Bennie,

Unlike you I do my own thinking and am quite original and usually pretty accurate. Did you ever read my reasons for thinking how history might view Bush's Presidency.

Here they are for you:

'The first role of a US president is to keep the population secure. He's had spectular success at that.

He oversaw the greatest and longest period of wealth creation and distribution in the history of mankind. ...

He's done more to eliminate AIDs in the world's poorest countries than all the word spouting lefties put together.

He's appointed more Afro American officials in senior Government positions than any previous US president and has thereby assisted with the wider acceptance of Afro Americans in American society. I think Obama might just be a tad thankful to him.

I predict, if Obama doesn't cause it's failure, democracy may take root in Iraq and spread throughout the mid-east. Peace and curtailment of Israel's expansion will result if that occurs. Peace in the Mid East might be his greatest legacy.

And finally he's the only US president in 60 years, since Roosevelt/Truman, to have actually led the US to a winning position in a hot war. (Let's not forget accolades to my hero Ronnie for winning the Cold War.)'

Simply generalising about George's Presidency by uninformed references to unnamed 'experts' is lazy.

If you want to refute my assertion, fine but do some research and supply evidence that backs your claim.

I don't think you can.

But to look at the present crisis you might read my analysis of the current fiasco.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8053

Where's you analysis that points to only Bush for responsibility?

I don't really expect you to be up to the job of giving a reasoned, detailed and sensible response ... but then again I like to be surprised ... and live with hope.

Dear Keith,

What a cute way of trying to divert from your claim of the
"greatness" of George W!

Clearly you do worry about money, despite your denials, or you
would not focus on it so much. You would think about other things in
life too, like the rights of third world women to family planning,
that they should be the same as first world women and that simply
preaching "abstinence" to them, is the sign of an idiot, out
of touch with the real world. Frankly Keith, your hero is a proven
dockhead.

My GHP shares are doing just fine thank you. Since I bought them,
they have gone up 20%, down again, up 20% again, I could have
bought and sold each time, but I chose not to.

I did that for very good reasons, I am a long term investor, not
a short term speculator. I don't worry about money enough to be
too concerned about some quick profits here and there. My shares
can go up and they can go down, whatever, it does not change my
day at all. For I figure that in 10 years time, in 20 years time,
BHP will still be there, paying a twice yearly dividend, along with
many other companies. If others choose to panic right now and
dump their shares, wow, there might be some more good buying
opportunities just around the corner!

The difference between us Keith is that I see the big picture,
you focus on the little picture. Have fun.

Oh Keith you’re funny! The only president in 60 years to lead the US to a winning war? Which one was that? The one against trr (losing), or against drugs (losing), or against the environment (partial win), or against the constitution (partial win), or against executive oversight (largely successful), or was it the one against the democrats (unmitigated loss)?

He’s the first president in 60 years to lead the US into voluntary war. The US is one large munitions factory and they still can’t work out how to win a shooting war.

And Ronnie. The dear old Gipper who through deft diplomacy single-handedly brought the USSR to its knees. “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes. “ Come to think of it, “Facts are stupid things” also played a role. Republican presidents have a special way with words, have you noticed?

And now the fun stuff. A funny thing happened while using yahoo search. Upon typing “worst president ever” my predictive text inserted “George Bush” ... all by itself!

“A galaxy poll conducted in August 2007 has found that the majority (52%) of Australians agree that George Bush is the worst US president in history.” http://www.nswccl.org.au/news/show_pr.php?relNum=8&relYear=2007\

“History News Network’s poll of 109 historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents.” http://harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804

“Bush reached an unwelcome record. By 64%-31%, Americans disapprove of the job he is doing. For the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll, 50% say they “strongly disapprove” of the president. Richard Nixon had reached the previous high, 48%, just before an impeachment inquiry was launched in 1974.” http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/11/worst_president_ever.html

I didn’t find the particular one I was after but it’s rather difficult when you get “1 - 10 of 17,900,000 for george bush worst president ever” results.

