Hi there Americans and sympathizers,
Recent opinion polls indicate that there is less support for the president than for any other president in American history, including Nixon after Watergate. This raises a number of questions:
Why do you think this is?
Does he deserve such discontent/mistrust?
What will he be remembered for in 10 years from now?
Will it influence McCain’s chances to be elected?
Hi Ralf,
Me too were interested in the opinion of some American natives. Unfortunately till now none has replied. So I´d like to tell what I´ve heard recently while watching a report on TV, at least, on how G.W.Bush might be rembered in 10 years from now.
Well, in the report it was mentioned that he/his government makes in the end of his a gift to the American people, means each habitant gets a cheque about some 100 Dollars. The expense of that gift is 100 Billion Dollars paid from taxes or what? Might be this is a lie from the socialist press or might be it´s true? I don´t know. Perhaps, some American natives can shed some light on this?
Regards
Michael
By the way and just to clarify, I don´t envy the people that small amount.
Bush’s public approval rating is around 28%, depending on which poll you look at, which is very low, but another thing to keep in mind is that the approval rating of his loudest opponents – the Democrat-run Congress. The Congress’s approval ratings generally run about 10% lower than Bush’s do, so if they’re unhappy with Bush, they’re VERY unhappy with his opposition.
I don’t know how Bush will go down in the history books after he is out of office, but I think it’s almost certain that 20 years from now he won’t be considered as bad a president as the media now claim he is. Remember that Ronald Reagan was painted up by the media as an imbecile the same way Bush is now, and history is treating him with great veneration. And even the most catastrophic president in modern history – Jimmy Carter – has won various international awards.
I don’t think Bush’s approval rating will affect McCain’s chances of winning the presidency. People don’t perceive them as the same guy. He would almost certainly beat Obama (who is not really a serious candidate), and he would probably beat Hillary, unless she can convince people to forget what she and Bill have been all about for the past couple of decades.
Yes, Michael, the US government is sending out checks to people for $300 to $1,200, depending on how much they paid in taxes last year. Since many people will treat it as a windfall, they’re liable to spend it all when it comes in, and it is believed that this will be a stimulus to the economy. (Because there is an election, the economy is claimed to be in a recession, although it hasn’t met the identifying criterion of two consecutive months of shrinkage. It hasn’t even shrunk for ONE month yet.) Yes, the money comes from taxes, but where do the taxes come from? They’re money that the government forces from people. So really all the Bush administration is doing is giving people some of their money back.
How he will go down in history books will likely depend on the biases of the authors.
I’ll point out some positives:
Led initiatives to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein/Ba’athists in Iraq. We’re still dealing with the Taliban, and while Saddam is gone… obviously Iraq is not yet stabilized to the point we’d like. Is that his fault? I’d say the efforts were both noble.
The War on Terror, imo, is necessary. We can’t just let terrorists have free reign to do as they please. We must protect freedom, and nobody is free when his life is in jeopardy.
The tax cuts worked to get American money back into the markets after the mini-crash that took place immediately after 9/11. If you believe in free enterprise – the principles of free markets and property – Bush has a good record here. He’s mostly kept government’s hands out of the wallets of Americans. Americans have been freer to spend their money under Bush than they were under most other US presidents since Wilson.
He can’t control the price of oil.
He can’t control the weather. He can’t run FEMA on his own. (though he did appoint a person totally unfit to run that agency, so I suppose he could be blamed for the appointment)
He can’t control Americans who are intent on buying homes they can’t afford.
He can’t make lazy people get off their butts and get to work.
There has not been a major terrorist attack in the US since 9/11, so Homeland Security (the agency Bush started) must be doing something right. There have been numerous terrorist attempts in the States since 9/11. The anthrax scare of several years ago ended up not really doing much damage.
Those are a few pros (and excuses) for President Bush.
