So some on this site

[choie]

are now speaking of GW Bush in nostalgic and, sometimes, even glowing terms...Um...

HE'S A FUCKING WAR CRIMINAL!!

[demmiblue]

1. Yep.

Shame on them.

[dhol82]

2. Amazing how he has been rehabilitated.

Guess painting vets gets him a blue ribbon at the state fair.

[Warpy]

55. I don't think we're forgetting he was the worst president we'd had

until a bunch of rage-o-holic men in the rust belt gave us Dolt45.

[bravenak]

3. It's crazy

I hate him only slightly less than trump. I remember katrina and iraq. Mission sccomplished banners. The only difference I see it trump would use nukes, and dubya would not. Trump cannot wait to start a war just like dubya couldnt wait to get into iraq to avenge his father or whatthefuckever.

[LisaM]

37. He was also a popular vote loser who stole an election through underhanded tactics.

His presidency was awful. It changed me as a person, and not in a good way.

[bravenak]

45. Yep, I never felt like he was legitimate

And he started that wa to get more power

[murielm99]

60. Yes.

He stole an election. This site came into being because of that theft.

[NWCorona]

48. Yup and I didn't forget about this either

[bravenak]

69. What a fuggin weirdo

[MineralMan]

4. I will not speak well of him.

I promise.

[Crunchy Frog]

33. I'll say that at least he was man enough to take the roasting at the Correspondent's Dinner.

[TexasProgresive]

5. When you stand him next to Don Juanabe

AKA 'rump he's a choir boy. It doesn't make George any better.

[choie]

7. No he's not

He's a war criminal - in no way, shape or form is he a choir boy next to, on top of, or under, Trump.

[Cobalt Violet]

65. he still thinks what he did was right.

[Lucky Luciano]

98. He is a war criminal, but the current asshole is a couple orders of magnitude worse. nt

[butdiduvote]

6. I'm not old enough to have a first-hand opinion of what life was like under GWB

So I don't speak nostalgically about him. I do think I'd choose him if forced to choose between tRump and him.

[choie]

9. Tell that to

Iraqis whose country was decimated, or a Muslim who was illegally held and tortured in Guantanamo Bay.

[LisaM]

42. And the people who lost their houses to foreclosure, and people who lost jobs,

and to the people of New Orleans who lost their city.

[Norbert9]

54. I was 18 when we lost our home to Katrina.

Last edited Fri Mar 3, 2017, 07:01 PM - Edit history (1)

It had an enormous impact on my life. I thought we would never see another President as idiotic and incapable as he was. I thought I hated him. I was wrong on both accounts.

Because I HATE this current #$%&er with an everlasting passion of which I didn't think I was capable. There is really no comparison for me.

[LisaM]

57. I guess I hate DT as a person more.

At least the Shrubs liked, and had, pets.

[coco22]

83. I know what you mean..

[StevieM]

72. Now I am curious. Can I ask how old you are?

Last edited Fri Mar 3, 2017, 08:48 PM - Edit history (1)

I have seen posters here who cannot remember the Reagan years, but I think you are the first to say that you are too young to remember George W. Bush.

[butdiduvote]

75. I'm not too young to remember him

I'm too young to have much of an opinion on what life was like under him.

[StevieM]

77. OK, thanks for explaining. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable by asking your age. I was curious.

Let me see if I can describe the difference, from my point of view, between living under Trump and living under Bush.

Life under Bush felt like we were living in the middle of a really bad time in our country's history. Life under Trump feels like we are living in the middle of a really bad Hollywood movie.

[eleny]

8. I hate him by the thousands

I don't know how many thousands because not all the dead have been counted yet.

[ProudLib72]

10. Hey, I had the "impeach W" bumper stickers

But at the end of the day, I only wanted W in prison, not torn into fifty million tiny pieces and flushed down the toilet.

[Maru Kitteh]

47. This. I wanted W behind bars. I will CELEBRATE the day DFT dies.

I don't give a flying eff how he checks out either. That will be a day of celebration in the Maru home.

