There is an silly thing floating around the internet started by one of those seething Bush-haters that lists George W. Bush's "resume". You may have seen it or something very similar. Of course it is simply a laundry list of allegations and general knocks against the president. Some are based in truth but twisted to seem immoral or corrupt, some are differences of opinion, some are wacky conspiracy theories and some are simply falsehoods. It was posted on a discussion board I used to read and I thought of answering each point one by one. I will mention again that I'm not the biggest Bush fan on many fronts, but some of these items were attacking him on policies and actions that I agree with. But I came to my senses realizing that the idiot that posted and the idiots that willingly lapped it up would not take any response seriously. But I didn't want it to go to waste so here it is. This will also serve as a pretty good look into the mind of the Bush-haters.
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I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. But my Texas Driving Record has been "lost" and is not available.
This was brought up during the 2000 election, at the last minute I might add. A November surprise from the Democrat dirty tricks squad? No matter. He still won. The electorate decided that such an event twenty-five years ago is not relevant. Besides he gave up drink and his wild days and has been on the wagon ever since.
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.
It is funny how now that the Democrats have some candidates with military experience that it matters now. We were told throughout the 90's that it didn't matter. And yet another issue known in the 2000 campaign. Nothing new here. Besides it has been proven to be a false allegation.
I graduated from Yale University. I was a cheerleader.
Yale grads are somehow excluded from government? And GASP! A cheerleader?! Is that some kind of knock? Walk up to a collegiate male cheerleader and make a snide comment. See if you don't get knocked on your bum.
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.
Losing in a political race is somehow a negative? Who has won every campaign they have ever run?
I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. Unlike certain other members of the taxpaying community, however, I was never charged with insider trading or other related crime.
I’d like some proof of insider trading please. I won’t answer charges without proof.
I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
Does the person who wrote this know anything about American sports? Teams routinely get stadium deals from cities. While I disagree with taxpayer money funding stadia for private businesses, this is hardly a crime.
With the help of my father and our right-wing friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected Governor of Texas.
Do they really think that a large corporation like Enron only supported or was supported by one party? Some people just don’t know how the game works. Democrats had dealings with Enron too.
And what’s with the big fear of oil companies? Don't these paranoid Bush-haters drive cars? Don't they use petroleum-based products?
I changed Texas Pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union.
I can’t answer this because I don’t know about it. However, I’d bet this comment is a bit slanted by the author, as is probably everything in this list. Let’s face it, this was not likely composed by a neutral non-partisan. Did anyone think to look into the facts to see if the existing laws were slanted against power and oil companies? Environmentalist lobbying groups push governments to put ridiculous restraints on companies all the time. They cannot see a reasonable middle ground between environmental responsibility and economic benefit. To them, any change in the law to more balance the two is one that helps big bad corporations pollute and kill our children.
During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.
I didn’t realize Bush was mayor of Houston.
I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
Cutting taxes does not bankrupt governments. It’s time people learned this. Tax cuts spur economic activity and swell coffers. Ever hear of the Laffer Curve? No, probably not. It doesn’t fit the propaganda.
I set the record for the most executions by any Governor in American history.
Good.
With the help of my brother, the Governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.
It really is time they let this go. It will eat them alive and they will be eternally bitter and unhappy. The Electoral College isn't exactly new. It has existed for two hundred years now. It was hardly some surprise to Al Gore. And by the way, G.W. Bush won every reasonable recount in the state of Florida. The only way Gore could have won would have been creative counting.
I invaded the occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars PER WEEK!
Gee, when Al Qaida killed over 3000 innocent citizens, I thought removing the supporting Taliban regime in Afghanistan was a good idea. They no longer have a regime giving aid and shelter to their evil war against the West.
I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
What was it spent on? The military? That’s a good thing. We need a strong military to maintain our freedom and sovereignty. Social programs? While I disagree with this spending, that’s supposed to be what the left likes. After all, these programs have been growing forever. The more Americans receiving government benefits the better. Dependency is good for Democrats. For them to claim this as a criticism is disingenuous. That criticism should come from Republicans and Libertarians. Besides, the surplus never was a reality anyway. And if there was a surplus it is a result of over-taxation. The real reason this is an issue to the haters is because they foolishly think that deficits are created by tax cuts instead of overspending.
I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
In terms of dollars, yes. In terms of GDP, no. The latter is more indicative of a deficit. Hmm, deficits didn’t seem to bother Democrat congresses in the past. Now all of the sudden it is the great demon.
