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Criticism of George W. Bush
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George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, drew significant domestic and international criticism throughout his presidency. His level of popular support declined from 90 percent (the highest ever recorded by Gallup) immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks to 25 percent the lowest level for any sitting President in 35 years, rivaling Richard Nixon's unpopularity at the time of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent resignation. His opponents have criticized his way of fighting the War on Terrorism, his support for the USA PATRIOT Act and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, among many other acts and issues along the way, and there was even a small-scale movement to impeach him. Former President Jimmy Carter has called Bush's presidency "the worst in history", although he later said that comment was "careless or misinterpreted," and that he "wasn't comparing this administration with other administrations back through history, but just with President Nixon's." According to an August 2008 poll, 41% of Americans consider Bush to be the worst President of all time, though 50% of Americans disagreed. Criticisms of administration Foreign policy and national defense Al-Qaeda In the President's Daily Brief of August 6, 2001 entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US, President Bush was informed of the terrorist threat posed by al-Qaeda. Critics allege that these warnings were ignored. At a press conference held on July 2007, Bush denied a United States National Counterterrorism Center report that stated that al-Qaeda has "regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001." Bush said that was "simply not the case." He has also received criticism for publicly using phrases like "bring it on" and "wanted dead or alive," both regarding terrorists. "Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., called the president's language 'irresponsible and inciteful'". "'I am shaking my head in disbelief,' Lautenberg said. 'When I served in the Army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander — let alone the commander in chief — invite enemies to attack U.S. troops.'" And indeed the Iraqi Resistance group known as the "Islamic Jihad Army" put out a video which stated "George W. Bush, you have asked us to 'bring it on.' And so help me, like you never expected. Do you have another challenge?" Bush apologized for these comments in 2006. However on September 9, 2007, Bush's homeland security adviser again caused a stir when she, in referencing a new tape by Bin Laden, said "This is about the best he can do. This is a man on a run, from a cave, who's virtually impotent other than these tapes". "In appearance on two Sunday talk shows, she used the 'virtually impotent' reference both times, suggesting the language was chosen with careful purpose". "Such a comment could prove incendiary to like-minded followers of bin Laden who see themselves as a 'vanguard of a global assault on the United States' ... "A provocation like that is not helpful" said Thomas Sanderson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies . Iraq President Bush has taken a significant amount of criticism for his decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 and his handling of the situation afterwards. As President Bush organized the effort, made the case, and ordered the invasion himself, he has borne the brunt of the criticism for the undeclared war. A Newsweek poll taken in June 2007 showed a record 73% of respondents disapproving of Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Critics of the invasion claimed that it would lead to the deaths of thousands of Coalition soldiers and Iraqi soldiers and civilians, and that it would moreover damage peace and stability throughout the Middle East. When this later turned out to be the case, public support for Bush and his policies dropped sharply. Another oft-stated reason for opposition is the Westphalian concept that foreign governments should never possess a right to intervene in another sovereign nation's internal affairs. Giorgio Agamben, the Italian philosopher, has also offered a critique of the logic of such pre-emptive war. Anti-war sentiment has led to a number of large protests in the US, among the most visible being the one led by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, and some reflection in electoral politics. A significant minority of mostly Democratic politicians, such as former Vice President Al Gore and Barack Obama, opposed the invasion of Iraq. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for President in 2004, voted to authorize the invasion. Howard Dean, a rival for the nomination, ran on an anti-war position, but did not favor quick troop withdrawal. Dennis Kucinich, another candidate for the Democratic nomination, favored replacement of the U.S. occupation force with one sponsored by the UN, as did Ralph Nader's independent presidential candidacy. Torture Another point of discussion has been whether the detainment and treatment of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantánamo Bay detainment camp constitutes torture or not. Although a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll "found that sizable majorities of Americans disagree with tactics ranging from leaving prisoners naked and chained in uncomfortable positions for hours, to trying to make a prisoner think he was being drowned. President Bush has stated that "We do not torture." Yet, many people and governments and non-governmental organizations disagree and have staged several protests. These sentiments are partly a result of the Pentagon's suggestion that the president can legally