[dalton99a]

91. The whole world will rejoice with you.

[MedusaX]

11. All things are relative...

GW, at the time, was an embarrassment and clearly f'*cked up royally.. more than once...

He remains responsible for all decisions he made and I doubt that anyone truly has now exonerated him (in their mind) .....

Rather, it is likely that what appears to be nostalgic reminiscing of GW is actually
expressions of sheer disbelief that in such a short period of time after experiencing GWs royal f*ck ups....
we have somehow found ourselves in a situation that has managed to f*ck up so much in just 6 weeks
and is on schedule to end up so far beyond anything which we experienced with GW...

[choie]

14. Bush's action were

not "fuck-ups" - they were war crimes. I doubt Iraqis think they were "fuck-ups"

[LisaM]

46. He also caused Trump to be elected, in a roundabout way.

His Supreme Court choices that led to the evisceration of the VRA and allowed Citizens United. HIS foreclosure crisis. HIS tanked economy. HIS war in Iraq that led to Abu Grahib and Blackwater creating ISIS. HIS Department of "Homeland" Security. HIS failure to pay attention to pre-9/11 intelligence.

How people are so effed up to think Republicans make us more secure is beyond me.

[hlthe2b]

12. No. I have seen qualified comments, emphasizing that ONLY in comparison

to the Trump cabal, does GWB look even slightly less horrific--that is Hardly what anyone could defensibly claim to be an endorsement or anything approaching a rehabilitation

[choie]

13. So a war criminal

is better in comparison to Trump? I take a backseat to no one in my utter disgust and contempt for him, but he's not a war criminal...at least not yet.

[hlthe2b]

16. You have a very strange sense of relativism...

As one who spent the first weekend desperately trying to help a long term permanent resident Muslim colleague panicking after her returning green card holding husband was detained for more than 18 hours with no word at Chicago O'hare and subsequently dealt with multiple frantic student Latino "dreamers", who now realize our constitution is no deterrent to Trump, I find little "solace" in YOUR defense of him.. Not a war criminal (yet?)--how the hell do you know?

[choie]

23. Look up the definition of war criminal

before you claim I have a strange sense of relativism - you clearly don't understand what the hell a war criminal is. YOU are defending a war criminal.

[hlthe2b]

25. I am defending no one, newbie

Many of us have been around here since that bastard's illegal inauguration in 2001, as have I. So take your undeserved sense of superiority and condescension elsewhere.

[choie]

30. I have been here for over a decade...

so calling me a "newbie" means shit, as do your insults...

[Occulus]

78. The idea that W is more palatable than Trump, advanced seriously,

is both defense and rehabilitation.

[hlthe2b]

85. Putting false words/attributions in other DU's "mouths" is a very RW thing to do

You SHOULD be ashamed

Most DUers are able to detest GWB for his illegal war and believe he should have faced consequences of his use of torture. That is not at issue.

[Occulus]

87. It certainly seems to be an issue for you....

and all I did was state an opinion. You put that opinion in your own mouth all by yourself.

[hlthe2b]

88. Again, you are being intensely disingenuous and disrespectful

Save that for the other side, Occulus.. We OUGHT to be on the same side--can't you see that?

Pointing out that there are differences in Trump and Bush is hardly defending either one.

[Occulus]

89. I'm just saying it's disgusting to be favorable to either compared to the other.

Both are contemptible. So is the relativism that paints either in a favorable light vs. the other.

[hlthe2b]

92. Just because they are both contemptible, does not mean that there are not differences to consider...

To fail to recognize that, is to be very ill prepared to react to what is coming.

[Hortensis]

18. Anything can be overdone, even absolutism. :)

Maybe regard DU as a way to get in a little exercise to loosen up the brain?

I don't think many here actually admire W. But the train that would have carried him off to prison left the station without him a very long time ago now, and we have new and worse demons to worry about.

[Crunchy Frog]

44. W wasn't a war criminal in his 1st six weeks in office.

W also didn't sell out his country to a hostile foreign power before even becoming president.

If Dump survives long enough in office, I expect him to achieve a high body count too.


And please do not construe this as any sort of defense of W.

