Harry Reid: George W. Bush ‘the worst president we’ve ever had’
From CNN’s Politcal Ticker blog:
As the nation prepares for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, a leading Democrat is not letting up in his criticism of President George W. Bush.
“I really do believe President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
With all due respect Senator I think your historical compass is a little out of whack… I’m no fan of the Bush Administration but I wouldn’t go so far as to call him “the worst president we’ve ever had”. That honor without a doubt belongs to Herbert Hoover.
Personally, I’d rate Bush well ahead of James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Calvin Coolidge, Jimmy Carter or Richard Nixon.
Ultimately I think history will judge Dubya well in the war on terror but his record on domestic issues is mediocre.
Big Shoes To Fill
In a little less than a month Barack Obama will take the oath of office and become the 44th President of the United States. In some respects he’s going to have some pretty big shoes to fill…
From the Wall Street Journal:
The President Comforts a Marine Mom
By William McGurn, Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2003
This Thursday morn, Julie McPhillips will awake to the great hope that is Christmas Day. And amid her joy for the Savior born of woman in a Bethlehem stable, she will offer two prayers.
The first will be for her son, Lt. Brian McPhillips, killed in action in April 2003 as the First Marine Division fought its way into Baghdad. The other will be for the man on whose orders Lt. McPhillips was sent to Iraq: George W. Bush.
You see, Julie McPhillips knows a side of the president that never seems to make it into the newspapers. Since a meeting in the Oval Office a few years back, the two have exchanged letters, many written in the president’s hand. Through the sadness that binds them together, they look eye to eye and let their hearts do the talking. Read the rest…
And from the Washington Times:
EXCLUSIVE: Bush, Cheney comforted troops privately
Met with thousands of war injured, kin out of spotlight
By Joseph Curl and John Solomon, Washington Times, Monday, December 22, 2008
For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.
Their mission: to comfort the families of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to lift the spirits of those wounded in the service of their country.
On Monday, the president is set to make a more common public trip - with reporters in tow - to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to many of the wounded and a symbol of controversy earlier in his presidency over the quality of care the veterans were receiving.
But the size and scope of Mr. Bush’s and Mr. Cheney’s private endeavors to meet with wounded soliders and families of the fallen far exceed anything that has been witnessed publicly, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials familiar with the effort.
“People say, ‘Why would you do that?’” the president said in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Times on Friday. “And the answer is: This is my duty. The president is commander in chief, but the president is often comforter in chief, as well. It is my duty to be - to try to comfort as best as I humanly can a loved one who is in anguish.”
Mr. Bush, for instance, has sent personal letters to the families of every one of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in the two wars, an enormous personal effort that consumed hours of his time and escaped public notice. The task, along with meeting family members of troops killed in action, has been so wrenching - balancing the anger, grief and pride of families coping with the loss symbolized by a flag-draped coffin - that the president often leaned on his wife, Laura, for emotional support.
“I lean on the Almighty and Laura,” Mr. Bush said in the interview. “She has been very reassuring, very calming.”
Mr. Bush also has met privately with more than 500 families of troops killed in action and with more than 950 wounded veterans, according to White House spokesman Carlton Carroll. Many of those meetings were outside the presence of the news media at the White House or at private sessions during official travel stops, officials said.
The first lady said those private visits, many of which she also attended, took a heavy emotional toll, not just on the president, but on her as well. Read the rest…
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Son of a Bailout - Bush Gives Auto Makers $17.4 Billion
President Bush this morning morning announced a $17.4 billion bailout plan for auto makers. Under the terms of the plan GM and Chrysler would receive $13.4 billion in loans in December and January, with another $4 billion likely available in February.
The deal is contingent on the companies’ showing that they’re financially viable by March 31, 2009, if they can’t the loan will be called and all funds returned to the Treasury.
Autos Bailout Fact Sheet
The following is a release from the Bush administration detailing its bailout for the car industry:
Fact Sheet: Financing Assistance to Facilitate the Restructuring of Automobile Manufacturers to Attain Financial Viability
Purpose: The terms and conditions of the financing provided by the Treasury Department will facilitate restructuring of our domestic auto industry, prevent disorderly bankruptcies during a time of economic difficulty, and protect the taxpayer by ensuring that only financially viable firms receive financing.
Amount: Auto manufacturers will be provided with $13.4 B in short-term financing from the TARP, with an additional $4 B available in February, contingent upon drawing down the second tranche of TARP funds.
Viability Requirement: The firms must use these funds to become financially viable. Taxpayers will not be asked to provide financing for firms that do not become viable. If the firms have not attained viability by March 31, 2009, the loan will be called and all funds returned to the Treasury.
