why exactly do people hate bush?

Question

im in high school and i hear my peers say it all the time. but what do they know? they sure dont watch cnn, i am postitive that they are just saying what everybody else is saying. so what exactly makes bush such a bad president? what has he done?

Answer 1

Thats a really difficult one. If Im being really picky I might say NSA wiretapping, secret prisons in Eastern Europe, the biggest foeign policy blunder in Americas history, waiting 72 hours to act when an area the size of Great Britain was wiped out b a hurricane, politicising the military, trying to sell the ports to the Arabs, contravening the Constitution with faith based initiatives, outing a CIA agent (this maybe the worst), trying to appoint your vastly underqualified personal lawyer to the Supreme Court, embarrassing the United States abroad including persistently calling Australia Austria in a summit on Pacific countries, withdrawing from the Kyoto Agreement and subsequently jumping on the green issues, failing to act over the Abu Graib prinson scandal, not firing a single person from the cabinet despite monumental errors, not catching Osama bin Laden and building the biggest deficit in America's history when he was left a surplus.

Appart from these hes been an exemplary President with immaculate judgement. God bless America.

Answer 2

Without getting into a huge debate surrounding the insurmountable evidence of Bush's incompetency, I will try to answer your question from an objective view. And really the simple answer is that you can't please everyone. We live in a democracy where we are allowed to be opinionated and take a stand for what we believe in. When you have a president, a government official, or even really people closer to home like your parents, it is nearly impossible to agree with, love, and support every single decision they make. A person in authority, to some degree, influences our lives by the rules they make. If those rules, actions, and opinions do not reflect our own, we are prone to involve ourselves in conflict. When those rules, actions, and opinions STRONGLY go against our own beliefs, we convey an even deeper resentment and hostility towards those people. I'm not saying it's rational, but people feel very strongly about their beliefs and they want to be heard. This is our country after all, and we place a lot of trust in who we decide to vote into office. And I use the word "trust" loosely, since no politician can fully be trusted. But this is what you're going to see in politics for the rest of your life; some people are gonna love 'em, some are gonna hate 'em. And if there's one thing it's hard to sway someone's opinion on--it's politics. Having said that, even though I'm not a fan of Bush in any regard, I still think he would have done a much better job than I would have! I would have probably imploded if I had to make such impossible decision. Dislike him? Yes. Hate him? No.

Answer 3

It's the fact that he has allowed "big brother" to get a little to big, if you know what I mean. I don't like the fact that they would have the right to listen in on my phone conversations as long as they said they had a good reason. Then there is the fact that they can get peoples names who've rented certain books from the libraries or gone to certain websites. Then you have the whole fiasco that is the no fly list. Where you pray that no one else has your name that happens to be on that list, it doesn't matter if your two years old-if your on that list, surely your a threat to safety. After that you have the War in Iraq-not only was there no warranted reason to go there, but we've thrown the country into complete chaos. Then you have the fact that he seems to use religion as a front. The list goes on.....

Answer 4

I'm a Democrat, but I'll answer as straight-forward as I can (meaning, not intentionally "flaming").

In high school and below, by and large, kids follow the political leanings of their parents. There are some that are interested/motivated enough to research the issues and form opinions on their own, but mostly they have only the opinions of their parents (or peers, etc) to adopt as their own. This was even the case for me, admittedly, although I had a good "source" of information (my mom worked in the Pentagon on many of the issues argued about, or alongside others that did).

In terms of Bush being a bad president, the long and short of it is that he has acted quite shortsightedly during his terms. He has done little for the environment, alienated the United States even further from other nations (a mistake, no matter how powerful we believe ourselves to be, and un-needing of extra-national support). He has started a war (which is going to affect ANY presidential rating) without solid justification ("get the bad guys" is essentially his current rationale). He disregards the "minority" (being, at the time of his election, 49% of the country) and pushes his own personal agenda. Granted, all political leaders will fight for what they believe in, as that's the nature of the beast, but not to the exclusion of the opinions and rights of the people you're supposed to be representing.

Bush has alienated both his own countrymen (regardless of how many opinions you hear one way or another, the approval rating tells it all) and other nations. He's ruining our planet, ruining our credibility, and pushing back American progress (in terms of economics, civil liberties, and every other way you can imagine) many, many years.

That being said, it's up to you to look into things if you want the full story. Try to stay away from extremist viewpoints on either side of the aisle, Michael Moore OR Ann Coulter. Read books written by those who were/are on the inside (and try to avoid any with specific connections...e.g. a book published by a political party, etc).

When you get to college it gets easier to form your own opinion because you're learning so much about all different subjects, and how different political leadership affects different issues within that subject. Then you get to decide what's important to you and vote accordingly. But make SURE you're getting the full story and not just what the government or a small political-extremist organization puts out.

Answer 5

Some others have summed it up pretty well. For me, it comes down to secrecy, incompetence, and sometimes downright stupidity. He managed to take us from a sense of international support and goodwill following 9/11 to being feared and despised around the globe, and in the same stroke, he sent us into a war with a faulty plan that's going to cost us for decades to come.