[alarimer]

81. Yes, because Trump is a fascist and W was not.

Also, given his budget proposal, he has the potential to ruin everything for a very long time for everyone here in the US. He also us destabilizing on the world stage in a way Bush never was. Bush never proposed to end the EPA, no matter how much certain fringe people in the Republican party wanted him to.

Plus the whole Russia thing seems unprecedented.

[fun n serious]

15. Yes, he is a war criminal

GWB's white house was actually very similar to Trump's. Massive corruption!

[BainsBane]

17. Be that as it may

Trump is infinitely worse.

[Solly Mack]

19. I still feel the same way about him and the rest of his administration

that I have always felt.

War criminals that got away with torture, murder & other crimes against humanity.

Time doesn't change that.

Sure, I think things have the potential to be a lot worse under Trump/Pence but that changes not a damn thing about Bush/Cheney.

May as well ask me who do I prefer, Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy?

Solly, would you rather be shot to death or stabbed to death?

Which would be worse, Ebola or Marburg?

Fuck Bush. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Forever. (same with the rest of them)

[choie]

32. Amen, Solly N/T

[Solly Mack]

93. Thank you, choie.

For the thread and your repines.

Each time we allow government to get away with crimes, government becomes that much more emboldened. That much more likely to commit future crimes of the same nature since they know exactly what they can get away with.

If Trump gets away with his actions, a future president will try the same thing (conflicts of interest, foreign influence on elections and policy), actually trying to govern through executive fiat, by-passing both Congress and the courts. Attacking and neutering government offices designed to help the country and the people.

In my opinion, each time a president gets away with their crimes, America becomes weaker. Our checks and balances become meaningless, making us weaker. Congress bears most of the responsibility for that - for not holding presidents accountable when they should.

[Phentex]

38. Exactly.

I still despise him and everything he did to this country.

[Solly Mack]

90. Me, too.

Nothing that happens under Trump will change that,

Allowing Bush/Cheney to get away with their crimes showed future presidents just how much they could also get away with.

And look who is in office.

[dembotoz]

20. OH MY GOD THANK YOU for being ever so right

[leftstreet]

21. Bush himself seems to be enjoying his reinvention

We haven't (thankfully) heard much about or from him for 8 years

Now he's being compared favorably to Trump, showing up in the media, etc

Makes my teeth itch
He and Cheney should be in jail

[Cosmocat]

52. 45 is the best thing that ever happened to 43

He can crawl out of his hole now, and given 45 will now as he always gloat Ed, history will see him better, I mean, 45 will be so God awful...

[malaise]

22. Yep - it's beyond shocking

[rock]

24. It's a matter of degree

First off, if I had the power, he'd be in prison today, but Trump would have it worse. Much, much worse.

[unblock]

26. he was also quite possibly the worst president ever.

amazing how one month of donnie can make us question that.

[StevieM]

73. I don't disagree that Bush was a terrible president but I think what people are trying to say

is that Trump is uniquely awful. We have never had anything like this before, at least not since the Civil War.

Trump may give James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson a run for their money as the worst president in American history.

[HoneyBadger]

27. He and Michelle are good friends....so weird

[liberal N proud]

28. Sad when we thought nothing could be worse than bush and now we have hitler II

[Crunchy Frog]

29. It's just an illustration of how far we've sunk with Dump.

[caroldansen]

31. All the men, women, children and babies that were killed under his 8 years in office.

Keep reminding them so they never forget.

[choie]

34. It's just incredible...

n/t

[Skittles]

41. hey HEY

PEOPLE ARE *STILL* DYING BECAUSE DUBYA STARTED A WAR *BASED ON LIES*

[50 Shades Of Blue]

35. K & R!!!!!!!!!!

[procon]

36. At my age I thought nothing could shock me, but posts extolling the glorious

"commander guy" just makes my skin crawl.

[Skittles]

39. THAT HAS TO STOP

I don't give a DAMN if Trump is so fucking bad he is making Dubya look better, but it's like PICKING THE BETTER MENENDEZ BROTHER......ENOUGH ALREADY

[ananda]

40. Well...

I disliked everything Bush stood for. I was unhappy
for those entire 8 years.

