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George W Bush liked Kimmel's Oscars intro, loves Michelle Obama, & talks Will Ferrell

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Kusagari

Member
Sure is interesting to see Dubya become more visible than ever right after the only guy that could make him look like Lincoln in comparison takes office.
 
My feeling on GWB is that he would have been a fine peacetime president. If he was in office during the Clinton years not much would have been different. But once 9/11 hit we needed an FDR.

I can agree with that. There are still policies he had I wouldn't have agreed with I'm sure, but I bet if he had just been a peacetime President things wouldn't have went all that poorly really.
 

Joe

Member
I bet a lot of people still think George W Bush was an actual cowboy and not consciously just playing a role the entire time.
 
Where the fuck was the likeable old fuck during his presidency?

He's a very likable guy day to day. If he was the janitor at your school you would have loved him. Just...not who you want running the country, or anything of value really.
 

Fedelias

Member
My feeling on GWB is that he would have been a fine peacetime president. If he was in office during the Clinton years not much would have been different. But once 9/11 hit we needed an FDR.

Maybe not an FDR considering the internment camp implications, but I see what you mean.
 

Dopus

Banned
Completely disagree.

I think underneath being the figurehead of a really bad time, there is a well-meaning, charismatic guy who was in over his head. The difference between him and Trump is that he was remotely qualified for the position in the first place, and experiences some reverence for our country. This is not to excuse enabling Cheney and all the bullshit of the time, but he is hardly the kind of gross threat to decency and democracy we have now.

To me, him painting the people he is responsible for getting harmed speaks volumes to what he is going through and trying to process. He is empathetic, humble, and respects the tragedy he was ultimately responsible for. These are good traits.

He along with Cheney are war criminals. It's as simple as that. In their personal lives, they might be compassionate and caring people. That doesn't justify the atrocities that they are responsible for.
 

mnannola

Member
148524371642inp.jpg

Obama knows exactly what Bush is up to in that third pic
 

Mondrian

Member
He wasn't a great president, and I didn't vote for him... and hindsight is 20/20... but the fact that he came out and said "islam is peace" and read from the Koran in front of the world puts him MILES ahead of the garbage that the republican party is now imo.
 

Dopus

Banned
He wasn't a great president, and I didn't vote for him... and hindsight is 20/20... but the fact that he came out and said "islam is peace" and read from the Koran in front of the world puts him MILES ahead of the garbage that the republican party is now imo.

Words mean nothing when you go on to invade and occupy two countries.
 

Dehnus

Member
He has a new book of portraits he drew of veterans and his press tour has yielded some likable interviews. The videos are less than 20 minutes combined but they are split up for YouTube

From Jimmy Kimmel's Live: On Trump, Cheney's gun mishap, where he gets his news, being able to joke about yourself, and more...
Part 1 https://youtu.be/5F4eYVSk07k
Part 2 https://youtu.be/BOUfPWKdAas
Part 3 https://youtu.be/6SUU8LhidU4
Part 4 https://youtu.be/r-nUyoW_BO0
Part 5 https://youtu.be/XaNPO2o2XZk
Part 6 https://youtu.be/GkpOIgmcStA

And him and Jimmy try to sketch each other
Part 7 https://youtu.be/sriYmFBvOsE


He is a fan of Michelle Obama:
160924184552-obamas-and-bushs-nmaahc-sept-24-large-169.jpg

160924185633-obama-bush-dallas-memorial-large-169.jpg

160924190017-george-w-bush-michelle-obama-selma-talking-large-169.jpg

170302082116-geroge-bush-greets-sasha-and-malia-large-169.jpg

Basically Bush is on a "see I wasn't as bad as the current guy was I!?" tour? I've seen him in articles sucking up to the people base for a few days now :(.
 

Nephtis

Member
To be fair he recently warned about the dangers of wielding such power - he said that it's corrosive and you have to be really careful with it. I think that at his core, Bush is a good guy. I certainly don't agree with going into war and sacrificing so many people (deaths and others' physical and mental well-being).

Having said that though, had he been surrounded by decent people instead of that asshole Cheney, he would've been a better president. For sure though, he was woefully unqualified to handle what happened during his tenure.
 
His dad explained why invading Iraq was a terrible idea, I'm nor letting him off the hook for staffing his inner circle with a bunch of neocons. His cabinet were neocons because he's a neocon.

got an idea for dubya's next portrait:

AbuGhraibAbuse-standing-on-box.jpg

Bush was not in over his head. He knew what he was doing. He just didn't care. Don't give him a free pass because he's painting pictures of them now. Tell the truth and don't let it happen again.
.
 

Madness

Member
You really need to read his book Decision Points. He was rightly called out a lot for his actions as President, but he also got sheer vitriol for things out his hands. He probably did more for Africa as a President than President Obama but gets told he doesn't care about black people, as we have seen in the years since, sometimes the President is no more than a puppet and others pull the strings etc. The military industrial complex, warhawks like Rumsfeld and Cheney pushed for those things.

