Sorry Melissa, but as a staunch conservative I disagree; he has been treated too kind. Anybody that can rationalize sending 180,000 troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight terrorism but thinks guarding our borders is racists is sick and deserves all the criticism that can be mustered.

Doc,

Sorry, but most of the criticism, however harsh some of it may seem, is certainly warranted. Presidents are judged on a variety of metrics, and in nearly any of them this man has failed. He surrounded himself with retread Nixon republicans and then refused to clean house when they fell short of even clear incompetence. Rumsfeld specifically comes to mind (sold the war on the cheap, cheaped out on our soldiers) along with piss poor energy policy from Cheney, incompetence from Brown and misguidance from Rove (unless it’s how to win an election). Bush is despised because in his heart he believes that what he is doing is right and acts with stubborn conviction even when he is proven overwhelmingly wrong. I used to hear the phrase “I like him because he stands by his convictions” from a lot of GOP’ers. But what good is standing by your convictions when they are just wrong? Why has there been no real energy policy for this country? Cheney won’t even discuss it, yet as we speak people are dying to ensure stability in the middle east, stability for OIL. I personally have changed my point of view regarding nuclear (not nukular, sorry…)power because I believe it may get us out of the middle east permanently and stop us from repeatedly getting into these huge snafus. Why can’t this guy man up and admit he is wrong?

I read the article that you linked, and I believe that the author is patently wrong on several counts. Bush had about a two month window where he did the right thing after 9-11, and that was to go into Afghanistan (nevermind that Condi ignored repeated warnings from Richard Clarke prior to 9-11…). He had the support and sympathy of most of the world, and I beleive that had he stayed at it with the same fervor that he reserved for Iraq we would have had bin laden’s head on a platter. Instead, as everyone now knows, he followed PNAC’s plan (hatched in the 90′s) to invade Iraq, and the rest is history. $12 billion per month (we were told by Rummy that the whole enchilada was going to cost appx. $50B) and for what? Does anyone really believe that there will be lasting stability in Iraq? Do any of these folks read history? If we leave the country will be unstable at best, and there will never really be democracy in the truest sense of the word.

On the economic front, Bushco was more than willing to let Greenspan BS the entire country into believing that everything was fine. Congresional dems and repubs signed off on further deregulaton of the banking industry and added further fuel to the coming fire. Several mainstream economic experts (Fleckstein, Markman, etc.) saw this coming in the early part of the decade, but again Bushco ignored all warnings in favor of keeping the false “strong” economy going to further their re-election chances. By the time everyone woke up out of their credit-induced binge, it was too late. This will haunt us for YEARS.

I’m not going to keep rambling on (ok, maybe a little). You get the point. Bush didn’t further protect us from terrorist attacks. The real threat is from Afghnistan and Pakistan where we are undercommitted, and many experts agree that another 9-11 is just a matter of time. He also gets a big “F” for economic policy as well. Let’s all just admit it and move on.