Without regard to how much you like him, how IMPORTANT has George Bush's presidency been.?

Question

I'm not asking whether or not he's a good president (personally i don't think he is). I just want to know what impact he has had on the world, be it positive or negative.

Answer 1

One of the few foreign policy achievements of the Bush administration has been the creation of a near consensus among those who study international affairs, a shared view that stretches, however improbably, from Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, from the antiwar protesters on the streets of San Francisco to the well-upholstered office of former secretary of state James Baker. This new consensus holds that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a calamity, that the presidency of George W. Bush has reduced America's standing in the world and made the United States less, not more, secure, leaving its enemies emboldened and its friends alienated. Paid-up members of the nation's foreign policy establishment, those who have held some of the most senior offices in the land, speak in a language once confined to the T-shirts of placard-wielding demonstrators. They rail against deception and dishonesty, imperialism and corruption. The only dispute between them is over the size and depth of the hole into which Bush has led the country he pledged to serve.

Last December's Baker-Hamilton report, drawn up by a bipartisan panel of ten Washington eminences with perhaps a couple of centuries of national security experience between them and not a radical bone in their collective body, described the mess the Bush team had left in Iraq as "grave and deteriorating." The seventy-nine recommendations they made amounted to a demand that the administration repudiate its entire policy and start again. In the words of former congressman Lee Hamilton, James Baker's co-chair and a rock-solid establishment figure, "Our ship of state has hit rough waters. It must now chart a new way forward."[1]

So it comes as less of a surprise than once it might have to see Dennis Ross and Zbigniew Brzezinski—two further fixtures of the national security elite—step forward to slam the administration in terms that would, in an earlier era, have seemed uncouth for men of their rank. Neither Ross, who served as Middle East envoy for both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, nor Brzezinski, a conservative Democrat and cold war hawk, could be dismissed as Nation-reading, Howard Dean types. Yet in withering new books they both eviscerate the Bush record, writing in the tone of exasperated elders who handed over the family business to a new generation, only to see their successors drive the firm into bankruptcy. Both books offer rescue plans for a US foreign policy they consider to be in tatters.


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Answer 2

The Liberals argue that they are the better educated, and they might be right about the number of hours they sat in a classroom, but there are all kinds of ways for a person to gain intelligence, formal education is only one of them. My last boss has a Pilot's license, holds an operating engineer's certification, which is what you need to operate the big cranes that build skyscrapers, He has an Aluminum AND glass contractor's licenses in Florida (that is how I know him) and while he has a very heavy Spanish accent (Ecuadoran) his vocabulary and grammar are in many ways better than mine. in short, he is one of the smartest people I know, and he has NO college. Who would guess that between Obama and Bush, it would be Bush who's economic numbers much more closely resembles Clinton's And you can say what you want about Clinton, the economy was decent under him. Although he was busy pulling the pins out of a basket full of hand grenades to pass to his successor, which turned out to be Bush, it is obvious that Clinton knew the timer was not set to go off until six or seven years in, Just in case Algor had won. .

Answer 3

Well since he inacted all of Clinton's security proposals after-the-fact, polarized our nation, and made life more unsafe to be an American outside our borders, I woud say it was real important, just not beneficial.

1. The Stocks Market at its all time high
should be when most companies are hiring chinese and mexicans
2. The unemployment Rate is at its all time low
wrong! at a low, not all time low, and lack in new claims filed relaly isn't any kind of success.
3. We killed more terrorists than those Do-Nothing-to-Provoke-the-terr... Carter and Clinton combined.
killed more civilians to!
4. Saddam is gone
the man, not the ideal

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<< Bush has been important in the following ways:
1. changed Clintonian policies
>>

a change in reagan policies to(mostly domestic)

Answer 4

Bush has been important in the following ways:
1. changed Clintonian policies (mostly foreign).
2. First U.S. president to completely challenge all international institutions.

Bush has been unimportant in the following ways:
1. None of his policies were that new (We've been squabbling with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea since the 1990s.) They may have been stable under Clinton, but this was probably due to other sources than U.S. policy.
2. American exceptionalism has been around since the founding, it is nothing new.
3. Bush has been largely reactive to the world. To be important, one would think you should shape it according to your desire, not simply be reactive to the world.

Generally, it seems to me that Bush is unimportant, and that History will judge it this way, because he only responded the way most American presidents have responded.

Answer 5

After 9-11, his was the most important presidency since Roosevelt's.

If only the Lib-Tards had been good Americans by supporting their President, instead of being the the tools of the power-hungry Democrats, this war could have been won by now.

Oh well, we'll just return the favor by undermining Hillary. The Dems will see to it that the war is lost by then anyway, so no biggie.

Answer 6

I'm not a huge fan of his but he was the best of the two choices in the last two elections. He's brought up the economy and lowered unemployment as well as taxes. He caught the dictator named Saddam and boosted national security (haven't seen a single US attack sense 9-11. He's done other good things but I can't stand this immigration BS. He need to shove it up his and Teddy's keister.

There's never been a president that I totally agreed with on everything but getting back to my original statement, he was the best choice of the two running in the last two elections.

Answer 7

No president in the history of this country has had to deal with an event like 9/11....we never even thought about something like that tragedy hitting this country. I am glad he stood up and said "enough" and went after those bastards. At least he did "something" and said a "lot" by his actions.

Answer 8

only America-hating Liberals and Democrats think Bush is a complete failure.

1. The Stocks Market at its all time high
2. The unemployment Rate is at its all time low
3. We killed more terrorists than those Do-Nothing-to-Provoke-the-terrorists Carter and Clinton combined.
4. Saddam is gone.

About the deficit, we are in War and we need oil and both cost money. but State Governments are having the increased revenue from Taxing because of this booming Economics.

What else is failure?

Answer 9

His presidency has been VERY important! You can't deny the importance of someone who started a disastrous war with no end in sight, enacted domestic spying, didn't capture the main culprit behind the 9/11 attacks, and gave us a record deficit.

Answer 10

He has made a huge, negative impact on the world. That is not to say he hasn't been responsible for positive things, too, but the world in general feels he is a negative influence. America's reputation has been negatively impacted by Bush.