Obama can't be the worst President in the last 120 years when the guy before him was worse.
During Bush's tenure:
the economy went in the tank
we were attacked on 9/11
we invaded a country for no reason
we didn't catch the guy responsible for 9/11
Like JSO, you are a conk with a selective memory.
I think if you've read my comments over the years you will find that every statement I am going to make below is consistent with the outlooks I've always had.
1)
The economy went into the tank. I have consistently written that I think people make a mistake by thinking the President of the United States controls the economy. And I've consistently written that I think it's unfortunate that what the economy is doing and has done is such a big factor in who many people vote for during Presidential elections. It's POSSIBLE for a President to screw up the economy. But thinking "the economy took a downturn therefore the President did something wrong" is fallacy as is "The economy is doing well therefore the President is doing a good job."
When the economy took a downturn in 2008 that ended the longest period of economic growth since at least as far back as World War II. It was a period that began about a year and a half before the end of the George H. W. Bush administration then continued through both Clinton Administrations as well as the first George W. Bush Administration then most of the second George W. Bush Administration. The most unusual thing about the scenario is how long the period of uninterrupted growth lasted. And when things went down it did not result in "the worst economy since the great depression." That slogan was and is nonsense. Sure you can pick some measures by which it was "worst." But you can pick others by which it was not. And anybody who lived through what was going on during the late 70s and early 80s while being old enough to comprehend what was going on knows (or should know) that, in toto, the situation with the economy then was worse then than it ever got after the 2008 downturn.
2)
We were attacked on 9-11. Does anybody believe that would not have happened if Al Gore had been elected? If somebody like Obama had been President? Clinton? To me "blaming" Bush for that happening during his Administration is close to as bad as blaming him for Katrina and Rita hitting during his Administration.
And since I brought it up yes in hindsight the Administration could have handled Katrina better. But that was an unprecedented event. Nobody had ever dealt with anything like that. FEMA had gotten accolades after the previous hurricane season for handling a series of hurricane impacts really well. But Katrina's impact was well beyond anything like anybody at FEMA had ever seen. I have my doubts about ANY President or ANY FEMA being able to handle that without a lot of glitches given what the experience had been to that point. Now, Katrina gave them pretty darned close to a "worst case" learning experience so they'll probably do better if something like that happens again. And no nothing like that has happened again so far. Sandy wasn't even close in terms of the physical impact.
3)
We invaded a country for no reason. Before we even invaded, when that analyst was on TV saying there were no WMDs but most of the world's intelligence agencies were reportedly saying there were, I wrote that it was a decision that had to be made in the face of uncertainty and that the correct decision in terms of addressing such an uncertainty scenario was to invade. There was a need to weigh the benefits and consequences of being right about WMDs being there against the benefits and consequences of being wrong about them in the context of the level of confidence. At the time, by all reports I could see, there was high confidence that Iraq was going to have nuclear weapons within maybe two to five years. I would much rather have a President who decides to do what Bush did given the information at hand at the time than one who would not. I would not want a President who would sit on his hands when all the world's intelligence agencies were telling him that a leader like Saddam Hussein was going to have nuclear weapons in the near future.
4)
we didn't catch the guy responsible for 9/11 I don't think it's valid to think that who the President was determined the time at which OBL was terminated. And in this case I don't think it's necessary to explain why I think that because it's so obvious.
I have some big issues with George W. Bush. Like his belief in a big Federal role in K through 12 education and his soft attitude towards illegal immigration. But at the same time he had the most difficult set of problems to deal with of any President of my adult life. Most prominently he had the 9/11 attacks and the Katrina/Rita 1,2, punch to deal with. Obama has had NOTHING anywhere close to either of those things to deal with. And no the 2008 economic downturn does not compare and in any case that is another thing that happened while Bush was still President so the initial response had to be his.
BTW, in my opinion Obama did not handle the BP thing well at all. I think he spent a whole lot more time worrying about controlling and/or pandering to public perception than he did focusing on ways to minimize the real negative impacts. And as a result the thing had more negative impact, particularly in terms of economic impact, than it should have. But since his efforts to control perception resulted in people thinking he did a good job with it maybe there's something to be said for his approach. At least that could be the case from a political standpoint.
And no, in real terms the BP spill was nothing like the Katrina/Rita thing. That oil spill did not do a lot of damage and most of the negative economic impact was due to people thinking things were dangerous when they weren't. And BTW the Obama administration played to that instead of trying to educate people.
Will take decades for the Republican Party to fix that blunder.