torture anyone he deems to be a threat to security, and because the Bush administration has repeatedly tried to stop attempts at limiting torture, including signing statements by President Bush to exclude himself from the laws created by the as well as vetoing legislation that would have made waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods illegal. Furthermore, many people are concerned by the Bush Administration's use of Extraordinary rendition, where individuals are sent to other countries where torture can easily occur without any form of oversight. Bush defends this practice on the basis that: the United States government has an obligation to protect the American people. It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way. And we will do so within the law, and we will do so in honoring our commitment not to torture people. And we expect the countries where we send somebody to, not to torture, as well. But you bet, when we find somebody who might do harm to the American people, we will detain them and ask others from their country of origin to detain them. It makes sense. The American people expect us to do that. A Pentagon memo lists many interrogation techniques which were requested and approved during the presidency of George W. Bush on the basis that "The current guidelines for interrogation procedures at GTMO limit the ability of interrogators to counter advanced resistance". The Bush administration's connection to torture has been one of the main considerations in the movement to impeach George W. Bush. Torture has in several cases become military policy and several high ranking US officials are being charged with war crimes in Germany. Domestic policy Domestic criticism of Bush has waxed and waned throughout his administration. Before 9/11, Bush was reviled by the bulk of the American left, mostly for his role in the controversial 2000 election, and for perceived shortcomings in his No Child Left Behind program for education. The next major domestic item which Bush faced significant opposition to was his program of tax cuts, codified in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Both acts ultimately passed, but calls for their repeal lasted until the end of the 2004 campaign. Democratic candidate Howard Dean in particular called for a repeal of the part of the tax cuts which affected the wealthiest Americans in order to fund public health care programs and reduce the federal deficit. After Bush was re-elected, he made Social Security reform a top priority. He proposed options to permit Americans to divert a portion of their Social Security tax (FICA) into secured investments, creating a "nest egg" that he claimed would enjoy steady growth. This led Democrats to label the program a "privatization" of Social Security. Bush embarked on a 60-day tour to shore up public support for the plan, attacking the political reaction against reforms. Ultimately, however, no consensus on a plan could be reached within the congressional Republican party, and Bush was left without any political will to pass his reforms. The issue was dropped, and the status quo maintained. Bush has been increasingly forced to defend his actions on many fronts and has been unable to generate widespread support in the nation as a whole. An example of the general displeasure and extent to which many Americans have lost respect and confidence in the President lies in his recent election as the "Biggest Tool of 2006" in an online poll created by Comedy Central. The Republican Party's defeat in the 2006 US midterm elections is taken as another sign of plummeting public support for President Bush. After the Democratic Party's victory, MSNBC reported that "The war in Iraq, scandals in Congress and declining support for Bush and Republicans on Capitol Hill defined the battle for House and Senate control". Economy and fiscal policies The Bush administration had also come under attack from the American right-wing, particularly with regard to its economic policies. The American Conservative laments "Bush doesn’t know how to stop. Like a credit-card thief, the President of the United States is going on a shopping binge and making other people pay. If history gives Bush a nickname, it will be Deadbeat Dubya". Calling Bush "The Mother of All Big Spenders", the libertarian think-tank Cato Institute writes that "Sadly, the Bush administration has consistently sacrificed sound policy to the god of political expediency". Yet when Democrats want to increase spending on domestic issues such as health care for the poor, Bush suddenly becomes a "fiscal conservative" accusing them of "working to bring back the failed tax-and-spend policies of the past" and vowing to fight them. But says Cato's Chris Edwards, "When he gives speeches now, you hear him bashing the Democrats on overspending. It sounds ridiculous, because we know he's a big spender." "After running up $3 trillion in new debt - including more than half a trillion dollars for what some have called his flawed Iraq policy - some people find it astounding that the president is once again lecturing Congress about fiscal responsibility and fiscal priorities," stated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev). Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve for 18 years, serving under six Presidents and who describes himself as "a lifelong Libertarian Republican", writes in his book ' that Bush and the congressional Republicans "swapped principle for power". "Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences". Interestingly he writes that former President Bill Clinton had "a consistent, disciplined focus on long-term economic growth became a hallmark of his presidency" and says that Clinton was "by far" one of the two "smartest presidents I've worked with". Greenspan, again promoting his book, also says "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil" and "getting Saddam out of there was very important, but had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, it had to do with oil." With regards to the costs of the war in Iraq, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will come to between one and one and a half trillion dollars by 2010. "Those costs -- both to sustain the current mission in Iraq and to pay longer-term 'hidden' expenses like troop healthcare and replacement equipment -- are far more than US officials advertised when Congress gave President Bush the authority to launch the invasion in March 2003. At the time, the White House and then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld predicted a quick, decisive victory and counted on Iraqi oil revenues to pay for the war. And when Lawrence Lindsey, one of Bush's top budget advisers, estimated in 2003 that the entire undertaking could cost as much as $200 billion, he was fired ... McGovern said he is worried about the long-term financial impact of the war, adding that his primary concern is that the United States is borrowing money to pay for it. Some leading economists have predicted that, depending on how long troops remain in Iraq, the endeavor could reach several trillion dollars as a result of more 'hidden' costs -- including recruiting expenses to replenish the ranks and the lifelong benefits the government pays to veterans. 'It is being paid for on the national credit card,' McGovern said. 'It is being put on the backs of our kids and grandkids. That is indefensible.'" In fact, according to the former World Bank vice-president, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and now a professor at the Columbia Business School, when other factors, like medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen are added in, the cost just to date is closer to $3.3 trillion. However, continues Stiglitz, "Three trillion is a very conservative number, the true costs are likely to be much larger than that". "The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world ... Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered," he said. The relaxed regulation under the Bush presidency are regarded to have been a major contributing factor to the subprime mortgage crisis, and there are fears that the United States and the world economy could slide into another Great Depression. A Harper's magazine column by Linda Bilmes, a lecturer in Public Finance at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Joseph Stiglitz titled The $10 trillion hangover: Paying the price for eight years of Bush, "estimate that the cost of undoing the Bush administration’s economic choices, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the collapse of the financial system, soaring debt and new commitments to interest payments and Medicare, all add up to over $10 trillion" a monumental amount[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/15/big-spender-debt-heads-home-to-texas/ Eight years in office, a $10.6 trillion debt]. See also . The National debt from George Washington to the beginning of Ronald Reagan's term totaled about one trillion dollars. Response to Hurricane Katrina The President came under more criticism when the powerful Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast region during the early hours of August 30, 2005. In the wake of the hurricane, two levees protecting New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain collapsed, leading to widespread flooding. In the aftermath of this , thousands of city residents, unable or unwilling to evacuate prior to the hurricane, became stranded with little or no relief for several days, resulting in lawless and unsanitary conditions in some areas. Blame for inadequate disaster response was partially attributed to state and local authorities, but public outcry in the disaster's early hours was largely directed at the Bush administration, mainly FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security alleging weak crisis management and coordination. In fact a Canadian search-and-rescue team actually made it to a New Orleans suburb 5 days before U.S. aid arrived. Others have identified political conservatism as the overriding cause of problems in the way the disaster was handled. These critics argue that the alleged unreadiness of the United States National Guard, negligence of federal authorities, and haplessness of officials such as Michael Brown did not represent incompetence on the part of the federal authorities, but were instead natural and deliberate consequences of the conservative philosophy embraced by the Bush administration, especially "sink or swim" policies to force reductions in government expenditure and privatize key government responsibilities such as disaster preparedness, both of which resulted in the systematic dismantling of FEMA by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Criticism led to the resignation of FEMA director Michael Brown, and eventually, Bush himself accepted personal responsibility for what he deemed "serious problems in the federal government's response" in a September 15, 2005 press conference. Currently, the administration is investigating itself, yet several politicians have called for either congressional or independent investigations, claiming that the Executive Branch cannot satisfactorily investigate itself. Some critics point out that Democrats Kathleen Blanco (Governor of Louisiana) and Ray Nagin (Mayor of New Orleans) were given a "hall pass" due to the focus on President Bush's mistakes. Environment Bush has been criticized by national and international environmental groups for his administration's rollbacks of environmental protections going back more than three decades. These are in areas ranging from the attacks on