Gotta love this comment from the CIS - a fairly conservative think tank, by and large:

Mr Obama “is much more considerate and engaging globally than Bush. This takes away the 'bete noire' that the United States represented for al-Qa’ida,” counter-terrorism expert Thomas Sanderson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.
“On one side, it makes America look better, and on the other side it makes al-Qa’ida look a little less relevant,” he said. “They would have been happier having someone closer to president Bush's policies.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24680438-2703,00.html

In regard to economics, you mention how the American economy has grown under Bush, but fail utterly to mention how the 'trickle down' theory has failed to increase the net earnings of the American middle and lower classes.

To update your economic knowledge, I strongly suggest you actually take a look at Obama's economic policies before lauding Bush so loudly. But then again, the rest of us "uneducated fools!' (best said while clenching a fist and hammering the table like a crazed, arrogant megalomaniac) probably couldn't possibly have the temerity to argue with you, o wise one.

Here's a mighty fine place to start. Few articles on Obama have really had weighty economic analysis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/magazine/24Obamanomics-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

The money quote is thus: "The fact that the economy grows — that it produces more goods and services one year than it did in the previous one — no longer ensures that most families will benefit from its growth. For the first time on record, an economic expansion seems to have ended without family income having risen substantially. Most families are still making less, after accounting for inflation, than they were in 2000."

Cont'd.

(The article also has some excellent information regarding other aspects of Obama's economic attitude, so I heartily recommend it. Rarely has a politicians economic background been so well researched and presented prior to their ascent to the oval office).

So yes, there has been growth, but the trickle down theory has failed. Actually, I agree with the trickle down effect, but only where there is proper oversight, and a taxation system with only minor tweaks to ensure there is a sustainable middle class, as inevitably more powerful tiers of the economy will make predatory moves toward expanding their income.

For the record, I agree with most free market principles, but believe they have their limitations, particularly in regard to the supply of some universally required services such as health care. I also think sufficient regulation is required, and it is here that the Bush administration has failed so comprehensively, by following their ideology over pragmatics.

(Also FTR keith, frankly, I think displaying such contempt and arrogance is an interesting display of idiocy, as inevitably, one who does so loses the argument quite badly.
And I'm rather well acquainted with a fair number of economic texts, though I'm not so foolish as to merely state that and believe it has any power to persuade. When people do so, it's called 'playing the man, not the ball.' It's a core element in basic critical reasoning classes. You should look it up sometime. You can find it in books. You know, like the ones you tell us you make you so much smarter than everyone else.)

I'll avoid the two-button stress test over Bush/Obama. However...

TRTL: Your "money quote" is really a funny-money quote. It betrays how distorted and actually fictitious the definitions of "economic growth" are during this monetarists' long Globalization regime. Notice how your NYT quote seems to offer a sane and moral person's definition of "economic growth" ("produces more goods and services"), but then insinuates, however indirectly, criteria that should only matter to that type of "economic growth" appreciated by lunatics, fraudsters and other criminals.

Recall that the actual and necessary physical production in the US economy - like that in Australia and the EU - has been SMASHED by these free-trade, neolib, globalizing bastards. On closer examination, the monetarists' prevailing measures of "growth" depend on properly irrelevant factors like increases in debt servicing in a bloated and quite useless finance sector (right now perhaps the most prominent among Globalization's many notorious employment abbatoirs). Other sleaze factors are the tech-miniaturization effect on counts for inflation AND production. Try eating a 2GB memory stick, for example: mmm, "production", and so much cheaper than 6 months ago!

It's the same with family incomes not rising during or by the end of the period of "economic growth". Of course they haven't risen! For one thing, normal families have no direct contact with the vast mountains of debt that have kept the neolib shysters fixated on their fictitious "growth" scam, like some dazzling holographic Eldorado. Try eating a derivatives portfolio, for another reality-check example: mmm, toxic sludge, endorsed by neolib speculator and Obama sponsor George Soros! The derivatives now clock over into the QUADRILLION mark - now there is indeed a form of "growth", but it's hardly economic. More like cancer.

It's all over guys, the system's broken. The derivatives bubble is completely unpayable: that's the problem, not commoners' household debt as stated in TRTL's NYT link. We either reorganize it from true state intervention and protection, or watch these same cowardly scumbags suck up even further to their financier bosses by trying their hand at full-blown fascism.

I hope this reality stuff trickles down to you.