[Pharmadryg]

He's a moron.

[unatkot]

if for nothing else I will remember him for this



it's the best photo-op ever

[giturbewan]

Bush's relative youth and good health have worked against him in this regard. Dying in office is probably the only way he could have salvaged something of a positively-remembered legacy.

[oranowdenda]

Yes, it seems that if Iraq turns into a pluralist democracy, as it seems it is on the verge of doing, Bush may be remembered as in the bottom 3rd of Presidents instead of competing with Buchanan for who's the worst of all time.

His funding for AIDS prevention in Africa is also laudable. And, personally, I really do like his views on free trade and his attempts to push for CAFTA and other arangements.

[Spongebob]

Anyone can look funny in a still photo.



Of course, people can look/sound funny on film,too.


President Bush -- Fool Me Once

never fails to make me laugh ...

this one is the best

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

[KlaraNovikoffaZ]

His funding for AIDS prevention in Africa is also laudable. And, personally, I really do like his views on free trade and his attempts to push for CAFTA and other arangements.

Not when it was so often combined with abstinence teaching provisions.

[N9NACzws]

Not when it was so often combined with abstinence teaching provisions.

It'd be better not to send the money in the first place?

[2swasseneons]

for AIDS - this is a success, no matter if abstinence was pushed or not..

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/wo...tml?id=1132130

Five years after Bush committed $15 billion to launch the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the program is being touted as that rarest of Bush administration success stories - one largely undiminished by major setbacks even amid lingering controversy over some of its elements.

Since 2003, the program known as PEPFAR has provided compassionate care to 10 million HIV/AIDS sufferers - including four million AIDS orphans - in Africa and elsewhere overseas.

More than 2.1 million people are now receiving retroviral drugs to combat their infections, up from a mere 50,000 people who had access to the life-saving medications in 2003. More than 240,000 children have been born in Africa free of HIV infection because mothers received drugs that blocked transmission of the deadly virus.

Perhaps most significant, however, Bush this summer secured congressional re-authorization of the program for another five years, tripling the funding to $48 billion. Included in the amount is $9 billion to battle malaria and tuberculosis, the leading killer of HIV-infected Africans. The money is targeted at 13 "focus" countries in Africa, plus Vietnam and Haiti.

"While AIDS and these diseases were on the (U.S.) government's consciousness before Bush took office, their place in appropriations was minimal," said Josh Ruxin, a Columbia University public health professor and a member of the Global HIV Prevention Working Group. "Today these are major global initiatives with impact in dozens of countries where their interventions save and improve the quality of millions."

Ruxin, who is currently working with AIDS sufferers in Rwanda, says the impact of Bush's efforts are felt most profoundly in sub-Saharan African, where it's estimated 9.7 million people require treatment with retroviral drugs.

[JessePex]

Is openness with China/India a joke? So Bush has helped buttress our enormous trade deficit with China and that's supposed to be a good thing? The flow of wealth out of America and the massive amounts of personal debt Americans have is disgusting. This is nothing to be proud of unless you are a degenerate sybarite and materialist who can get enough tainted baby milk and lead painted toys.
.

this one is not a joke, as it's one of the best developments to happen to the "third" world, and the only real way there will be some long-term economic balance in the world... aid could never every accomplish that... ultimately those markets will be (and are even now ) markets where we will be selling our products by the billions and trillion & all of us will be better off together... really the best positive economic/political development since the Marshall plan.

American debt binge has nothing to do with China, and all to do with Greenspan/Fed/admin "money flood" at home to keep the growth going for a few years extra which is now being paid back, but if it was not for China, money would have finished somewhere else anyhow.... Japan, Saudi Arabia or Europe, it's only that the Chineze gave you the most for your dollar so you spent it all there...

[prowsnobswend]

Ya know, anyone reading Bushes 'greatest successes' for more than two seconds might quickly realize that it seems identical to his greatest failures; i.e. Iraq, China and India, free trade (how it was regulated and implemented), AIDS, Middle east Thuggocracy continued...

Was this supposed to be some kind of reverse psychology joke? Liberal media??? Did this guy sleep through the last 8 years?

Maybe this is just some kind of American psychological thing, where one of the most disastrous presidencies is now being downplayed just because its vile evil is no longer on parade 24/7?

clearly not everything that the guy did was pure evil ... there are some good things that came out of last 8 years, and for me China/India/third world trade openness, and AIDS are the best of the good points... AIDS especially is a surprise, it's sort of the only point where he actually performed something really good on his own terms... was unexpected in the first place, and also unexpectedly large in addition...

