Bush's farewell address

Ironslave said:

I started watching this, thinking "maybe" there might be a sense of remorse (ie, like Reagan in his memoirs) but couldn't watch more than 5 minutes.... this guy has to be among the most delusional and/or pathologically lying scum bag that's ever lived.

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Ironslave said:

I started watching this, thinking "maybe" there might be a sense of remorse (ie, like Reagan in his memoirs) but couldn't watch more than 5 minutes.... this guy has to be among the most delusional and/or pathologically lying scum bag that's ever lived.

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- One week from today, a historic presidency begins and a tarnished presidency ends.

The inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African-American president, cannot come quickly enough for the vast majority of Americans.

This young man with the keen disciplined mind and the buffed body begins a presidency with high hopes, goodwill and a never-ending list of problems left on the Oval Office desk by George Walker Bush, the ever-confident occupant of that high office who seems like the dinner guest who will not leave.

In all my years around Washington as an observer and as a member of several administrations, I have rarely witnessed an event as bizarre as President Bush's farewell press conference yesterday.

It reminded me of Richard Nixon's November 17, 1973, question and answer session before 400 Associated Press managing editors at the height of the Watergate scandal, in which he declared: "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."

Well, to the best of my knowledge, Nixon wasn't a crook (in the technical sense). He was dishonest, he abused the office of the presidency, and telling the truth wasn't his strong suit. And he resigned in disgrace and would have been impeached if he hadn't. But there were also periods in his presidency that were very good for this country and the world.

President Bush is not a crook either. And even more importantly, I don't believe he is dishonest or an incompetent. The mistakes of his presidency were caused by overconfidence, bad information or a certain arrogance that was still fully on display yesterday.

How can you reflect on going to war, a war of choice, and argue that "not finding weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment," as President Bush did yesterday? And putting the "not finding the weapons" in the same breath as "We shouldn't have hung the sign, 'Mission Accomplished' "!

A disappointment is when you're a football fan and your team lost in the playoffs or in the national championship game. Eliminating weapons of mass destruction was the rationale for sending hundreds of thousands of men and women to Iraq to risk their lives and spending billions of dollars of American taxpayers' money.

The rationale for the war wasn't that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy -- which he was -- and that he violated every sanction and agreement that the United Nations put on him.

President Bush went on to say: "One thing about the presidency is that you can only make decisions based on the information at hand. You don't get to have information after you make the decision -- that's not the way it works."

That is correct and that may be the most important lesson our new president can learn from the failures of the last. Make sure you get the information to make the right decisions.

President Bush, referring to the Abu Ghraib scandal and the missing weapons of mass destruction, said, "I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but things didn't go as planned, let's put it that way."

The lesson for President-elect Obama is often things don't go as planned.

Last week four men who have been president had lunch in the White House with the newly elected president. As I looked at the picture of the five members of the most exclusive club in the world standing in the Oval Office, I felt sad.

Two of the men, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, now in their 80s, had been overwhelmingly defeated in their bids for re-election. President Clinton and President Bush, both in their 60s, had periods of great failure.

President Clinton was impeached. The present president leaves office with the lowest approval ratings in modern history. None of these were bad men -- just the opposite.

Why did their presidencies not live up to those high expectations that we all have for our new leaders on Inauguration Day?

In some cases, they fought their natural allies. President Carter was particularly inept at dealing with Congress; so was the current President Bush. Carter and the two Bushes failed at communicating with the public and were unable to articulate what their programs were and build support for them in Congress. Clinton, a good communicator, was terribly undisciplined.

President Obama will need to set his priorities early. He can't do all he's promised in the first term. He needs to build strong relationships with the Congress and let them play a big role in setting his agenda.

He needs to use his tremendous communication skills and continually explain to the country what he wants to do and why. Then he needs to take his campaign machine and motivate the grassroots organization he built to get Congress to support his programs. He must be patient but persistent in making his case.

As we hope for the change which is coming next week, I just want to pause and reflect and say to President Bush, "Thank you, for serving your country." To our new president: Best of luck and you have our prayers.

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Ironslave said:

... eh, that article is WAY too forgiving. Bush is arrogant, and may believe he did the best things all along.... but he is a massive liar, and as far as being a "crook", he's one of the biggest the world has ever known.

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Braaq said:

I think the world as seen far far worse than Bush. I think the article is right on the money, I think your getting a little too hot under the collar.

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Ironslave said:

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Samoan-Z said:

Lets see here we got Nero, Stalin, Hitler, Atilla the Hun,Ming Dynasty, Most British Kings, Chistopher Columbus, Spainish Slave Trade I think bush doesn't amount to what they done ironslave it's time to give it a break lol.

Especially to say he's the worst the world has EVER seen ,

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Duality said:

as fun as it is to watch that, videos that rely purely on clips from different speaches where these men more or less are simply pandering to the crowd at hand rather than intentionally lying don't do much in an intellectual debate. if you were debating a regular joe on the subject it would be convincing, but no one informed and intelligent about the situation (as braaq is) is going to take propaganda videos like that very seriously or at the least not very convincingly as a retort.

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Ironslave said:

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Ironslave said:

"one of" .... (edit), but I said he's one of the biggest "crooks", not "killers"... think about all the things his administration has done from obstructing justice, illegal wiretaps, torture, and so on.
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Oh pfft then we are right on the money together he is a huge crook.

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