Is there really any debate? Hoover comes close, but he didn't have Bush's foreign misadventures, nor his penchant for unAmerican activities.
While Carter was ineffective, he was also a victim of the times. The Arab oil embargo whacked out the world economy, and world energy sources. But no Americans died on his watch. Of course, the same can't be said for Bush. His legacy is hard to miss, even this soon after his presidency - * Turning the largest surplus into the largest defecit * The collapse of the economy on his watch * The Iraq fiasco, and of course * 9/11
And he wasn't responsible for anything that happened on his watch? Okay. President Carter didn't have 28 consecutive months of economic growth as did President Bush, he did both cause and perpetuate our humiliation in Iran, his monetary policies led to having to wring inflation out of the economy by the Fed having to allow 18% interest rates after he left and the debt did grow under his watch. Yeah, he was aces.
I'm an avid history & US President reader (especially revisionist writings) and it all depends. I would think it was a fairly under acheiving presidency, but Clinton is widely considered the 3rd most corrupt in history. Also, Carter & Ford were relatively weak & ineffective presidents. But the worst in the last 100 years probably goes to Harding. All that said, Bush, Jr will most liklely go down in history as an overall poor president.
It's possible for someone to not be eloquent and also not be stupid. And for all of the talk of President Bush being a puppet of the Right, our current "brilliant" President is the Charley McCarthy of the Left. Not only did his Administration not write the spending bill, he admitted that he didn't even read it. $878B and he can't be bothered to familiarize himself with a piece of legislation? How can you not be embarrassed as an American?
I know you guys love to change the subject, but no one said Carter was aces. What I actually said was that he was clearly ineffective. As for the inflation at that time and the interest rates, sorry, but that too began under the Republicans. Nixon ran huge debt for his war and Ford tried to Whip Inflation Now (WIN buttons if you remember.) Interest rates had to rise under Carter to get rid of Republican-created inflation. But back to the point, Bush is already ranked lower than Carter by historians. He was an unmitigated disaster on every possible front. Worst of all: He was warned of 9/11 and did NOTHING.
Well, not being a liberal butt-boy, I just happen to disagree. I guess you can't be right all the time, huh?
Wow. That's really your response? First, why do you say Vietnam was President Nixon's war? Did he send advisors in 1963? Nope, that was Kennedy. Did he escalate the war to 550,000 troops? Nope, that was Johnson. If you knew anything about the war, it was all about the exit strategy after Tet in 1968 (a military victory, but a political loss). In fact, Nixon ran on leaving Vietnam and pressed the North Vietnamese for better terms. In fact, when Admiral Darlan (the head of the French armed forces) asked the US to use nuclear weapons to save the French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, it was Vice President Nixon that swung the debate against helping the French. As for interest rates, they were allowed to float under Reagan, not Carter. Why? His policies made an initial inflation problem worse. To wring the inflation out of the economy that Carter perpetuated, Reagan had Volcker float interest rates. THAT was the main driver of the 81-82 recession. The initial cause of inflation in the 70s was the rapid rise in oil prices. Carter founded the Dept. of Energy and was a nuclear engineer in the Navy. Yet he did nothing to stem our reliance on Middle East oil (now most of our supply comes from the Americas). Why? Because nuclear energy was unpopular, and he didn't have the backbone to say--as a nuclear engineer--that he may know a little more about nuclear power than the producers of "The China Syndrome". It was those polices that left us completely at the mercy of the Iranians in 1979, which caused the second oil shock. President Carter was easily a worse President than George W. Bush. He was ineffectual domestically, economically and internationally. As for President Bush being warned about 9/11, please provide some evidence to back up that accusation. It's a serious one.
The Bush administration was warned about Bin Laden wanting to attack the USA. It is well documented. I'm sure the number of threats to the USA like that are numerous and it's a judgment call as to which to pay attention to. If Bush had instituted the TSA before 9/11, there would have been outrage. Yet, 9/11 was planned on Clinton's watch, and numerous attempts to capture Bin Laden or thwart his efforts were futile (or worse, ignored offers to hand Bin Laden over). Life was good for 7 of the 8 Bush years. By this measure, he is one of the better presidents. Life was good for 5 of the 8 Clinton years, 6 of the 8 Reagan years, NONE of the Carter years, 2 of the GHW Bush years... On the other hand, did Bush leave the nation (or world) better off than when he took office? In some ways (Iraq) yes, in some (economy) no. I'd say the economy he left is one of the worst ever, though the economy he took over was in recession and the stock market (NASDAQ) had lost 50% of its value and $7T of peoples' wealth lost in Clinton's last year. Carter left the country much worse off in every way, except peace between Egypt and Israel, and the appointment of Volker. Reagan easily took the worst situation and left the best (compared to one another). Be careful if you use this last measure though. FDR's entire 4 terms were the shitter.
As Denny says, it is well documented. Courtesy of CNN.com: "Presidential Daily Briefing, August 6, 2001 Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. Transcript: The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons. Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America." After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service. An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike. The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack. Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997. Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s. A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks. We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists. Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
Err, okay. That says that Bin Laden was planning an attack. No kidding. Planning an attack against us and knowing about 9/11 beforehand and doing nothing to stop it are two different things.
I'd agree with this. There may have been detailed blueprints as to how Bin Laden was going to attack, somewhere in all the noise that constitutes all the threats. Only delusional conspiracy theorists would believe that Bush somehow knew the date of the attacks. I'd also be wary of "X informant said Y" kinds of things, especially with the 20-20 hindsight that a lot of these same sorts of informants told us wrong things about Iraq and WMDs - including Saddam's relatives. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. He ignores the informants and 9/11 happens. He listens to the informants and feels assured there's WMDs and there aren't any to be found.
I think that falls under the category "a distinction without a difference." Of course he didn't know it would be on 9/11 or be what it specifically was, no one knew that. But he certainly did know the basics - under a confidential briefing no less - that a man who had already attacked this country and who had declared war on it was scouting buildings in NY and was getting ready to hijack planes. That constitutes "knowing about 9/11". Bush ignored the warning. It also constitutes malfeasance, ignorance, and a dereliction of duty.
Key words being "since that time" For the record, there was a "chinese wall" of separation between the FBI and CIA at the time so this kind of information did not flow through the appropriate channels to make it to the intelligence briefings.