In the face of Trump, think about the fact George W. Bush was booed by people during his final walk as President. History will judge him a lot less than he was during his 8 years in office. If anything, he just wasn't an effective President and more a pawn. He will be rightly blamed for Iraq, one of the greatest blunders in American history sure. It is far too early to judge Trump's presidency as well but we can start to see how it will play out.
 

Aurongel

Member
Even for all of his faults, I do wonder if he'll be viewed as the last conservative president of his type assuming that the current populism of the party holds in the coming years. Even for a Republican, his entire style seems so moderate in comparison to where we are now, its crazy to think that Republicans even tried to cross the aisle years ago.
 

MMarston

Was getting caught part of your plan?
At best, I can see him as naive.



But make no mistake, it's an unforgivable level of naivete.
 
He's still a massively corrupt war criminal. Even ignoring Iraq & Afghanistan there's plenty of out and out despicable shit at home (DOMA, "heck of a job brownie", commuting Scooter Libby's sentence) to hang him with.



This stupid revisionist BS again.

Are people's memories really so short?

Fuck this PR campaign, he was responsible for some heinous shit. Doesn't matter who really was in charge or that he was a dumbass. Still though, light years better than trump.

Yep.

Can't wait for people in 20 years to tell me "We should cut Trump some slack, it was really Bannon who was the bad guy"
 
Even for all of his faults, I do wonder if he'll be viewed as the last conservative president of his type assuming that the current populism of the party holds in the coming years. Even for a Republican, his entire style seems so moderate in comparison to where we are now, its crazy to think that Republicans even tried to cross the aisle years ago.

It seems likelier to me that he will be remembered as the first modern anti-intellectual president
 

CHC

Member
I wonder if he would of made a good president. Instead we got dick "the penguin" cheney.

I mean, a "good president" wouldn't have let his power hungry, money loving, publicity avoiding plutocrat of a VP determine all of the White House's decisions, so.... no?
 
got an idea for dubya's next portrait:

AbuGhraibAbuse-standing-on-box.jpg

And yet what led to this is present now more than ever in the Republican Party, as seen by their election of a man who openly glorifies this sort of treatment. Clearly, this was not purely down to the gung-ho nature of the Bush administration, but rather a deep seeded, dangerous levels of bigotry and ignorance.
 

Jackpot

Banned
I don't think Bush is a bad person.

The guy okayed torture, "extraordinary renditions", and started a completely unprovoked war for no reason. Bush's America was being arrested for wearing a t-shirt, having "free speech zones", the PATRIOT act, the financial crisis, and having NASA climate change reports censored by policy wonks with no scientific background.

In his defence

And yet what led to this is present now more than ever in the Republican Party, as seen by their election of a man who openly glorifies this sort of treatment. Clearly, this was not purely down to the gung-ho nature of the Bush administration, but rather a deep seeded, dangerous levels of bigotry and ignorance.

So because Bush perfectly encapsulates the cruelty, xenophobia, and anti-science of the party it's not his fault?
 

Fuchsdh

Member
an interesting look a W was a documentary made by Pelosi's daughter during the 2000 campaign

he is a people person and knows how to woo liberals into liking him for his personality

Pt1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEzTn1khVAM

Pt2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C37wfPXNx2Y

I mean, we got Bush in the first place (besides Supreme Court shenanigans) because Gore came off like a piece of cardboard and Bush was "the guy I'd like to have a beer with."

Overall I think absent the Iraq War Bush would have been a decent president. There's plenty I wouldn't have liked (privatizing social security, and FEMA's failures would still likely have happened even without attention diverted elsewhere) and plenty I would have (Republicans actually listening to Hispanic concerns and nearly passing sensible immigration reform, the massive amount of work Bush did with combating AIDS in Africa, Laura Bush's literacy campaign.)

Some stuff, like the PATRIOT act and failure to head off the financial crisis, wouldn't have been addressed with any like president, even a Democrat, frankly, as Obama's critical weakness on non-minority civil rights shows.
 
I mean, we got Bush in the first place (besides Supreme Court shenanigans) because Gore came off like a piece of cardboard and Bush was "the guy I'd like to have a beer with."

Overall I think absent the Iraq War Bush would have been a decent president. There's plenty I wouldn't have liked (privatizing social security, and FEMA's failures would still likely have happened even without attention diverted elsewhere) and plenty I would have (Republicans actually listening to Hispanic concerns and nearly passing sensible immigration reform, the massive amount of work Bush did with combating AIDS in Africa, Laura Bush's literacy campaign.)

Some stuff, like the PATRIOT act and failure to head off the financial crisis, wouldn't have been addressed with any like president, even a Democrat, frankly, as Obama's critical weakness on non-minority civil rights shows.
He tried to privatize social security and called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
 
Im not a fan of GWB like many here but I think I speak for everyone when I say I'd take this guy back over Trump ANY FUCKING DAY.
 
Yep.

