George W. Bush

page type::article thing type::person person type::politician role::president country::United States

About
George W. Bush was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001-2009. He was also Governor of Texas.

Index

 * Bush-Cheney administration: Bush's administration while president.
 * /assessment: positive and negative points, as well as debatable points which may gain significance as new facts become known
 * /impeachment: Sentiment against Bush was been strong, and there were several attempts to have him impeached
 * /lies
 * comparisons:
 * Bill Clinton vs. George W. Bush: comparison to his predecessor
 * Bush vs. Nixon: comparison to his ideological predecessor
 * Structured Debates:
 * Is Bush good for America?
 * Is Bush trustworthy?
 * Have Bush's actions in the wake of 9/11 been justified?
 * Bush allegedly stated that the Constitution is just a piece of paper, though this allegation may have been retracted
 * Election fraud has been alleged in both of the elections in which Bush won, especially the 2004 election.

Presidential Election

 * First elected by a narrow margin in the 2000 election:
 * electoral votes: 271/538 (50.3%)
 * popular vote: 47.9% (Al Gore actually had slightly more, 48.4%)
 * Re-elected in the 2004 election
 * electoral votes: 286/538 (53.2%)
 * popular vote: 50.7% (Bush was widely quoted as seeing this narrow majority as a "popular mandate")

There are continuing and credible claims, however, that both of these elections were extensively rigged to favor Bush.

Actions

 * Acts signed:
 * No Child Left Behind Act
 * USA PATRIOT Act
 * Military Commissions Act of 2006
 * Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006
 * Protect America Act of 2007
 * Promoted and approved the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which was carried through under false premises and has resulted in a stunning mess unimagined by even those who were against the initial invasion, including wholesale looting of the US Treasury via "no-bid" "cost-plus" contracts awarded for 5-year "emergency" terms, with no penalties even for utter failure to perform. In spite of this, Bush continues to steadfastly support the "war" and block (through legally-questionable means) any attempts to end it.
 * 2005-08-08 the was apparently a successful second attempt; first attempt was in 2003
 * Sierra Club Blasts Energy Policy Act (2003 version)
 * 2006-04-02 Signed the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006
 * 2006-10-17 Signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006
 * 2007-05-09 Issued the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
 * 2007-05-24 Nominated James W. Holsinger for US Surgeon General
 * 2007-07-03 commuted Scooter Libby's jail sentence
 * 2007-07-20 Issued Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq; see especially sections 4 and 5 prohibiting monetary (read: legal) assistance to anyone accused of "Threatening Stabilization Efforts in Iraq"
 * references the following Executive Orders:
 * 2003-05-22 Executive Order Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq and Certain Other Property in Which Iraq Has An Interest: "This situation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat." Who knew?
 * 2003-08-28 Blocking Property of the Former Iraqi Regime, Its Senior Officials and Their Family Members, and Taking Certain Other Actions: "I, George W. Bush, President of the United States of America, hereby expand the scope of the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, to address the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by obstacles to the orderly reconstruction of Iraq..."

