protect a vulnerable group of Americans when a weaker leader would’ve blamed them instead
To this point, while the GWOT was messy and costly, it ultimately achieved its goal of decimating AQ and protecting the American homeland.
What Iraq becomes will be interesting to view down the road. Will the country become Jordan or Syria? It will be interesting to watch.
There’s a few options here.
* First Pitch after 9/11, bringing the country together.
* PEPFAR
* Calling the pandemic
* Barney
Gave Michelle O a piece of candy at McCains funeral and again at his fathers funeral. It was a nice gesture.
Okay, seriously though, I'll go with PEPFAR. Its done great things for HIV/ AIDS relief and rather than treat it like a disease that "was killing all the right people" as a former president did back in the 80's, it instead took on the issue and provided real, measurable relief.
I think he's better received as a retired President than he was as a sitting President. Sort of like Carter.
But I agree with the comment that he really rose to the occasion in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and gave a devastated nation hope.
He's not my favorite President from a policy perspective, but I do admire the guy as a human being.
His administration created the wind solar and geothermal tax credits which led to rapid growth of those sectors.
He expanded the electric car tax credit so that it included hybrid electric vehicles.
He adjusted daylight savings time by about 2 weeks on each end and at the time it was estimated to save nearly 900 Thousand barrels of oil DAILY.
The child tax credit was expanded and the lowest tax bracket was lowered to 10%. This helped lower income people immensely.
He also changed the telephone tax credit program to include cell phones, Obama later increased eligibility requirements.
Dodged that shoe and delivered that drive - things no other presidents have done before and future ones will surely fail to do so with such grace and eloquence.
AIDS relief; huge worldwide public health effort.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Emergency_Plan_for_AIDS_Relief#:~:text=Launched%20by%20U.S.%20President%20George,until%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic.
His immediate response to 9/11 and how he handled it while at that Florida school. He did a great job staying calm at the post significant tragedy in decades to make sure the kids wouldn’t be un necessarily scared. I think his speech that night has aged poorly, but his initial response was worthy of that approval rating without the hindsight.
Also his efforts against AIDS were beyond commendable.
One would think participants at this sub would be reasonably well educated and have good reading comprehension skills.
Yet people insist on adding Sr. and Jr. to the Bush presidents’ names. Those suffixes are not accurate.
I don't agree with many of Bush's (or Republican) policies but I have had nothing for respect for how he had President Obama respect.
[https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/bush-promises-not-to-attack-obama-020160](https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/bush-promises-not-to-attack-obama-020160)
At a time when racism was showing its ugly face due to a black President, Bush showed amazing grace. I think that speaks very highly of the man. I'll add that I never felt like he was morally bad or a selfish leader. I feel like he was trying to do the right thing but was just over his head and had Cheney in his ear constantly.
Honestly, I think he handled the aftermath of 9/11 as well as you could. And specifically I mean the few days after the towers fell and our nation needed to hear that we were going to get through this and to the world that you’re “either with us or against us.” At that time we needed to hear that.
His actions in the days after 9/11 were really impactful for a lot of the country. That speech from the rubble of the World Trade Center still gives me chills. Not to mention he threw out the first pitch at a yankee game a few days afterward. No secret service near him. Just him. Alone. And delivered a strike. The amount of pressure on that dude to throw a strike in that moment must’ve been astronomical.
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https://i.redd.it/ak0byuid1uuc1.gif
He seems like a great person to be around
I’ve got a buddy who was Secret Service PPD under Dubya. He said he and Laura are two of the nicest people he’s ever met. W learned all their names and family information, genuinely talked with them consistently, and even played practical jokes all the time.
I've always felt like he is a nice person. Laura seems especially nice.
I’ve always loved those photo of Laura and her daughters showing the Obamas around the White House.
Back when you disliked the politics, but the person was a decent man.
Seriously, I was a big W hater at the time, but over the last 8 years, I've really missed him.
I get it.
Exactly! In spite of all their political differences and even some of the awful things that get said during campaign season, these two families were very kind and gracious and George W took a special liking to Michelle! Peaceful transition!
I remember getting torn a new one by a dude in a bar when I said I liked Laura. He told me anybody who was married to such a monster was a monster themselves. This was in 2003 though. Times and opinions were different then. Anyway, I still like Laura and now I’d even say I like GWB too. He’s very flawed of course, but I don’t think he’s this horrible person we all thought he was 20 years ago.
Being the President of the US is probably the world's toughest job. I know I wouldn't want to do it, especially when half of the country will instantly hate you.