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
Yep, George Bush made those people declare bankruptcy. Not their own inadequate financial planning. People have too much personal debt. That has been for quite some time now. It is not a Bush phenomenon.
I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market.
Again, not a Bush phenomenon. It was a result of two factors: 1) September 11 terrorist attacks and 2) bursting of the tech bubble. And have you seen the markets lately? Gotta make them nervous, eh?
I am the first President to U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
Again with this? You can see the author was padding the list with duplicates.
I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one year period.
Oh no! A vacation! Do you think presidents aren’t always on the job regardless of where they are?
After taking off the entire month of August in 2001, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
Just a shameful charge. Claiming that the events of September 11 are part of a conspiracy is another “picture of Chairman Mao”. By this I reference the line from The Beatles' "Revolution" ("If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.") The more they try to push this issue the more they are going to lose favor with people. Most people appreciate the president's efforts in combating terrorism and trust him to do the job.
To paint such an unexpected attack as the fault of the Bush is disingenuous. Using the same logic, I guess the first WTC bombing and the attack on the USS Cole fall squarely on the shoulders of Bill Clinton, right? Could our intelligence community have prevented the events of September 11, 2001? I don't know. I tend to doubt it. But the funding and support for our intelligence agencies have been cut regularly for years. No one should be surprised when it fails.
I am supporting development of a nuclear (although I like to mistakenly pronounce it "noo-kyoo-ler") "Tactical Bunker Buster," a weapon of mass destruction.
Ha! I hate it when people can’t pronounce nuclear. But then again there are other words that are commonly mispronounced and that doesn’t disqualify them from public office. And yes, we damn well better be developing better weapons. The left will have to realize that our defense depends on it. The moment we are not the best armed nation is the time to start sweating.
In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq, then blamed the lies on our British friends.
Another “Chairman Mao” that’s just sad. If I say that I believe that based on their current roster the Philadelphia Phillies are the best team in baseball and then they finish last in the league, did I lie? If you tell me you think there is a dangerous dog in my yard and I tell a policeman, if the cop does not find the dog, did I lie? I fear some people do not know what a lie is anymore. Or at least they don't want to admit it.
How many UN resolutions were there? Too many to count. The whole bloody world knew that Iraq was a threat. Why else would there have been the resolutions. Let’s also look at who “knew” about Iraq’s WMD’s in the past. Bill Clinton, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Madeline Albright, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton… Shall I go on? They are all on the record as having stated that Saddam Hussein had or was developing WMD’s. I guess they were lying too.
I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.
Gosh, a president running for re-election! How unseemly!
In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs, and that trend continues every month.
Yup, Bush went around the country and handed out pink slips. You know, I remember before the 2000 election hearing that whoever is elected might not want the job as he will be facing a slowing economy and coming recession. Gore would have gotten the same thing. The difference is that Bush did the smart thing of lowering taxes to spur growth. Besides, the same unemployment rate was good for Clinton and Gore in 1996.
I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.
Amazing how he personally is doing all these things.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any President in U.S. history.
Who? I need to know this before responding. But the allegation is vague for that reason. How many people in the Clinton Administration were convicted of things. Or any other previous administrations for that matter.
I set the record for least amount of press conferences than any President since the advent of television.
So what? This is a criticism? Why on earth would he want to stand in front of a hostile press who are in full gotcha mode? They are no friends and I have no confidence in their impartiality.
I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
How old is the person who wrote this? He or she cannot possibly remember the Carter Administration. Gas lines. Rationing. I remember when in Florida only cars with even plate numbers could buy gas on even number dates and odds on odds.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.
You know presiding over means nothing. George W. Bush presided over the New England Patriots winning two Super Bowls. Did he cause it to happen? It’s a fallacious argument. Presidents do not cause all the good and bad in the country. To think they do is silly. We live in a free-market economy in which good and bad happen without the totalitarian control of the government. That is a good thing.
I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in war time.
I disagree with cutting benefits to the military. We need to support our soldiers and their families to the fullest. I wonder if this was a Democrat bill or some kind of poison pill thrown into essential legislation to discredit and embarrass the president. I'm not saying it was or wasn't. I'm just curious.
I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people) shattering the record for protest against ANY person in the history of mankind.
Good. Bush is on the right side. If 15 million people want to be wrong, let them.
I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.
What treaties? Again I need specifics. Besides, not all treaties are good.