Opinions About

 * 2007-08-03 Think Tank Suggests Bush should be President For Life: reprint of "Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy" by Philip Atkinson, originally published on The Family Security Foundation, Inc.'s web site and later removed
 * Argues that a ruler often has to make unpopular choices and shouldn't have to be subject to the will (or whim) of the people; completely ignores the fact that many of the "mob" who don't like Bush or his actions have made very cogent arguments for this dislike, which have generally gone unanswered anywhere (much less in this article or by Bush himself). Paints Julius Caesar's imperial takeover of Rome as a positive thing, bringing peace and prosperity to a nation formerly in turmoil. (Sure, and I bet Germany would have been peaceful under Hitler, at least in the official accounts.)
 * 2007-08-16 Group that advocated Bush become "President-for-Life" linked to Bush Administration itself: they're not even denying that Bush is anti-democracy anymore, if they ever did.
 * 2007-07-04 I Accuse You, Mr. Bush... by Keith Olbermann (Related: 2007-07-02 Libby bail-out): a good list of charges
 * 2007-03-14 The president receives "lessons" from his neoconservative tutors by Glenn Greenwald
 * 2006-10-06 Olbermann to Bush: 'A Special Comment About Lying' by Keith Olbermann (video with full transcript and reader comments)
 * 2006-10 Let's quit while we're behind by Christopher Buckley: 'Who knew, in 2000, that "compassionate conservatism" meant bigger government, unrestricted government spending, government intrusion in personal matters, government ineptitude, and cronyism in disaster relief? Who knew, in 2000, that the only bill the president would veto, six years later, would be one on funding stem-cell research? A more accurate term for Mr. Bush's political philosophy might be incontinent conservatism.'
 * 2006-09-25
 * commentary on 2006-09-15 Rose Garden press conference:
 * 'Have you no sense of decency, sir?' by Keith Olbermann
 * Bush owes us an apology by Keith Olbermann (blog version on 2006-09-18, no comments)
 * 2006-08-24 Vonnegut's Apocalypse: "...but it took George W. Bush to break him"
 * found 2006-06-24 The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush / The Case for Divided Government
 * 2006-06-08 Blame for Haditha Lies at Bush's Feet by Scott Ritter, AlterNet
 * found 2006-05-09 An Apology From a Bush Voter by Doug McIntyre, Host, McIntyre in the Morning, Talk Radio 790 KABC
 * 2005-11: Confessions of a Repentant Republican
 * 2005-10-22: Death Up; Taxes Down: Bush, an Assessment
 * 2005-10-21: reader comment on : "I have just spent the last four years watching conservatives throw away any and every principle they have ever claimed to have in support of GW Bush. * Balanced Budgets - out the window. * Peace - out the window. * Prosperity - out of the window. * Geneva Convention - out of the window. * 6th Amendment - out the window. * Small Goverment - out the window."
 * 2005-09-03: "My wife, a dual British-Australian citizen, says that in any civilized country, the massive failure of the Bush administration would bring down the government. It is not so simple. Emperor Bush II, after all, came into office by a coup, and consolidated power 4 years later (involving election machine software as well as more traditional fraud). In the process, he betrayed (1) the Bush family (firing the remnants of his Dad's friends from Cabinet-level and the next rung down), and recall that Bush Senior fought to SAVE the wetlands around New Orleans; (2) the rump-state of the Republican party (which had been nominally run by the technocrat Goldwater, whose election failure led to the takeover by the anti-government Reagan wing, which in turn was displaced by the current anti-Science Imperial Theocrats; (3) the country (as reconfirmed by the Gulf Coast fiasco); (4) the World (unilateralism, Iraq, Bolton in UN, etc.); (5) the universe (see Anti-Science, supra)"
 * 2005-09-01: "Impeach George Bush. Impeach him now."
 * 2004-09-10: Why conservatives must not vote for Bush
 * 2004-02-08: You Can Make It With Plato: "Bush's difficult relationship with reality." by William Saletan
 * 2004: "We invaded a country that did not threaten us, did not attack us, and did not want war with us, to disarm it of weapons we have since discovered it did not have. We may have ignited a war of civilizations it was in our vital interest to avoid. Never has America been more resented and reviled in an Islamic world of a billion people. As custodian of the national economy and decisive actor in the management of the Budget of the United States, George W. Bush has compiled a fiscal record of startling recklessness." &mdash; conservative pundit Pat Buchanan in Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency (ISBN 0312341156)
 * 2003-04-22: Bush's "Christian" Blood Cult:
 * "I think it is nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death." – Gary Bauer, evangelical Christian
 * "A former Texas Department of Public Safety officer, a devout Roman Catholic, told this reporter that evidence to the contrary, Bush was more than happy to ignore DNA data and documented cases of prosecutorial misconduct to send innocent people to the Huntsville, Texas lethal injection chamber."
 * 2002-11-08: Bush Anything But Moronic, According to Author: "Dark Overtones in His Malapropisms" by Murray Whyte, about Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, a book by Mark Crispin Miller

Quotes About

 * "Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot." – popular bumper sticker
 * "George W. Bush is just like Forrest Gump. Except that Forrest Gump is honest and cares about other people." – sigline, author unknown
 * "You agree that this president is one of the top two or three most incompetent in history?" - Right wing financial talk show host Larry Kudlow, to a guest, on MSNBC 2006-01-17 (quoted here; unverified).

Rumors

 * Bush was talked out of bombing Al-Jazeera by Tony Blair: apparently false, unless further evidence surfaces. The White House at least seems to realize how crazy the idea would be: BBC News See also Al Jazeera bombing memo at Wikipedia and more details at the Asheville Global Report and here.

Reference

 * The New York Times
 * The New York Times
 * The New York Times
 * The New York Times
 * The New York Times

non-neutral

 * Bush Scandals List: starts with a good editorialistic summary of The Bush Calamity. Bush surrounds himself with a handful of trusted advisors; whoever gets to him first carries the day because he is too lazy to change his mind and doesn't like being wrong.