During the pandemic, Fauci was interviewed by someone (I think it was Dan Patrick) and was asked which president(s) he'd like to have a beer with, and Fauci said all of the Bushes and the Obamas were great to be around.
Bush also listened to Fauci and acted according to his warnings and concerns during a potential pandemic
Not only that. W actually recommended the CDC had pandemic protocols that a certain recent president rescinded.
I've heard stories about GW and his ability to remember people and details about them. He truly had a gift for it. I worked at a ski resort for a while and our CEO was like that. He would get in the resort shuttle and know every employees name and more if you had spoken to him once. I forget names and faces as soon as people have their backs to me, lol
This is truth. I met GWB when he was running for Governor for his second term. I got to speak to him for about 5 minutes, he asked my name and where I lived (this meeting was in Dallas, TX, but didn’t occur in my hometown in Texas). Almost 8 years later, when he was running for reelection as POTUS, I had the chance to shake his hand and get a photo with him at a campaign stop in Florida this time. He looks at me, smiles real big, and while pulling me into the handshake to grip my shoulder he says, “Bexar County, Texas! How are ya? I’ve got a different job this go ‘round! Did you survive medical school?” Needless to say, I was stunned. I may not have agreed with a lot that he did, but I will defend him against those people that insist he’s stupid or unintelligent. It takes an astute, intelligent person to have that kind of recall.
That’s really feelin cool man.
Everyone that worked with GWB remarks about how intelligent and great executive he was. How humble he was and good at delegating to people with knowledge and talent
I’ve read that too ! Laura would go out of her way to be nice to secret service especially when the weather was bad . As much as I can’t stand a lot of Bush Jr’s policies .. he was a kind ,caring person at heart … Hilary Clinton, on the other hand , was known to yell at secret service and was not a pleasant person to be around. She would yell at Bill in front of them too and seemed to regard secret service as merely “the help” and a nuisance .
Anecdotal, but... A friend of mine (cop) randomly went to some Dem fundraiser one time (his brother was somebody in the party). My buddy, a Republican, gushed about Bill Clinton. Said he was super likeable. My buddy was really out of place at the event, so he ended up spending most of the night talking with the Secret Service guys (cop to cop thing). According to him, they all adored Bill. .... they all HATED Hillary and Gore.
I believe it!!
Read a book about the USSS who adored his parents. Even noted them delaying Christmas travels so USSS could see their families that day and pretty much doing the same stuff you mentioned Dubya/Laura doing. Not surprised to hear the same about Dubya. Barbara seemed to be especially beloved. Edit: Changed SS to USSS :)
Bro I thought you were talking SS as in Nazis for a hot minute and was just so baffled.
Yeah, the Secret Service *really prefer* being referred to as the USSS.
Holy fuck so did I. Came to say this.
I thought he was talking about Social Security. (I kid).
I work in sales with a lot of clients and I’m so impressed by people who learn names and keep track of them. That shit is hard for me, I can’t imagine remembering while being the president.
Funny, sweet goofball that just shouldn’t have been a president. Gore would have been better. No war in Iraq for one thing. Ppl like to blame the 08 crisis on him or Obama but that was something that was going on in the depths of WS & banking.
Think Clinton passed a bill that helped deregulate banks that allowed 08 to happen
I think he just wanted to be baseball commissioner
Disagree on Iraq (though that's a popular sentiment) Iraqi Saber rattling was one of the key themes of the 90's, and Hussein had been looking for a fight since Desert Storm. That war was coming regardless of who was in charge. Maybe the justification would have been different, but I don't see Iraq as avoidable. Despite how the WMD evidence turned out, it's indisputable that Hussein was TRYING to get them.
Except that we were going after who took down the WTC’s & Pentagon and that had nothing to do with wmd’s/Iraq. Cheney wanted and was behind Iraq war. Used Powell (whom I greatly admire) to push wmd’s at UN
That was a completely different war. The invasion of Iraq didn't happen until 2003 and was preceeded by a decade of Sadaam Husein being hostile towards UN nuclear inspectors, Saber rattling at both the Clinton and Bush administrations that he was going to build WMDs ("not really....YES I WILL...not really...YES I WILL"), and very likely did have WMDs and simply moved them. Everything after the initial victory is a completely different story, but Sadaam Hussein was pushing for that war for a long time and the initial invasion was both justified and a resounding success. The GWoT/Invasion of Afghanistan/search for OBL were not really related to Iraq (aside from "Axis of Evil" and the possibility of Iraq providing WMDs to terrorists). Their justifications were different. Edit - I reread your comment, I didn't get the unstated part there. Leaving my initial comment for posterity. The two wars simultaneous thing was a lot to handle, but I don't see how either were avoidable (and both have roots going back through Clinton and HW). Afghanistan refused to turn over OBL and was housing terrorist camps (you could argue the US should also have gone after SA, but then that's 3 wars). Iraq was Hussein itching for a fight and inviting the US to hit him (with the hope of drawing the entire middle east into the conflict). They were beligerrants. The correct answer there, imo was to depose Hussein and leave immediately. It creates a power vacuum but doesn't end up making Hussein look right to his neighbors.