[Assauraarguck]

this one is not a joke, as it's one of the best developments to happen to the "third" world, and the only real way there will be some long-term economic balance in the world... aid could never every accomplish that... ultimately those markets will be (and are even now ) markets where we will be selling our products by the billions and trillion & all of us will be better off together... really the best positive economic/political development since the Marshall plan.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to say that this trade imbalance is okay when it's not your nation that's being drained of wealth. This trade deficit is harmful to America and there's nothing to be proud of. When Chinese companies started making goods for American consumers, American CEOs sacrificed our own native industry and for what? So that the middle class could buy more cheap crap from Asia to satiate their greed?

American debt binge has nothing to do with China, and all to do with Greenspan/Fed/admin "money flood" at home to keep the growth going for a few years extra which is now being paid back, but if it was not for China, money would have finished somewhere else anyhow.... Japan, Saudi Arabia or Europe, it's only that the Chineze gave you the most for your dollar so you spent it all there...

True, it's not China's fault but the access of so many cheap foreign goods hasn't helped. America has fostered a negligent consumerist culture that has essentially said its okay to go into debt in order to satisfy impatient desires. I would rather have the dollar be spent inside our own nation, and I would gladly pay more for American made consumer goods for the sake of a more self-sufficient nation.

[nd90t3sf]

It is strategically more sound for a nation to be as self sufficient as possible.

[SweetCaroline]

Yea, Japan had the right idea before 1853.

[SinyugiN]

I'm not a trade isolationist, but I think key industries, like steel or car manufacturing need to be protected. You really don't see the insanity in having to rely on foreign nations for the materials to make the steel frames for buildings or construct ships for example?

Given the unlikeliness of ever being at war with every significant steel-making nation in the world at the same time (assuming for the moment that, unprotected, we wouldn't have any significant domestic capacity for steel production), no, I don't see how relying on foreign nations for steel is insane, especially since to get to that point, the foreign nations would have to be doing a better job of delivering steel than the domestic steel industry. It strikes me as more insane to wed yourself to an inferior product (be it in price, quality or whatever area makes the foreign supplier better) in order to maintain some self-sufficiency in something you'll likely always be able to trade for.

[cypedembeda]

Ben, that's complete bullshit! Either back it up or admit that you're an ass!

[kennyguitar]

Given the unlikeliness of ever being at war with every significant steel-making nation in the world at the same time (assuming for the moment that, unprotected, we wouldn't have any significant domestic capacity for steel production), no, I don't see how relying on foreign nations for steel is insane, especially since to get to that point, the foreign nations would have to be doing a better job of delivering steel than the domestic steel industry. It strikes me as more insane to wed yourself to an inferior product (be it in price, quality or whatever area makes the foreign supplier better) in order to maintain some self-sufficiency in something you'll likely always be able to trade for.

^

What he said.

Lowering costs by going to the cheapest producer tends to help the consumer. Higher prices for the consumer, even if those industries are now in the good 'ole USA, would hurt the economy, not help it.

Furthermore, how can anyone consider Bush's AIDS policy to be a failure is beyond me. Regardless of abstinence only education programs, the mass quantities of retroviral drugs and the sort don't really depend on sex education.

[lh88gFzI]

I'm not a trade isolationist, but I think key industries, like steel or car manufacturing need to be protected. You really don't see the insanity in having to rely on foreign nations for the materials to make the steel frames for buildings or construct ships for example?

I think key industries should be protected, too. The thing is, neither automobile or the steel industry is a "key" industry in this sense in the 21st century. Pat Buchanan has been complaining about this for the past 15 years or so, but still doesn't realize that the world has changed since the 50s.

The reason why car and steel corporations were vital "key" industries was that they were (1) rare in global sense, thus a foreign power could "extort" nations without them by enacting trade barriers wrt to said industry products; (2) they were cutting edge technologically, so they were slow to build from scratch to manufacturing ready-and-perfect-quality-products. Neither point is applicable today to either of the industries.

[kathy]

Given the unlikeliness of ever being at war with every significant steel-making nation in the world at the same time (assuming for the moment that, unprotected, we wouldn't have any significant domestic capacity for steel production), no, I don't see how relying on foreign nations for steel is insane, especially since to get to that point, the foreign nations would have to be doing a better job of delivering steel than the domestic steel industry. It strikes me as more insane to wed yourself to an inferior product (be it in price, quality or whatever area makes the foreign supplier better) in order to maintain some self-sufficiency in something you'll likely always be able to trade for.

Manufacturers also happen to be the largest R&D spenders.

[Fekliopas]

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America!