Politics and Prose: Video: James Mann on President George W. Bush

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

Just to state out first George W. Bush is the worst U.S. President in my entire thirty-nine-years on Earth. And that includes Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush’s father, who is G.W.’s father of course and Barack Obama. And all of these president’s aren’t looking very good right now and all had plenty of issues. The differences being that other than G.W. the other president’s by in large successfully dealt with the issues that came up under their presidencies.

You can’t say that about G.W. if you look at the economy, national debt, deficit, banking system, two wars oversees and I could probably go on. American president’s are judged by the situation of the country when they came to office and the situation of the country when they leave office. And other than not getting hit again inside of the United States after 9/11, which of course he deserves credit for as Commander-in-Chief, its hard to find an area of the country where it was better off in 2009 when President Bush left office and 2001 when he came into office. And even 9/11 a big fact is we got hit in the first place in America because of intelligence failures.

Now to try to sound somewhat positive about President Bush and even factual. I give him credit for giving the Republican Party alternatives to how to look at poverty in America which he actually took seriously and providing a vision for how government can help low-income people when it comes to poverty and education. By empowering state and local government’s, as well as non-profits in the private sector to help Americans in poverty. But also help people in poverty around the world. That so-called Reform Conservatives people like Representative Paul Ryan and his brother Jeb Bush are pushing today. Which is something that Republicans desperately need to do in order to connect with Americans who aren’t wealthy.

Another thing about President Bush. Imagine had President Bush’s foreign and national security policy been what he ran on in 2000. A humble foreign policy where we are engaged around the world with out allies, but not trying to govern the world ourselves. 9/11 happens and we invade Afghanistan which is what she should’ve done to knockout that terrorist state that was harboring terrorists who were responsible for 9/11. But we don’t go to Iraq at least by ourselves and certainly not on the evidence that we had. Because Collin Powell is chief national security and foreign policy adviser. Instead of Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney or Condi Rice as Secretary of State. Collin Powell becomes G.W.’s Henry Kissinger.

The last thing I would say about George W. is that he’s not stupid. Which probably puts me in a tiny minority inside of the Democratic Party. But he’s not stupid, but unqualified to be President of the United States which can be said about probably ninety-percent of the country. Had G.W. continued as Governor of Texas, maybe he goes down as a great Governor and runs for President in 2004 or 2008 as an experienced Governor of a huge successful state. Takes a couple of years off before running for president and learns about foreign policy and national security and becomes the Ronald Reagan of his generation. But we’ll never know.