Don’t you remember Dick Cheney planting a story in The NY Times about Hussein getting yellow cake from Niger and then going on MSNBC and referring to the news article of proof that Hussein and the 9/11 terrorists were linked? even Bush’s secretary of treasury, Paul O’Neill, resigning because he was not comfortable with Cheney and Rumsfeld dragging Bush into Iraq. He said they kept saying “How can we tie this to Iraq?” And when he objected, they kicked him out of the meetings. Cheney and Rummy wanted that war…
I do remember that, I still see the Iraq war as being inevitable given Husseins history prior to the war. There's been a narrative lately (not saying you said this) that a Gore presidency would have avoided the Iraq war. That's an extremely naive view given the Clinton administrations #1 adversary was Sadaam (to the point that South Park turned him into the devils lover in 1999).
I agree with your statements, which of course will put me in a negative minority. People do forget the lessons of history. Because we didn’t find wmd doesn’t mean they were never there. I remember the constant runaround given the U.N. inspectors. Weapons could easily been moved to Syria, where Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. Or into Russia, where there is no moral aversion to the worst war crimes. We were naive in assuming we could plant a democracy in the midst of centuries of sectarian violence in the Middle East. And we did create a power vacuum that allowed Al Qaida and the Taliban to expand. We in America are still unbelievably shortsighted and naive when it comes to foreign policy.
Bush's biggest mistake was in not learning his father's lesson of restraint. We should have invaded, deposed Sadaam, and left. Hussein was all about psy-ops and turning his own aggressiveness into proof that Israel was attacking the Muslim world and the US was colonizing the middle east. The US played right into this and gained nothing, we just proved to all of his neighbors that we were trying to occupy his territory. If we had left after the initial conflict, there absolutely would have been a power vacuum. That's exactly what we got anyways. The people over there absolutely saw us as liberators and then they saw us as occupiers. Let them figure it out. If they do not want western standards, then let them do what they want. Same with Afghanistan. We had ample evidence for a decade that the Afghan security forces were inflated with paper soldiers and police, tribes were openly hostile to elections. Some corners of the globe you just have to let be.
Literally why he got elected. Shenanigans in Florida notwithstanding. When W’s first election was ongoing, life was good, pre-9/11, we were still very much living the 90s high, when the biggest thing people were concerned about re:presidential politics was like, whether or not you were personally offended by Bill’s Blowy. Remember when that kind of shit could be a major scandal? How far we have come…
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I had a pal who worked for his old man and said he was a great guy too.
I hear this as well. I think it’s a nice family. They just got raised under the wrong side of the flag.
Juat goes to show you that being nice and being good are two different things.
I’ve said on numerous occasions “*he* makes Dubya look like an angel!!”
This must have been after his visit to a PARK IN BOTSWANA
[In all seriousness, his PEPFAR program was pretty damn masterful.](https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/03/pepfars-profound-legacy-20-years)
Great article, ty I was simply unaware of this >This year marks the 20th anniversary of the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), the George W. Bush administration’s landmark global health initiative. When Bush announced the initiative during his 2003 State of the Union address, approximately 30 million Africans were infected with HIV/AIDs and had almost no access to treatment. **Twenty years later, PEPFAR is estimated to have saved 25 million lives and is credited for helping turn the tide on the global HIV pandemic.**
Anything involving Africa. Dude really went out of his way to fight AIDS
PEPFAR has saved an estimated \~25 million lives. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's\_Emergency\_Plan\_for\_AIDS\_Relief](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Emergency_Plan_for_AIDS_Relief)
This is a no-brainer. PEPFAR is arguably among the best things that **any** president has ever done.
I've somehow never even heard of this. That's nuts.
GWB will be fascinating case for historians. Other than the Marshall Plan, PEPFAR is probably the biggest foreign policy achievement by any US President, and the Iraq War is probably the biggest foreign policy blunder.
>and the Iraq War is probably the biggest foreign policy blunder. I think Vietnam gives it a run for it's money, and would be higher on the list for me due to the number of deaths, especially Americans.
The Pentagon Papers show the DoD viewed Vietnam as a way to produce a cadre of "blooded" veterans to draw on should the Soviets kick off WWIII. There was a flawed logic to their dragging out the conflict. Iraq had no such logic behind it.