Books

 * 2008 The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent Bugliosi (prosecutor of Charles Manson). Official site includes excerpts.
 * Worse Than Watergate by John Dean

News & Views

 * 2007-07-06 Shame on Bush – and Us by Rosa Brooks: "Like freed hostages who gradually cease to identify with their captors, mainstream media outlets seem to have been seized by a new spirit of liberation in their coverage of the Bush administration."
 * 2007-07-05 Bush Duplicity Hinders Battle Against Extremism by Haroon Siddiqui
 * 2007-06-18 Revealed: Bush's Presidential Signing Statements Have Been Used to Nullify Laws by Brian Beutler
 * 2007-03-19 video: Salt Lake City Mayor calls for Bush impeachment: SLC mayor Rocky Anderson, in video interview with Wolf Blitzer, accuses Bush of "incredible abuses of power, breaches of trust" (Note regarding something Blitzer said: the supposed incident in which CIA then-director George Tenet stated that the evidence against Saddam was a "slam dunk case" comes from only one source (Bob Woodward) and has not been confirmed or denied by anyone else, including Bush; Tenet has refused to confirm that he said it. Obviously if Bush is put on trial and this point does not come up, then it can probably be assumed that it did not happen.)
 * 2007-03-17 video: Trump: Bush is the Worst President in the History of the United States: In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Donald Trump has harsh words for Bush and doesn't pull punches. (Need transcript!)
 * 2006-10-23: Bush's Strategic Change by William Fisher: not only are we no longer "staying the course", but now GWB is in favor of government transparency (as usual, his subsequent actions bely his words)
 * 2006-10-22: Bush: "We've Never Been Stay The Course": can this possibly be interpreted as an honest mistake? Watch for repeats...
 * 2006-09-15: Rose Garden press conference
 * 2006-07-19: President blocked surveillance probe (slashdot) "Gonzales tells Senate panel that Justice Department investigators were denied clearance"
 * 2006-05-25: Power Grab by Elizabeth Drew, The New York Review of Books
 * 2006-05-19: How Bush Destroyed the CIA by Sidney Blumenthal, AlterNet
 * 2006-05-18: One Step Closer to a Police State by Joshua Holland, AlterNet
 * 2006-04-29: Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (the same event at which actor Steve Bridges impersonated Bush, which was much more widely reported in traditional media)
 * 2006-04-30: 'Double-You' Bush delights media: well, at least he has some sense of humor about himself (evidently this did not extend to appreciation of Colbert's very pointed satire)
 * 2006-04-24 Bush Impeachment Resolution Introduced In Illinois: "...the State of Illinois has good cause to submit charges to the U. S. House of Representatives under Section 603 that the President of the United States has willfully violated his Oath of Office..."
 * 2006-03-10 Memo to George W. Bush: Your presidency is in serious trouble
 * 2006-02-21 Bush: U.S. on Verge of Energy Breakthrough: but wait, does he know something we don't? Stay tuned...
 * 2006-02-06 Bush seeks defence spending rise
 * 2006-02-04 NASA Chief Backs Agency Openness, but a Bush-appointed official (George Deutsch, a 24-year-old college dropout ) inserts political correctness into the information stream; see "Mr. Deutsch" on page 2: "the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang." Mr. Deutsch has since resigned his post
 * 2006-01 Decoder: "How the White House edits out global warming" by Paul Rauber
 * 2004-05-27 Bush's Health Care Scam by Robert Kuttner (related: US health care costs)
 * 2004-04-19 Saudi Envoy Promised Bush a Drop in Oil Prices Ahead of Election: more on the friendship between GWB and Prince Bandar; Bandar was also given advance warning of the plan to invade Iraq
 * 2003-12-15 "Free-Speech Zone": "The administration quarantines dissent." by James Bovard

Texts

 * 2006-09-11 President's Address to the Nation on the 5th anniversary of 9/11
 * Commentary: What Planet are you From, Again?
 * 2006-05-08 Ahmadinejad's 2006 letter to Bush
 * 2006-01-16 Al Gore speech
 * 2001-12-28 President, General Franks Discuss War Effort

pro-Bush

 * Blogs for Bush

anti-Bush

 * ImpeachBush.tv: "Editorials and Information on How to Impeach Bush & Cheney"
 * ImpeachPAC: group campaigning to impeach Bush and Cheney
 * http://www.sorryeverybody.com/ : The U.S. apologizes for electing GWB

Satire

 * 2001-01-17 Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over': eerily prescient piece written before Bush took office; predicted much of what actually happened
 * annotated version with links to news stories about what Bush actually did, showing the accuracy-in-spite-of-itself of the Onion piece

Fiction

 * Death of a President
 * 2006-10-06 Major theaters shun "Death of a President"