I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleezza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
Class warfare is the saddest tool of the left. God forbid some people should be rich. And again, the writer seems to be pushing onto this current administration the traits of all governments. How many working class people are in Congress? When was the last poor guy elected president? I don’t begrudge anyone having wealth. Believe it or not, chances are they earned it. I know that does not further the class warfare campaign. People never want to admit that they are where they are as a result of the sum of choices in their lives. It is much more comfortable to think that other have cheated them. And we can’t all be self-made men like the Kennedys. (Sarcasm alert!)
I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.
Unprovoked? Non-compliance with U.N. Resolutions 686, 687, 688, 707, 715, 949, 1051, 1060, 1115, 1134, 1137, 1154, 1194, 1205, 1284 and 1441 is hardly unprovoked. The U.S. and the U.K. were the only major powers with the bollocks to do the job.
I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States Government.
I do not like bureaucracy. There are a few federal departments that I’d like to see gone and redundant programs that should be eliminated. But if there is an agency designed to protect the nation from attack, sounds good to me. I'm just not sure how effective it will be. Then again we haven't had another attack since then either.
I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
The United Nations has some weird ideas about what a human right is. I have no great love or respect for the United Nations. After all, the UN is full of dictators and despots. And it is a useless organization that does not even stand behind its own resolutions. To be honest, post-war Iraq has more human rights than under the Hussein regime. Some may have wished the continued oppression, but they are more free now.
I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
When the World Court and UN runs counter to our Constitution, the Constitution trumps. We owe nothing to a world court with no jurisdiction over U.S. law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war ("detainees"), thus violating the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Good.
I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
A political stunt that should not have been allowed anyway.
I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
GASP! Money in politics! I really think this is just sour grapes over the fact the Republicans raise more money than Democrats. Because don’t look now, corporations donate to them too.
My largest lifetime campaign contributor and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. history. My political party used the Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision. I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history.
Sounds like more padding to me. Actually there are several previously mentioned points thrown into this one. And I'm not going to let this Monica Lewinsky thing slide. The Clinton defenders always try to make it out to be about sex. That is a straw dog that just won’t hunt. (Am I mixing metaphors?) The president committed perjury and obstructed justice. I think that is a reasonable thing to investigate. And that was an actual lie, not like the claims from the Bush-haters that he lied.
Today Martha Stewart was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in a case in which the charge she was guilty of lying about was thrown out. Come on, it didn't hurt anybody. It was just a personal thing. Free Martha!
I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
I really couldn’t care less about sympathy. If I get punched in the face by a bully, all the sympathy in the world isn’t going to do me a bit of good if I am restrained from fighting back. Unlike the mealy-mouthed, I don’t live my life in a popularity contest. Do what is right, not what is necessarily popular.
I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
Ooh, the Europeans! I’m quaking in my boots. The EU is rife enough with its own scandals. I’m not worried.
I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
There are so many of these things that are just thrown out glibly. For the purposes of including all the snide "accomplishments" and not to be accused of conveniently leaving any out, I included all. But if the author is not going to expand on it, I'm not going to bother to answer.
I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice, and have also failed to find the elusive "weapons of mass destruction" that I assured the world were present in Iraq.
Was there a time frame? We haven’t captured one man out of billions on a planet of 10,000,000,000,000,000 square meters. (I found that on the web. I don’t know if it’s necessarily correct.) Does that mean he will never be captured? Does that mean he is even alive? And again regarding WMD’s, the whole world thought they existed. Hell, we knew they existed because he used them on his own people. That’s why there were resolutions. The frightening thing is that we cannot find them. God knows who may have them now.
And you know if Bin Laden is captured in an election year the Bush-hating conspiracy theorist are going to claim that we had him all along and announced it for optimal political timing. Just like if we find Saddam's banned weapons. They will have been planted by the CIA or some such nonsense.
All records of my tenure as Governor of Texas are now in my daddy's library, sealed, and unavailable for public view.
The daddy thing is tiresome and does nothing but make the arguments seem petty. Politicians hiding information? I’m shocked! Oh, I thought you meant Governor Dean's gubernatorial records or Kerry's medical records.
All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
More padding. More alleged insider trading. But no details.
All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Hillary tried to do the same damn thing with her health care task force. Sorry, this is not a partisan issue.
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So there you have it. A long list of the same old things you've been hearing for the last three years. The scary thing is that stupid people who believe these things also have the right to vote and do so.
And another thing...