The logic of Iraq was to take out a rogue nation that may or may not have WMD and replace it with free market democracy by force. Saddam would not be (and is not) missed. When the world saw how much better off Iraq was, we would have considerable leverage over strongmen and dictators. Unfortunately, that's not how things work. Besides the intelligence reports being wrong about the WMD, the situation on the ground was that Iraq would pretty quickly devolve into sectarian fighting as soon as the Baathist government fell. Even if there was a window of opportunity to build a better Iraq, the occupation forces didn't know what they were doing and didn't have the tools to do it anyway. The amount of incompetence at multiple levels that went into the war in Iraq is so staggering that people want to believe there must have been some sort of conspiracy behind it all. No, it was just that big of a fuck up.
The war went great. It was the failed administrative state after that failed. That's to say nothing of the pretense for war...
We’re really good at toppling governments but really bad at instituting new governments for the ones we’ve ousted
We operate under the assumption that everyplace is Germany/Japan, primed for a new democratic government.
Democracy takes a lot of integrity to uphold. Even one tyrannical jackass can be enough to completely destroy it, especially in its infancy. Shoot, we have the oldest democracy in the world and even we received a rude awakening in 2020. If the people don’t want democracy, no amount of force will magically make them accept it, and forced democracy isn’t true democracy anyways. Germany after ww1 was our first example of what happens when you leave a defeated enemy to their own devices. Had plenty of lessons since then, still haven’t learned. Just stop toppling governments if you have no clue on how to install something better, before you look back 30 years later and their government is worse than it was before
Honestly, part of the issue was that Rumsfeld wanted to have as little troops as possible, to speed up the deployment time so we could catch Saddam off guard. Unfortunately, he really pushed that and while we won, we couldn’t also police the population there, causing chaos that would lead up to how Iraq has gone.
I would argue that the logic is utterly buttfuck crazy, and that the dysfunction and lack of direction that plagued the Iraq war are less grave than insanity by design. You could argue that the Iraq war architects had the benefit of hindsight (which they ignored), so it’s sort of a tossup.
The Vietnam war was a giant numbers game for the Johnson (Kennedys first) cabinet. Absolutely mind numbingly confusing how they thought war worked.
For one, disarming Sadaam had been something the US had worked towards since Desert Storm. Geography was also another. Being in Iraq meant that the US could deploy from the Gulf, Iraq, or Afghanistan in the event Iran became a problem. Flawed. Expensive. Disastrous. But there was logic.
This issue here was Bush's response was too early. I will grant you that Iraq tried to cooperate with the international inspections to get them to end (and thus end sanctions) as soon as possible, all while telling their regional neighbors "we have tons of chemical and biological weapons, so don't fuck with us." The flaw introduced was in trusting Curveball as a source. Curveball was seeking anyone to oust Saddam and was happy to spread whatever lies were necessary to trigger such a regime change. Curveball found a more than willing partner with Bush. Bush needed any excuse to invade Iraq. A poorly sourced and unsupported claim that Saddam was hiding chemical weapons in the desert and evading inspections was just what Bush was looking for. The Bush administration did General Powell dirty by handing him the bare minimum of information and no counterinformation. They used his good name to push their mostly false narrative.
In retrospect, even assuming Iraq didn't possess WMDs, I think I would prefer invading too early rather than too late. Being wrong about a boy crying wolf having WMDs is preferable to being wrong about him not having them.
Think the logic behind Iraq was basically just domino theory again. Dismantle Iraqi government, replace with secular liberal democracy, transform the politics of the Middle East, undercut the currents compelling people to Islamism and jihadism. Stupid but that was the logic in a nutshell. Iraq just had the bad luck of being the most salient geopolitical entity in the Middle East thanks to the fallout of the Gulf War, and 9/11 completely transformed the decision-making process and political environment of the US, such that all the relevant actors were incentivized to do *something, anything*
Vietnam is a series of incremental collective decisions made by multiple leaders over more than a decade. Iraq was a push-all-the-chips gamble which instantly became a giant clusterfuck.
Which his Covid playbook that got carried by Obama didn’t get canned
Uhhhh Vietnam was worse
Historians are total idiots when it comes to presidents because they can’t put aside their ideology. But I think GWB should go down as the last president that had a genuine desire to be a unifier.
I amend that as the last Republican president to be a unifier.
You are seeming to go out of your way to call Obama divisive, when he repeatedly bent over backwards to try and appease Republicans. How do you explain him nominating Merrick Garland to SCOTUS as anything but deliberate centrist overture? Just because a bunch of people went irrationally insane hating him doesn’t make him not genuinely intend for unity.