Definition of Viability: A firm will only be deemed viable if it has a positive net present value, taking into account all current and future costs, and can fully repay the government loan.
Binding Terms and Conditions: The binding terms and conditions established by the Treasury will mirror those that were voted favorably by a majority of both Houses of Congress, including:
- Firms must provide warrants for non-voting stock.
- Firms must accept limits on executive compensation and eliminate perks such as corporate jets.
- Debt owed to the government would be senior to other debts, to the extent permitted by law.
- Firms must allow the government to examine their books and records.
- Firms must report and the government has the power to block any large transactions (> $100 M).
- Firms must comply with applicable Federal fuel efficiency and emissions requirements.
- Firms must not issue new dividends while they owe government debt.
Targets: The terms and conditions established by Treasury will include additional targets that were the subject of Congressional negotiations but did not come to a vote, including:
- Reduce debts by 2/3 via a debt for equity exchange.
- Make one-half of VEBA payments in the form of stock.
- Eliminate the jobs bank.
- Work rules that are competitive with transplant auto manufacturers by 12/31/09.
- Wages that are competitive with those of transplant auto manufacturers by 12/31/09.
These terms and conditions would be non-binding in the sense that negotiations can deviate from the quantitative targets above, providing that the firm reports the reasons for these deviations and makes the business case to achieve long-term viability in spite of the deviations.
In addition, the firm will be required to conclude new agreements with its other major stakeholders, including dealers and suppliers, by March 31, 2009.
Putting aside the obvious question of why are the taxpayers again being asked to throw good money after bad yet again… Key provisions of this deal, wage concessions, changes in work rules and the elimination the jobs bank are non-binding. Second there’s nothing in this deal about the legacy costs and/or the government regulations that are choking these companies.
This is nothing more than an expensive joke on us the tax payers.
George W. Bush: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free market system”
Huh? What? With all due respect Mr. President what you’re doing is akin to using hand grenade to kill and ant.
Allahpundit has the video over at Hot Air.
Creeping Socialism: Bush Defends Citigroup Bailout
I’m at a loss for words here… From the AP via Michelle Malkin:
President Bush argued Monday that the government’s dramatic rescue of Citigroup was necessary to “safeguard the financial system” and help the economy recover, and he said there could be more such moves if other institutions need help.
Bush said he approved the action, recommended by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, while flying back to Washington on Sunday evening from meetings in Peru with Pacific Rim leaders. He said he also spoke with President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday night, part of what he has promised will be “close cooperation” between his administration and the Obama camp.
Referring to the Citigroup rescue, Bush said, “We have made these kind of decisions in the past. We made one last night. And if need be we will make these kind of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future.” Read the rest…
They say the definition of insanity is when you keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results… We can’t keep printing money and think we can inflate our way out of this crisis.
If you haven’t read Christopher Woods Op Ed “The Fed Is Out of Ammunition” in today’s Wall Street Journal you should. While I disagree with his suggestion that we return to the gold standard - not that it’s a bad idea, I just don’t think we can get that Gennie back bottle at this point… Woods does an excellent job of explaining why the current bailout circus is doomed to fail.
5 Myths About the 2008 Elections
Washington Post writer Chris Cillizza examines and attempts to debunk 5 myths about the 2008 elections… The entire article is worth reading but the two points that stand out in my opinion are these:
4. A Republican candidate could have won the presidency this year.
I doubt it. In the hastily penned postmortems of campaign ‘08, much of the blame for McCain’s loss seems to have fallen at the feet of the candidate and his advisers, who (so the narrative goes) made a series of lousy strategic decisions that wound up costing the Arizona senator the White House. There’s little question that some of the choices McCain and his team made — the most obvious being the impulsive decision to suspend his campaign and try to broker a deal on the financial rescue bill, only to see his efforts blow up in his face — did not help. But a look at this year’s political atmospherics suggests that the environment was so badly poisoned that no Republican — not Mitt Romney, not Mike Huckabee, not even the potential future GOP savior, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — could have beaten Obama on Nov. 4.
Why not? Three words (and a middle initial): President George W. Bush.
In the national exit poll, more than seven in 10 voters said that they disapproved of the job Bush was doing; not surprisingly, Obama resoundingly won that group, 67 percent to 31 percent. But here’s an even more stunning fact: While 7 percent of the exit-poll sample strongly approved of the job Bush was doing, a whopping 51 percent strongly disapproved. Obama won those strong disapprovers 82 percent to 16 percent. And Bush’s approval numbers looked grim for the GOP even before the September financial meltdown.
