masschamber said:
Final-Fan said:
masschamber said:
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and for the record if you look at Presidents Nixon was probably one of the best but people hate him for really no reason except the audacity to spy on the democrats and his "enemies list" which all indications point to that he didn't even no about it.
1. Nixon opened relations with China, really weakening the Soviet's position in the cold war, which helped to enforce detente
2.Hanoi would have surrendered eventually under his tactics, well I guess commy sympathizers wouldn't like either of those
3. Worthwhile and actually effective environmental acts like Superfund were under Nixon, but Environmentalists like things that control peoples lives not actually get things done
4. The actual enforcement of Brown v Board was under Nixon,
5. Nixon actually proposed enacting a law forcing all employers to provide health care insurance and make a sliding scale government provided health care insurance, what made this different is that the state didn't control all health care, but it still created a forum in which health care |
Nixon did a lot of really great things as president which are overshadowed by his paranoia-fueled abuses of power.
Bush's presidency has been marked by one failure after another and the only things his administration has been really good at are abusing power, flaunting laws up to and including the U.S. Constitution, dodging blame, and cutting taxes.
Frankly I'd prefer Nixon, by a mile. But to claim that he somehow didn't know about all the crap that was going on, much of it as a direct result of his orders ... well, let's just say your grasp of American history is shaky at best. |
I said Nixon wasn't aware of his enemy list, and to say my knowledge of american history is shakey is plain is foolish, I know history and I know it well and Nixon did far more good than his enemies' list and water gate could ever account for,
and to say Bush is without any accomplishments shows that your knowledge of American history isn't perfect, The War in Afganistan destroyed the taliban, but it is overshadowed by the secritarian violence in Iraq; However, the war in Iraq did expose the high levels of curruption in the U.N. Oil for food program, this really should have raised question about the UNs lack of resolve of enforcing their own resolutions against Hussien and his notorius indifference to the weapons inspectors, has been involved with expansion of NATO, numerous efforts to combat identity theft and piracy, he has accomplishments but they are downplayed and overshadowed
Is he a good president? no, is he the worst? no, he isn't that either
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OK, fair enough, but that was only a small part of the laundry list of scandals and abuses that we have come to know collectively as Watergate. The "enemies list" is pretty infamous but it hardly exonerates Nixon if he wasn't aware of that one thing. I don't think you'll find many, if any scholars, who would justify letting Nixon off the hook because of all the good he's done. If you get caught embezzling from the company you work for, would you expect to get let off the hook because of the great work you've done for your company?
I'm well aware that not every single thing in the past 7 years has been a complete and utter failure, but let's look at your example of Afghanistan. Sure, it went well, we kicked the Taliban out. But now six or seven years later the Taliban is once again growing in strength. Why? Partly because the United States has shifted its attention -- and manpower -- to Iraq, where an occupation that happened for no sufficient cause was criminally mismanaged and continues to drain blood and treasure from the U.S. Army and the U.S.A. Your defense that the situation allowed us to uncover corruption in the Oil for Food program is frankly ludicrous. There are better ways to expose corruption than by
invading a fucking country and creating a hotbed of terrorist activity. Are you familiar with the saying "the cure is worse than the disease"?
So the Bush administration had a completely justified invasion and occupation (Afghanistan) which has been
hamstrung by the diversion of hundreds of thousands of troops to another invasion and occupation which not only happened under false pretenses but was done so poorly that five years later sectarian violence is only beginning to subside, if it is subsiding and not just in a temporary lull. Iraq is the reason bin Laden is at large. bin Laden is free and Hussein is dead. Of the two, bin Laden is the only one who successfully mounted an attack on the United States. Bush's priorities are not where they should be.
As for the rest of the Bush administration's achievements: Failure to rebuild after Katrina. Illegal wiretapping. Psychotically huge deficits. Underfunding border patrols and wondering why illegal immigration is so hard to keep under control. I don't keep a list of these things but if I did it would be pretty damn long.
Bush might not be the worst president in U.S. history, but he's sure in the running. And hey, he's still got a year to go; he's still got a chance to lock up the title.
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