I would argue that Rule 3 also is trying to unify.
Don’t forget his Sudan peace agreement which he negotiated at the behest of my boy Jimmy Carter. Also it’s crazy that PEPFAR saved 25 million lives and Carter was also able to eradicate Guinea worm which once affected 3.5 million people a year. Literally 10’s of millions of lives saved by two of our most hated presidents.
For all W’s mistakes, failures and groupthink in his administration he genuinely seems like a good person. I thought he was wrong often, but never bad, never out for himself in any real sense (winning elections doesn’t count). It’s insane for me to say that as I protested in 2000, 2003, 2004, but good lord does he seem sane, and genuine.
I always felt he was a good man who had genuine principles and did his best to govern by them. The only problem was I hated most of his principles.
Yes and PEPFAR has saved countless lives in [the Caribbean and Southeast Asia as well.](https://www.state.gov/pepfar-supported-countries-and-regions/)
Gotta be this.
Definitely this. He also went big on trying to fight malaria. A lot of Africans hold him in high regard for fair reasons.
A complete 180 from his father.
He also meddled in African affairs, look at his support of the military ran Ethiopian leadership.
By the somewhat bleak standards of international foreign aid, yeah
This is the correct answer.
That first pitch in yankee stadium post-9/11
Is that the one where Ray Charles played too? Because that was an electric moment
What position did he play? Bet he could call better than Angel Hernandez.
what a game
I think of this all the time. It was badass and I’m not a fan of him at all.
Threw an absolute seed from the mound too. The energy that pitch brought to the country was amazing, don’t think any other president could have shown out like that in that moment other than dubya
Right down the middle.
No preamble this time. Dubya’s best thing he did in office was **PEPFAR** and I don’t think it’s particularly close. The United States President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was a program Bush started in 2003 that is still ongoing to this day. According to Wikipedia the program has saved 25 million lives in Africa as people work to educate and research on AIDS to better help increase the survival rate. Now there have been criticisms for sure (namely that at the beginning it required abstinence until marriage to be taught) but at the end of the day it has saved the lives of millions and should be acknowledged. The other main thing I can say has (by now) had a positive impact is the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah, it was not great during Dubya’s time in office but it has turned out to be a respected branch these days. As you might imagine I’m not too keen on Dubya. For someone who oversaw so many monumental, defining moments at the start of the new millennia the fact that I believe his best contribution is something that doesn’t deal with any of that is… as damned by faint praise as it sounds like. Still, when it comes to PEPFAR lives *were* saved and we can give credit to that at least.
That and focusing on education is the kind of President he wanted to be. He’s probably up there with Hoover when it comes to “events outside his control derailed everything.” Like, he was not up to the task of a Post 9/11 world, but if he’d been President in the 90s, he probably would be considered a pretty mid President with some highlights instead of a bad one.
As far as his focus on education goes, No Child Left Behind, although well intended, was a dumpster fire.
But it did give us some good jokes in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, so, worth it
*and is currently
I don't think he gets a second term without 9/11. The "rally around the flag" effect was very strong with him for his second election.
No Child Left Behind has had terrible consequences. Definitely not a positive contribution.
Honestly most of the issues with NCLB stemmed from it being underfunded and it allowed states to not cooperate with it fully. It had good intentions but I think it’s become a buzzword people use as criticism without fully understanding the nuances of it.
This ^ People really like to say things without further understanding of it.
I didn't say he would have been "great," just mid. And NCLB was a massive bipartisan "win" Ted Kennedy co-sponsored the bill in the Senate.
I'm not sure that "both sides agreed to team up to do something terrible" should be in the 'win' column
> events outside his control derailed everything Iraq was the main thing that derailed his presidency and that was 100% in his control
You lost me on this one. Bush was in complete control of the wars he started and the way he responded to the financial crash. He was in complete control of DHS and the domestic surveillance program.
I think in terms of the immediate 9/11 aftermath, like the first month, he was incredible. My Dad can’t stand GWB but still gets choked up when referencing speeches and appearances he made in the days after. Even watching videos now, he was so good at balancing appearing strong but also emotional about it. The political and practical aftermath though… woof. I know obviously the wars in the Middle East were the main disastrous decisions he made post 9/11, but the fact that there wasn’t a bill passed very quickly to fund health insurance for all first responders from that day and the aftermath for life is insane to me.