the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts to climate change. For a comprehensive (to date of the report) list see the National Resources defense Council's report The Bush Record, NRDC's comprehensive account of the Bush administration's environmental policies from 2001 through 2005. More up-to-date information can be found on the U.S. Senate website. According to MSNBC: After four years in office, the George W. Bush administration has compiled an environmental record that is taking our nation in a new and dangerous direction. Last year alone, Bush administration agencies made more than 150 actions that weakened our environmental laws. Over the course of the first term, this administration led the most thorough and destructive campaign against America's environmental safeguards in the past 40 years. In Texas Chainsaw Management (2007) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. argues that "The verdict on George W. Bush as the nation's environmental steward has already been written in stone. No president has mounted a more sustained and deliberate assault on the nation's environment. No president has acted with more solicitude toward polluting industries. Assaulting the environment across a broad front, the Bush administration has promoted and implemented more than 400 measures that eviscerate 30 years of environmental policy." Kennedy has also written a book . See also the website BushGreenWatch. George W. Bush has also been criticized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, representing over 20 Nobel Laureates, who accuse him of failing to acknowledge basic science on environmental issues. The group says that the Bush administration has engaged in intentional suppression and distortion of facts regarding the environment. In the waning days of his administration, Bush sought rule changes which would negatively impact a wide range of environmental issues. George Bush is behaving like a furious defaulter whose home is about to be repossessed. Smashing the porcelain, ripping the doors off their hinges, he is determined that there will be nothing worth owning by the time the bastards kick him out. His midnight regulations, opening America's wilderness to logging and mining, trashing pollution controls, tearing up conservation laws, will do almost as much damage in the last 60 days of his presidency as he achieved in the foregoing 3,000. His backers - among them the nastiest pollutocrats in America - are calling in their favours. But this last binge of vandalism is also the Bush presidency reduced to its essentials. Destruction is not an accidental product of its ideology. Destruction is the ideology. Neoconservatism is power expressed by showing that you can reduce any part of the world to rubble. Dismissal of U.S. attorneys The dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy is an ongoing political dispute initiated by the unprecedented dismissal of seven United States Attorneys by the Bush administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2006, and their replacement by interim appointees under provisions of the 2005 Patriot Act reauthorization. Congressional investigations have focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White House were using the U.S. Attorney positions for political advantage. Allegations are that some of the attorneys were targeted for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican politicians or that some were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters. Clear explanations for the dismissals remain elusive, however, with several administration officials providing contradictory testimony or testimony contradicted by documents subpoened by Congress. On July 25, 2007 the United States House Committee on the Judiciary voted along party lines 22-17 to issue citations of Contempt of Congress to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers for their failure to respond to Congressional subpoenas. Critics argue that the scandal has undermined both the integrity of the Department of Justice and the non-partisan tradition of U.S. Attorneys. Others have gone so far as to liken the event to Watergate, referring to it as Gonzales-gate. Many members of Congress from both parties called for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. As of June 25, 2007, six senior staff of the Department of Justice had resigned, including the Deputy Attorney General, the Acting Associate Attorney General, the Chief of Staff for the Attorney General, the Chief of Staff for the Deputy Attorney General, the Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and the DOJ's White House Liaison. By September 17, 2007 Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, and several additional senior Department of Justice officers had departed from office. His successor, Michael Mukasey after a controversy over his Senate testimony regarding the legality of torture and waterboarding, was confirmed to office by a vote of the Senate on November 8, 2007, and was sworn in on November 9, 2007. Economic Policies Moral and ethical questions have been raised over the billions of dollars Bush has requested for the Iraq war, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has said ensures that less money is made available to help children and the poor in the United States. Critics have accused him of stinginess toward poor children with regards to health care in a time when it is increasingly unaffordable. Another example is Bush's effort to cut food stamps for the poor. In 2005, Bush called for "billions of dollars in cuts that will touch people on food stamps and farmers on price supports, children under Medicaid and adults in public housing." While passed by the Republican Congress, initially the "White House proposed the restriction". See Also
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