But compared to 45, he looks good in some ways.

I guess it's understandable to have a tendency
to see degrees of badness.

[nocalflea]

67. Unlike Trump he does have

values-whether we agree with him or not.
That picture of him with Michelle Obama really humanized him for me in a way nothing else could have.
I in no way endorse what he did in the middle east nor the torture and the other abuses of his administration. But I do recoginise he is a human being. I haven't seen any humanity in Trump nor do I believe it exists in him.He is nothing.Empty.Null and void.

[Tikki]

43. YES, he is a WAR CRIMINAL and he joked about it.

NO forgiveness.

Tikki

[11 Bravo]

49. I only wanted Bush tried, convicted, and imprisoned.

I want Trump humiliated, scorned, and despised ... unable to show his face in public ever again.
I want him bankrupt, his properties demolished, and the ground beneath them deeded to the National Park Service.
I want his name to become synonymous with failure and ridicule (Damn, the Browns Trumped another season!).
I want his children to change their surname, and his wife to publicly announce that the reason she has no desire to share a home with him is that he's hung like a hummingbird.
I want "One no trump" to morph from a bridge bid into our National Motto.

Have I mentioned that I don't care for him?

[smirkymonkey]

100. This!

[lunatica]

50. Thank you

[FarPoint]

51. Relax...

No one forgot....We are using all aspects to eliminate tRump...GW is fine as a tool ...New day, new fight.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

53. He's no better than he ever was.

It's just that Trump is even worse, which - if you compare them - makes Bush look relatively good. But if you look at him in absolute terms, he still deserves to have his grave danced or pissed on when he's dead (and I hope I live long enough to be able to do that). When Trump is dead (and I especially hope I live long enough to see that day), his grave should not only be danced and pissed on, it should be buried under tons of concrete, like Chernobyl. Trump's industrial-strength badness doesn't make Bush better than he ever was or deserving of sympathetic thoughts, but comparing the two reminds us that no matter how bad things, or people, can be, they can always get worse.

[world wide wally]

56. It just proves that everything is relative

[Iggo]

58. Yep.

Hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis.

Thousands of dead American soldiers.

And they all died for nothing.

Fuck GWB.

[WheelWalker]

59. In the immortal words of Neil Young...

Even Richard Nixon has got soul. Even Richard Nixon's got it.

[byronius]

61. Truly, it's just the symptoms of trauma.

I don't seriously imagine anyone speaking that way would accept his return to public life.

It's just that there's a long list of awfulness that all of us would rather have in the White House than Dolt45.

For instance, a rotting potato. Or Charles Manson. Or GW Bush.

Like the poster upthread said, it's relative. GW Bush was not, theoretically, a Russian Nazi dedicated to destroying the human species. He displayed elements of that behavior, but I don't think he was fully committed.

Dolt45 is.

[Silver Gaia]

63. This.

I agree. Good post.

[keithbvadu2]

62. Dubya's military leadership skills led America into 9-11 and his business skills left our economy in

Dubya's military leadership skills led America into 9-11 and his business skills left our economy in ruins.

[JI7]

64. it has more to do with how bad trump is

[gordianot]

66. Yes, and it lowers the bar for the next turn of election fraud.

[KingCharlemagne]

68. who on this site is speaking of GWB in

nostalgic terms?

[SecularMotion]

71. The OP is a reaction to this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028736822

[WinkyDink]

70. I'm not and never will, but I can understand the sentiment, given such photos as:

[Tatiana]

74. There would have been no 9/11 and no Iraq war under President Gore.

And we would have had a President Gore if not for Dubya's brother Jeb stealing Florida for him.

He's a village idiot that caused many tens of thousands of deaths.

[Eliot Rosewater]

76. He is, indeed. If he wanted to rehabilitate his

cred and legacy, he could come out and demand a special investigator.

As much harm as he did and it was overwhelming, as much death as he caused, he could gain some of my respect if he did that.

Short of that, hell no.


Because we are at the crossroad, either a patriot appears in the GOP power structure, or we are all done.