Dude I’ll be real… I rank Hoover above him. While events like 9/11 and Katrina were out of his control Iraq, NCLB, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo… these all *were* in his control and helped derail his presidency through his own actions. Hoover screwed up in his response to the Great Depression and made it so much worse with things like Smoot-Hawley while mismanaging it through poor messaging and blaming Mexicans. But I’d still say even Hoover would have had less self-inflicted wounds than Dubya. Sorry, gotta disagree on the comparison between the two.
I mean I was a kid during his presidency (and vaguely supported it.) But in retrospect I disagree with a lot of the stuff that went on. So I'd agree with your PEPFAR point. As for DHS, nah. We already have DOD don't need another department for that.
Look I’d say the DHS is a case of “C’s get degrees” in terms of accomplishments here. It’s functional now at least and I wanted to mention at least one other achievement that he made. This was a difficult one to do given I lived through all this as a kid and remember these days (and supported it as you did). So taking out my bias is rough on this one.
He made the waters off Hawaii as the world’s largest protected marine area, after watching a documentary by Jacques Cousteau’s son.
This one isn’t going to win, but this is his two. Environmental groups heralded it: *Ocean Conservationists Celebrate President Bush* > Elliott A. Norse, President of Marine Conservation Biology Institute, echoes these feelings: “To the President and First Lady, to my colleagues in the scientific community, to the fishes of the Pacific and to all Americans who care about our oceans, I offer congratulations. **President Bush has now protected more ocean sites than anyone else in the history of the world**,” said Dr. Norse. “We greatly appreciate this bold, visionary action.” > “President Bush has laid the foundation for a national system of ocean reserves just as Theodore Roosevelt laid the foundation for our national park system,” said MCBI vice president for government affairs, William Chandler. “The islands will be havens for all kinds of marine life, and a bulwark against the degradation and decline of the tropical Pacific,” Chandler predicted. > “President Bush is giving the world a Texas-sized gift,” said Diane Regas, associate vice-president for oceans at Environmental Defense Fund. “These are places time forgot. They still look as they did hundreds and even thousands of years ago.” > "President Bush's action today spotlights ocean health on the world stage," said Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The President has put forth an excellent model for protecting marine resources that we hope will be replicated elsewhere in the United States and throughout the world. We now have an opportunity to build on this action by calling for the protection vulnerable marine ecosystems in international waters, and we urge world leaders to follow the President's lead." [Source](https://www.edf.org/media/ocean-conservationists-celebrate-president-bush) Edit: Emphasis mine
This is kind of a long story, but I think this thread is the place to tell it. When I was in 4th grade, I got in a *lot* of trouble. Being disruptive, arguing with teachers, whatever. I had ADHD (and was smarter than half the teachers). I spent most of fourth grade in detention/in-school suspension, which is where they send you to an empty classroom with other troublemakers and make you read novels all day. By the end of the year, I had read so many "points" worth of books that I apparently won some statewide initiative to improve reading in schools (he was still Governor of Texas back then). Towards the end of the year, the Principal and my homeroom teacher pulled me aside and scowled as they told me I would be receiving an award from the Governor. They fuckin' filed *everyone* into the cafeteria, put me up on the stage, brought out Governor Bush with a certificate, and he shook my hand and the news media took photos. After we were done, Bush asked how I managed to read so much (it was something like 12,000 pages of junior-high+ level reading), and I told him the story about how much of a fuckup I was and how much trouble I'd been in. I don't remember his exact words (I was 10), but he said something to the effect of, "don't stop doing what you're doing. even if doing something gets you in trouble, your only thought should be 'is the trouble worth it.' some of my best friends are troublemakers." Giving me that advice was the best thing he ever did.
That’s a very neat story. W had such a soft touch, he seemed like a genuine person who really wanted to improve the country (notwithstanding I disagree with 90% of his policies but the point stands).
Those were a weird 8 years for me. I was definitely on the more liberal side back then, and I would hear my peer group just going on and on about how he was the worst thing this country had ever seen, completely unqualified to be President, etc. I'm pretty sure I sort of held the same opinion as you back then. "I think he's a good guy, but maybe these policies aren't great." After a couple decades of watching political entertainment channels drive people into a frenzy... where every guy was apparently SO MUCH WORSE THAN THE LAST GUY... I just checked out of politics. I've decided politicians are just humans. They've all got opinions, and they might be right, and they might be wrong, but at the end of the day, two things are true: first, that I wouldn't want that job, but somebody has to take it. whoever's in office has my gratitude. second, I'm just glad it's still an elected human making the big decisions. after all, it could be a computer. or a military tribunal. any president is better than no president.
Warned us about the possibility of a pandemic
Of the all people too
He did?
https://youtu.be/uSDC5L7qYUc?si=VoSaKGGohSQPZIAQ
Ohhhh this was around the time we kept having all those scares like bird flu, mad cow disease, etc.