You can argue whether or not the war in Iraq was a good idea in theory (personally I think it's going to breed more hatred and extremism towards the USA, especially when since it was done under a false pretense), but the fact is critical mistakes were made following the "victory" in Iraq. Everyone acknowledges that, from liberals to conservatives, from civilians to military personnel, and even past + present members of the administration itself. And now we're stuck there.

I don't know what economy these other people who've posted here supporting Bush are living in, but it must not be the USA. Inflation is up, our economy is unstable at best, standards of living are declining, more people are struggling paycheck to paycheck, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow to the highest level in almost a century, lots of people are losing their homes, infrastructure is failing around the country, etc...

Bush isn't even a fiscal conservative, so why go out of your way to defend his policies? He hardly represents what Republicans have traditionally stood for, except in one area, the only one that matters to some people I guess -- tax cuts. You can't have a costly war, spend money you don't have, and lower taxes at the same time... the money has to come from somewhere, and it's our children/grandchildren that will be paying that debt, while essential programs suffer in the interim.

To summarize the rest - He bungled the aftermath of Katrina (incompetancy + cronyism were a big part of that -- a hallmark of this presidency). He surrounds himself with people that tell him what he *wants* to hear rather than what he *needs* to hear, or those who are friends and have done him favors in the past. He's failed to take true steps to defend this country (securing borders, ports, and tightening security, etc) but has succeeded in stripping the constitution to spy on Americans and broaden executive power. His foreign policy has been disastrous, pushing both our friends and enemies away from us. He sold himself as being a uniter, but has instead turned out to be one of the most divisive figures in modern history, even following an event that united the whole country behind him. I could go on, and on, and on.

Just look at his approval rating: 24%. That's down to the level where only the hardcore conservatives, the people that will love him no matter what he does, still support him. The sane portion of the country sees right through him at this late stage of the game. I supported him in 2000, and I used to align myself as an independent with Republican leanings, but Bush has turned me away from the party. The neo-con and theocratic wings of the party have taken it over, and the sooner the Republican party goes back to the basics, the better.

Answer 6

While the Senate has approved this war, Bush had huge influence with vetoes and just the fact that he was the president. He's had "bad" people planning the war, managing our budget, and he's made foolish decisions. He's somewhat manipulative, he doesn't listen very well to people with other opinions, and he hardly ever admits mistakes. He also isn't a great example for our kids and above all is no credit to our nation--the "important man on TV" hardly knows how to speak English, be an orator, or plan.

Answer 7

These days, considering the inherent corruption as far as politicians, Big Brother and the Presidency, a more efficient question would be "why do people LIKE Bush?".
The days of US as a population KNOWING any degree of whats going on in our government to ANY level at all has been OVER for a very long time. Unfortunately, even the most DECENT person, once they get to those high levels of government, they are either deeply set in the dark, corruptions or they END up there.. again as an inherent effect of playing the political game of life!

Answer 8

Living outside the US (I'm American though), I can tell you what people in Europe see: a madman who wants war all over the place. Without a good reason.
He is arrogant. And that's bad. But there's more. He (representing the US) does what he wants to do, all over the place... without asking if anyone needs/wants his help, he is never taking into account the interests of other people.
War against terrorism can be seen as a positive thing (I personally disapprove of wars, but as I don't see any other way to stop terrorism, I can accept that). War against terrorism had something to do with Afghanistan. Then there's been a war in Iraq. How about that? There was no real reason for it. Now he wants a war against Iran... a "World War 3" he called it...
Doesn't all this make him a bad president? To me, it does.

Answer 9

Start watching the news, start questioning people when they say it..thats a good way to find out things you dont know.

I don't know alot about Politics but they say Bush is war-crazy and that all this war over Iraq that is still going on when it is not needed...all the soldiers dying needlessly, I'd say thats a good reason to hate Bush

Answer 10

ok I'll create a list
-The war
-put a very controversial/unqualified people into positions of extreme power (eg. supreme court, attourney general)
-Racked up trillions of dollars in debt
-wrote up the no child left behind act then didn't fund his own proposal
-Lies to the american people
-revoked several EPA rules to protect the environment
-Handled hurricane Katrina miserably
-create the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act which basically removes many of your rights as an American citizen. US government is now allowed to spy on you without a warrant. They are also allowed to imprison you indefinitely without a trial.
-outing a CIA agent
-failed to catch osama bin laden (but I could say the same for previous administrations as well)
-When starting the war completely disregarded the UN
-his spending has weakened the US dollar tremendously (good luck vacationing in Europe as 1 Euro is now somewhere between 1.5 and 2 dollars american, also canadian and US dollar are now equal).
-he's vacationed more than any other president in history
-He was somewhat involved in the Enron scandal. (and many other corporate scandals as he promotes monopolies)
-is expanding the military first president since the cold war to do so.

Those are the big ones that come to mind off the top of my head. I'm sure others can think of more...