Can't wait for people in 20 years to tell me "We should cut Trump some slack, it was really Bannon who was the bad guy"

Seriously


Anyone who is cutting GWB slack makes me fucking sick. "He was in over his head" - this is irrelevant whether or not it is true (and it probably is). What the fuck is wrong with you people
 

Madness

Member
Yep.

Can't wait for people in 20 years to tell me "We should cut Trump some slack, it was really Bannon who was the bad guy"

Would that not be correct? You honestly think Donald Trump comes up with plans for Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement and profiling immigrant criminals on his own, or is white nationalist Steve Bannon now on the National Security Council who vowed to use Trump as a blunt instrument to enact his goals and to deconstruct the US federal government responsible. You can look deeper at things than surface level. Of course Trump will be blamed, but there is wide gulf between Bush being personally responsible like you want to believe and what we really know which is that Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and others used a naive President and used him to enforce their goals. The power of the military industrial complex, is strong enough that even under Obama, drone strikes and invasions into Libya and other nations didn't stop. Hell they were so close to forcing Obama into invading Syria and overthrowing Assad. It is why Guantanamo never closed, why troops are still in Afghanistan and why Mccain and Lindsay Graham were on CNN yesterday saying we never should have left Iraq either.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
He tried to privatize social security and called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Uh... I mentioned privatizing social security, and B) http://www.pewforum.org/2016/05/12/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/

He was wrong, but so was the majority of the country at that point.

Would that not be correct? You honestly think Donald Trump comes up with plans for Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement and profiling immigrant criminals on his own, or is white nationalist Steve Bannon now on the National Security Council who vowed to use Trump as a blunt instrument to enact his goals and to deconstruct the US federal government responsible. You can look deeper at things than surface level. Of course Trump will be blamed, but there is wide gulf between Bush being personally responsible like you want to believe and what we really know which is that Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and others used a naive President and used him to enforce their goals. The power of the military industrial complex, is strong enough that even under Obama, drone strikes and invasions into Libya and other nations didn't stop. Hell they were so close to forcing Obama into invading Syria and overthrowing Assad. It is why Guantanamo never closed, why troops are still in Afghanistan and why Mccain and Lindsay Graham were on CNN yesterday saying we never should have left Iraq either.

Guantanamo didn't close because of the whims of military contractors, it didn't close because we have nowhere to put a lot of these guys. They've been in prison for years and often can't go back to their original countries, and no one else (certainly not the US) wants them.
 

diehard

Fleer
I don't go in most of these threads usually, do the Obama ones have multitudes of people crying "war criminal"? Or is it different because reasons?
 
Would that not be correct? You honestly think Donald Trump comes up with plans for Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement and profiling immigrant criminals on his own, or is white nationalist Steve Bannon now on the National Security Council who vowed to use Trump as a blunt instrument to enact his goals and to deconstruct the US federal government responsible. You can look deeper at things than surface level. Of course Trump will be blamed, but there is wide gulf between Bush being personally responsible like you want to believe and what we really know which is that Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and others used a naive President and used him to enforce their goals. The power of the military industrial complex, is strong enough that even under Obama, drone strikes and invasions into Libya and other nations didn't stop. Hell they were so close to forcing Obama into invading Syria and overthrowing Assad. It is why Guantanamo never closed, why troops are still in Afghanistan and why Mccain and Lindsay Graham were on CNN yesterday saying we never should have left Iraq either.

Where's all the "awwww, poor Trump" posts then? Let's get the defence force going for the senile old man being played by his advisors, Trump could be a good president if he had a nice cabinet so let's not be mean to him right?

Just because Bannon is a despicable cunt like Cheney and Rumsfeld doesn't mean Trump and Bush don't also deserve condemnation.

Fuck Bush, he knew exactly what he was doing.

I don't go in most of these threads usually, do the Obama ones have multitudes of people crying "war criminal"? Or is it different because reasons?

You'll hear the odd whispered complaint about extrajudicial killings via drone strikes, clamping down on whistleblowers, the continuing erosion of civil liberties, you know the kinda shit people are terrified about now that Trump is in the White House.

But for the most part Obama was charismatic as hell, a Democrat and his election ended racism in the US forever so he's cool.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
I don't go in most of these threads usually, do the Obama ones have multitudes of people crying "war criminal"? Or is it different because reasons?

He's a smaller war criminal who didn't kill as many of our own in the process, so he generally gets a pass. Out of sight, out of mind.
 

Dopus

Banned
I don't go in most of these threads usually, do the Obama ones have multitudes of people crying "war criminal"? Or is it different because reasons?

Most liberals would probably give him a pass and just ignore it. But make no mistake, he is one too.
 
I think GWB could play a role in bringing traditional conservatives back to reality. If anything, correcting his course and doing something productive is worth something.
 

Schlep

Member
I did not agree with Bush's politics, and I do no think he was a good president. I believe he tried his hardest and that he's a good man. I cannot say either of those things for Trump.
 
the silver lining with trump is that he and his administration have showcased thus far that they're completely incompetent at all levels

they could never be as shrewd as getting someone like colin powell to lie to the un about wmds
 
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