[coco22]

79. Kick,kick,kicked&Recommended!

[KittyWampus]

80. I haven't done that but who the hell are YOU to play board nanny scolding others

who may compare Trump to Bush and find Trump even worse?

[GoCubsGo]

82. Thank you.

[choie]

97. Who the hell am I?

I'm a member of DU, that's who I am - you're attempt to shame me is a failure...

[heaven05]

84. TRUE, fuck bush, trump, cheney

bannon, miller, duke, jones, kellyanneconjob. The jerks have made a right turn down the wrong street, they hope to get out alive they better start listening to the american people who are not going to put up with their ameriKKKan bullshit. Bush, cheney rice, woo, just like reagan and nixon, atwater are responsible for this mess called an administration today. Fuck a republiKKKan. They are traitors to america and a majority of its citizens.

[mountain grammy]

86. Like I said before,

I think he was incompetent and an unsuccessful president. War crimes? No trial or conviction.

I think the Katrina disaster was all incompetence. I do not think Bush was or is a racist. Best I can say right now.

[Spider Jerusalem]

94. not incompatible statements: 1) Bush was awful. 2) Trump is worse.

Bush was the worst president since Harding, took the US into a needless war of choice that resulted in the deaths of over a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians and led directly to ISIS, but next to Trump? Bush looks like Winston fucking Churchill. It's a measure of how bad Trump is that he makes Bush of all people look like a statesman in comparison.

[dalton99a]

99. +1

[SammyWinstonJack]

95. He is. Shouldn't be out making the rounds on talk shows like he did nothing. Shameful.

[herding cats]

96. I don't necessarily agree with you about people on DU, but...

This is what happens, historically speaking, when things move radically to the right.

Suddenly, the lesser evil seems more palatable to most average people. This is a reality we're up against now. Just like my parents were under Reagan.

Things are going to change again. Wait for it.

[Lotusflower70]

101. It just shows how fucked up things are

I am not a fan of Dubya. I never have been. But the Asshat-in-chief that is in charge now is on a whole other level.

[akbacchus_BC]

102. Thank you for having the guts to post this. He is a fucking

war criminal and more. He destroyed Iraq with fake news, got thousands killed and got American troops killed as well. Have no ide how Michelle Obama can like him but she probably is more forgiving than most of us. Bush had people killed, let NO sunk! He is a war criminal along with his buddy Cheney! And now we have a different cabal to deal with, worst than him, the putin lovers.

[DonCoquixote]

103. a sad but ugly fact

Folks, let's face it. The fact that many on a democratic site like this one already wax nostalgic about the George Bush years reveals a very ugly fact about America; a mediocre white man will automatically get much more respect than a talented minority. So many people liked Mr. W because "he was someone you could have a beer with" even though they ignored the fact that he was a New England born blueblood whose actual achievements were a result of being born to the right family. I would not have wanted Jeb Bush to have been elected. I suffered through his tenure as governor of my state, and if he was the Republican candidate, I was prepared to pull out fact after fact that explained why he would be a terrible choice.

However, it says a lot where Jeb, who has the mannerisms of the rich man got smashed so bad in the election. The fact that I hated him as an opponent does not downplay the fact that people did not like him because he was not his brother; he could not play the dumb old hayseed act. The heart behind this is that as much is Mr. W was an incompetent, babbling fool, he had a better finger on the pulse of the nation. The reason he is in rehab now is because there are many of those people, some Trump voters, and some Democrat voters who really think things would bring better they just had a working class white guy in charge, just like the "good old days." The sad thing is, at the rate we're going, we might have to try out Bill the big dog again, where he could go ahead and offer is "I'm not a Republican, but I'm still a good old boy that enjoys punching hippies and making fun of liberals as much as you do."

[LanternWaste]

104. An objective 'compare and contrast' between two negatives will

An objective 'compare and contrast' between two negatives will, by the very existence of the comparison, place either one or the other in a more positive light.

I could compare and contrast Stalin and Pol Pot... lacking absolute equivalency, one will appear (relative to the other) less extreme and ghastly.