Just one in five voters in the national exit polls said that the country was “generally going in the right direction.” McCain won that group 71 percent to Obama’s 27 percent. But among the 75 percent of voters who said that the country was “seriously off on the wrong track,” Obama had a thumping 26-point edge.
Those numbers speak to the damage that eight years of the Bush administration have done to the Republican brand. It’s a burden that any candidate running for president with an “R” after his — or her — name would have had to drag around the country.
5. McCain made a huge mistake in picking Sarah Palin.
No subject is more likely to break up a dinner party early than the Alaska governor McCain chose as his running mate. Everyone not only has an opinion about her qualifications (or lack thereof) but also feels it necessary to share those opinions with anyone within shouting range.
Love her or loathe her, the data appear somewhere close to conclusive that Palin did little to help — and, in fact, did some to hurt — McCain’s attempts to reach out to independents and Democrats. But just because Palin doesn’t appear to have helped McCain move to the middle doesn’t mean that picking her was the wrong move.
Remember where McCain found himself this past summer. He had won the Republican nomination, but the GOP base clearly felt little buy-in into his campaign. A slew of national polls reflected that energy gap, with Democrats revved up about the election and their candidate and Republicans somewhere between tepid and glum.
Enter Palin, who was embraced with a bear hug by the party’s conservative base. All of a sudden, cultural conservatives were thrilled at the chance to put “one of their own” in the White House. In fact, of the 60 percent of voters who told exit pollsters that McCain’s choice of Palin was a “factor” in their final decision, the Arizona senator won 56 percent to 43 percent.
For skittish conservatives looking for more evidence that McCain understood their needs and concerns, Palin did the trick. It’s hard to imagine conservatives rallying to McCain — even to the relatively limited extent that they did — without Palin on the ticket. And without the base, McCain’s loss could have been far worse.
I agree with Cillizza on both points.
1) Republicans had no chance in this election… Over the last decade they’ve abandoned traditional conservative principles in favor of some sort of squishy, centrist/populist quasi conservative “Republicanism” that lead to out of controlled spending and bad policy ideas like campaign finance reform, no child left behind, and amnesty for illegal aliens.
If Republicans expect to have any chance in the 2010 mid-terms or in 2012 Presidential election they need rediscover traditional conservative principles. Defining those principles isn’t a simple task but for me they start with a fundamental unwavering belief that, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “… all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
It used to be that Republicans embodied those principles by fighting for fiscal responsibility, limited government, private property rights, and a strong national defense. I’m not sure how or when the Republican party lost its way what I do know is they’ve lost lost two straight elections because they’ve alienated both their conservative base and independent voters.
2) Sarah Palin may not have helped McCain with independent voters she did energize the conservative base of the Republican party… Without her on ticket I think it’s a safe bet that Barack Obama’s margin of victory would have been larger.
Personally, I think some Palin’s problems with independent voters sterm from the McCain campaigns management of her. I think they would have been better served by having do a handful of interviews with talk radio and local media in swing states to tell her story directly to voters before her national media interviews with Charlie Gibson and Kattie Couric.
Election Postmortem
Let the finger pointing begin… Beltway Republicans will undoubtedly blame John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate as the reason for his loss. Palin may not have been the most qualified candidate available and her disastrous interview with Katie Couric certainly didn’t help her or John McCain.
It’s easy to lay the blame at Palin’s feet but doing so misses the larger picture; Republicans had no chance of winning this election for a number of reasons:
- Fatigue - Simply put Pres. Bush and Republicans in the House and Senate abandoned Conservative principles and alienated Republican an independent voters with out of control spending, bad policy ideas like amnesty for illegal immigrants, and campaign finance reform and by grossly overreaching on some social issues. That coupled with the Bush Administration’s failure to engage the opposition in a meaningful policy debate left grass roots conservatives demoralized… We fought for them but for the most part they didn’t fight for us.
- Lack of vision - For all intents and purposes the Republican Party ran an agendaless campaign. Yes, they had ideas but they never communicated them in an effective manner and allowed Democrats to color the ideas they did have as just more of the same.
- The Economy - For 8 years democrats and media have called the Bush economy the worst in 50 years, something that’s simply not true… But because of the Bush Administrations failure to engage it’s resonated with voters. September’s economic collapse helped to validate that belief.
That said John McCain and Sarah Plain did about as well as a Republicans could do in this environment.
Where do go from here?
To be honest I’m not sure. Unless things change dramatically Republican prospects don’t look good for the 2010 mid-terms or in 2012.