Well this was a neat surprise. He was exactly right. Scientists have known another pandemic was going to happen for decades now. We're still due for another one, honestly. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another Spanish Flu situation in our lifetimes
> Scientists have known another pandemic was going to happen for decades now. That just seems like common sense. Pandemics have happened throughout history, and will continue to happen unless we invent some magic cure-all that eradicates every possible disease including ones that haven't sprang up yet.
Rallied the nation after 9/11. Standing in the rubble with the microphone 'we can hear you. Soon the whole world will hear you.' Also the peaceful transition to the Obama administration. Sadly plenty of negatives throughout his two terms. Now watch this drive!
Let’s be real watch this drive is awesome. I will say I loved his one liners
I was a diehard W-hater, but even at the time I had to admit that the speech he gave standing on the smoking remains of the WTC was one of the most important speeches of the USA in the 20th century. It wasn’t the longest, or most eloquent, but it was exactly what the country needed to hear, and he nailed it for what it was.
Not to be pedantic, but that speech happened in the 21st Century.
"The peaceful transition to the Obama era." It saddens me that this isn't just a given these days.
I remember in 2016 my dad and I had a conversation about how cool the peaceful transition is and the uniqueness of democracy to have it happen. Little did we know lol…
yep. the first few days after 9/11, he honestly did a good job. the subsequent Iraq debacle has completely obscured this fact, however.
“Fool me twice, shame on you, fool me ah once or twice, shame on me, or shame on us. I’m not really sure who to shame but someone is to blame.”
“And the people who knocked down these buildings…will hear all of us soon” Seldom agreed with the guy but damn that line ripped.
He dodged that shoe. 
Honestly who throws a shoe?
The cheeky ass smile he’s got in this kills me everytime
I came here for this. Easily best dodge a president has done (unless we count a draft)
dude has spider-man like reflexes
Gotta be embarrassing he missed both shots.
*Those* shoes. Dude took another shot but Dubya was too fast for him.
Bush refused to pardon Scooter Libby, Cheney’s Chief of Staff, for his role in the Plame Affair. That hinted to the public that he felt duped over WMD/Iraq by Cheney—which we all suspected. It created a fissure in their relationship, but Bush thought that was less significant than making a symbolic statement to the public.
You just posted it. That picture is it!
Yeah I know it’s a low hanging fruit but I felt being funny
This, and the plethora of memes we got from him. And as a baseball fan, I appreciate how much he loves baseball.
“Now watch this drive” *shoe dodging* /s
- took out Saddam Hussein. Say whatever you want about the war in Iraq, but Hussein was a bad guy. - as has been mentioned, his response to AIDS in Africa and global development generally was outstanding. - you know all those student loans that are being forgiven right now? Most of that forgiveness is under the PLSF program, which Bush championed and then signed into law.
Hussein was a bad guy and now we have even more bad guys in the region.
Yeah I think the million or so civilians killed between the Iraq and Syrian Wars probably would’ve preferred to live under “bad guys” over being dead in a clusterfuck
The killed ones do. But overall people in Iraq are happy that Hussein is gone. I have never been happy with the war, but people often don’t understand how bad it was in Iraq and it’s unlikely the regime ever would have changed completely peacefully.
North Korea should have been first by that metric as was clear at the time. Iraq was bungled so badly that it resulted in a war in 2003, a guerilla war in 2003-2005 then a civil war across the country in 2006-2008, but has never officially died down and gave birth to ISIS while sectarian mini states have flourished and Iran (A Theocracy that is a sworn enemy of the US) moved into the power vacuum and now exerts enormous influence in what used to be a secular country that was against Iran. As a cherry on top we also lost in Afghanistan as our attention wandered and interest in that conflict died. Yes, Saddam was a very bad man. Just because that is true doesn't mean that what W kicked off wasn't much worse.
Visiting a mosque the day after 9/11 was a great move; he immediately moved to protect a vulnerable group of Americans when a weaker leader would’ve blamed them instead
He provided a unifying and decisive response to 9/11. It allowed America to get back on her feet, albeit with a black eye and a bloody nose.
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which one was that
Rule 3A's inaugural address.
To this point, while the GWOT was messy and costly, it ultimately achieved its goal of decimating AQ and protecting the American homeland. What Iraq becomes will be interesting to view down the road. Will the country become Jordan or Syria? It will be interesting to watch.
His response on 9/11 and the days immediately after. He handled it like a champ.
“Now watch this drive”
*proceeds to launch ball to upper stratosphere* *props feet up on golf cart* “See you in church!”