We need new leadership at the RNC and in the House and Senate… Personally I’d love to see someone like Newt Gingrich as the next RNC chairman. Yes, Newt’s a lightening rod, but he’s also the one of the most effective advocates for conservatism we have.
Ed Morrissey has additional thoughts at Hot Air, Michelle Malkin says “Enough with the “re-branding” crap” and Congressman Thaddeus McCotter has must read column in the American Spectator:
Now, Seize Freedom!
Welcome to “Republican Rock Bottom.”
Possessed of no vision, no principle, no purpose, and no appeal, we deserved our fate.
Now, seize freedom!
Finally, we are divorced from self-deceits. Dead is the self-indulgent imbecility of “re-branding” — as if the Republican Party was a corporate product to be repackaged, not a transformational political movement to be led. Despite what the media will tell you, and what so-called “conservative leaders” will discuss ad nauseam during “secret” meetings, this situation is not a crisis. It is an opportunity. Today, we are as the Great Emancipator proclaimed during another time of national trial: unbound by the tired dogmas of the past; and free to think and act anew.First, we must not mindlessly mimic the momentarily triumphant Left. Sleek, detached, media savvy non-entities posing as existentially anguished leaders are neither in our nature nor our future. We are not teeny-bopper, pop-star politicians or the ideological dinosaurs of wealth redistribution.
At heart, we Republicans are flesh and blood and backbone, the proud servants of people. If we re-orient our vision, renew our purpose, and reaffirm our principles, the times will demand us — not as we were, but as we must be! Read the rest…
al Qaeda Wants Republicans, Bush “humiliated”
It must be a slow news day if I’m linking to a story about an al Qaeda statement…
DUBAI (Reuters) - An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be “humiliated,” without endorsing any party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to a video posted on the Internet.
“O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him,” Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet.
Libi, one of the top al Qaeda commanders believed to be living in Afghanistan or Pakistan, called for God’s wrath to be brought against Bush equating him with past tyrants in history.
Translation: They’re getting are butts kicked on the battlefield and they know John McCain won’t give up the fight.
Dick Armey: Bush Plan to Buy Bank Stocks Should Face Constitutional Challenge
Via CNSNews.com:
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said that the Bush administration’s plan to buy $250 billion in stock in U.S. banks should be challenged in federal court as unconstitutional.
“I think that it is subject to a serious constitutional challenge,” Armey said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. “It is very important that this challenge be made. We had challenges of this nature against Roosevelt. I think it is extremely healthy that we challenge this, and it should be challenged.”
Freedom Works, the organization headed by Armey, is researching the possibility of a challenge to the plan.
President Bush announced Tuesday that the Treasury Department will utilize a little-known provision of the $700 billion bailout package approved last week by Congress to spend $250 billion to buy non-voting shares of stock (equity stakes) in nine of the country’s largest banks.
Never mind President Bush’s plan to buy bank stocks… What about the whole $700 billion Bush/Bernanke/Paulson bailout plan… Is it Constitutional?
One of the things that bothered me about the rush to ram that crap sandwich down taxpayers throats was the lack of debate. We never got answers to the most fundamental question is this plan Constitutional?
Update: from the Washington Post…
Smaller Banks Resist Federal Cash Infusions
By Binyamin Appelbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 15, 2008; Page A01Community banking executives around the country responded with anger yesterday to the Bush administration’s strategy of investing $250 billion in financial firms, saying they don’t need the money, resent the intrusion and feel it’s unfair to rescue companies from their own mistakes.
But regulators said some banks will be pressed to take the taxpayer dollars anyway. Others banks judged too sick to save will be allowed to fail.
The government also said yesterday that it will guarantee up to $1.4 trillion of private investment in banks. The combination of public and private investment is intended to refill coffers emptied by losses on real estate lending. With the additional money, the government expects, banks would be able to start making additional loans, boosting the economy.
H/T: Hot Air.
Bush: “We don’t want to rush”
Say what???
Oh the irony…
As global markets plunged, President Bush on Monday said “it’s going to take awhile” for the government’s $700 billion financial rescue plan to bolster the troubled U.S. economy. Bush said the purpose of the package was to unlock the nation’s credit freeze “to get money moving again.” But, he added: “We don’t want to rush into the situation and have the program not be effective.” Read the rest…
With all due respect Mr. President don’t you think maybe you should have thought about that before you shoved $700 billion crap sandwich down our throats?
BTW wasn’t that exactly what conservatives were arguing to begin with?
Idiot.
H/T: MM