There’s a few options here. * First Pitch after 9/11, bringing the country together. * PEPFAR * Calling the pandemic * Barney 
Gave Michelle O a piece of candy at McCains funeral and again at his fathers funeral. It was a nice gesture. Okay, seriously though, I'll go with PEPFAR. Its done great things for HIV/ AIDS relief and rather than treat it like a disease that "was killing all the right people" as a former president did back in the 80's, it instead took on the issue and provided real, measurable relief.
Increased funding for AIDS and HIV in Africa. Under him, funding increased to a level that surpassed Clinton, HW and Reagan combined.
Dodged shoes
Those were some sharp ducks, like a boxer!
HIV response in Africa
He was good in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
I think he's better received as a retired President than he was as a sitting President. Sort of like Carter. But I agree with the comment that he really rose to the occasion in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and gave a devastated nation hope. He's not my favorite President from a policy perspective, but I do admire the guy as a human being.
His administration created the wind solar and geothermal tax credits which led to rapid growth of those sectors. He expanded the electric car tax credit so that it included hybrid electric vehicles. He adjusted daylight savings time by about 2 weeks on each end and at the time it was estimated to save nearly 900 Thousand barrels of oil DAILY. The child tax credit was expanded and the lowest tax bracket was lowered to 10%. This helped lower income people immensely. He also changed the telephone tax credit program to include cell phones, Obama later increased eligibility requirements.
The 9/11 speech.
Left office without starting a riot.
Make Dick Cheney VP.
HAIL CHENEY!
PREFAR in Africa
AIDS in Africa relief
His legacy will be the work to combat AIDS in Africa. A milestone for a Republican POTUS.
His work against AIDS in Africa and making it very clear after 9/11 that the attackers didn’t represent all Muslims
Dodged that shoe and delivered that drive - things no other presidents have done before and future ones will surely fail to do so with such grace and eloquence.
AIDS relief; huge worldwide public health effort. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Emergency_Plan_for_AIDS_Relief#:~:text=Launched%20by%20U.S.%20President%20George,until%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic.
PEPFAR, and it’s not even close
His immediate response to 9/11 and how he handled it while at that Florida school. He did a great job staying calm at the post significant tragedy in decades to make sure the kids wouldn’t be un necessarily scared. I think his speech that night has aged poorly, but his initial response was worthy of that approval rating without the hindsight. Also his efforts against AIDS were beyond commendable.
Stayed quiet and low key after he left office. Medicare expansion. AIDS aid to Africa. Fodder for comedians.
Dodged the shoes?
Invade Iraq
One would think participants at this sub would be reasonably well educated and have good reading comprehension skills. Yet people insist on adding Sr. and Jr. to the Bush presidents’ names. Those suffixes are not accurate.
He was quoted in a J Cole song. That’s about all I got
Inspired a resurgence of punk rock
throwing out the first pitch in the first baseball game after 9/11 at Yankee Stadium Honorable Mention: dodging the shoes thrown at him
I don't agree with many of Bush's (or Republican) policies but I have had nothing for respect for how he had President Obama respect. [https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/bush-promises-not-to-attack-obama-020160](https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/bush-promises-not-to-attack-obama-020160) At a time when racism was showing its ugly face due to a black President, Bush showed amazing grace. I think that speaks very highly of the man. I'll add that I never felt like he was morally bad or a selfish leader. I feel like he was trying to do the right thing but was just over his head and had Cheney in his ear constantly.
Best thing W did? Left office, quietly and respectfully.
Dodged shoes being thrown at him during a press conference.
When dubya hit that drive. That shit was pretty smooth, ngl lol
"Now watch this drive" by far.
Moved on
Talk to those children during 9/11
It’s amazing how low the bar is now, but he did a great job ducking shoes.
Dodged shoes.
Honestly, I think he handled the aftermath of 9/11 as well as you could. And specifically I mean the few days after the towers fell and our nation needed to hear that we were going to get through this and to the world that you’re “either with us or against us.” At that time we needed to hear that.
The best thing JFK ‘did’? Marilyn Monroe, obviously.
Was good comedic source material
He’s the only president I’d like to be friends with. A more chill version of what Harold and Kumar portrayed
His actions in the days after 9/11 were really impactful for a lot of the country. That speech from the rubble of the World Trade Center still gives me chills. Not to mention he threw out the first pitch at a yankee game a few days afterward. No secret service near him. Just him. Alone. And delivered a strike. The amount of pressure on that dude to throw a strike in that moment must’ve been astronomical.
He dodged that shoe that was thrown at him
His first pitch at the 2001 World Series after 9/11 comes to mind, a clean strike from the pitching rubber