If you’re a conservative, he’s been okay. If you’re a liberal, you probably wish he’d raised taxes, increased welfare, and not gone to war. (though there are some Democrat hawks too)
A lot of libs bitch about the budget defecit… and certainly we should have a balanced budget. (of course, that hardly ever happens – no matter the president)
We’re trying to do a lot of good in the world, and wars cost money. (“good” in this case signifying the attempts to free the Iraqis and Afghans from oppressive regimes and – the much harder part – to stabilize both countries so that they can continue with governments that respect freedom and the rule of law)
I’m a Canadian and I want Barack Obama to send McCain home. Bush’s administration has been a big dissapointment.
I don’t know how you get that from what I said. Just not being hysterically negative about Bush makes me a “great Bush admirer”?
Many Americans are afraid that a Democrat – at least the ones who have run for president in the past few elections, and the ones who are running currently – will turn the US into something like Canada, with press and media censorship, government hearings and fines for making politically incorrect statements (and without the right to know who one’s accuser is), two-year waits for hip replacement surgery, and other similar problems that we don’t have now.
A friend of mine from Iraq, who has lived in the US for several years, thinks that Hillary will somehow get the Democrat nomination over the candidate she refers to as “that Muslim guy”. She claims that Hillary will then proceed to screw everything up so badly that in the next election a Republican will win by a landslide. So what she’s predicting is a replay of the Nixon-to-Carter-to-Reagan sequence. A Republican who is unpopular gives way to a Democrat who is unusually incompetent, who after only one term is replaced by a competent Republican. It will be interesting to see if her theory proves true.
editted
These people usually don’t know what Republicans stand for, and their mental image of them is basically the cartoon painted by the left.
Barak Obama is inexperienced, and lacks the ability to think clearly, and so he is dangerous. Hillary may be power hungry, and I may not like the policies she advocates, but she is at least experienced enough and has enough mental clarity that she’s not dangerous. If Hillary becomes president, when she leaves office there will be a few misguided policies that need to be fixed. Obama says very little about what he actually believes and wants to do, but the little he does say indicates that if he becomes president, there will be lasting damage that we’ll be dealing with for decades to come. Most of the international problems the US has to deal with now are the results of damage done by Jimmy Carter when he was president, and I think Obama would have the same sort of poor judgment, at least at this point in his life.
George who?
Molly, 12th May, 2008.
Aren’t the right also cartoon painters?
And sing:
“Put the blame on Mame, boys. Put the blame on Mame.”
What is more important – Bush’s rating or the way the American people think and act? I don’t think it’ll make that much of a difference who gets elected as the next president, what really counts is how every single American uses the existing political system to change life for the better. A president can never run an entire country alone, he or she always needs the support of quite a lot of people.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: Car wash[YSaerTTEW443543]
I’m not sure what the experienced president like Bush did to America and what experience Hillary has. With all her experience and great judgement, she endorsed the war on Iraq :oops:
She wants presidencey at any cost. She went too offensive and played the race card. What’s with hard-working, uneducated blah blah people and all that? She’s a divisive figure.
I would not like any of the following be the president of my country:
Someone who would wage a war on Iraq for no apparent reason(oil :lol: ).
Someone who says that troops should stay in Iraq for 100 years and
Someone who says he/she will obliterate Iran if they put a hand on Israel.
But anyway I shouldn’t care about American politics. Though it’s sad to see the leading nation going down and down. For a change, let’s have China lead 
I see you weren’t paying much attention to the news, and you swallowed the Michael Moore/Jacques Chirac line.
Would you like to have a president who wants trade sanctions removed from a genocidal dictatorship because your country’s big oil companies have negotiated a $20 billion contract that will take effect when sanctions are removed? That would be Monsieur Chirac, who was one of the first to start using the “war for oil” slogan.
Where does the US get its oil? Only 13% comes from the Middle East, and almost none from Iraq. About 48% comes from Canada, the rest comes from Latin America or from the US itself. That “war for oil” slogan is a canard.
Did you hear the entire context of that remark? Was McCain saying he wants 100 years of war in Iraq? No. He pointed out that US troops had been in Japan for 60 years, and in other countries almost as long. You see, Japan wreaked destruction on the whole Far East, and it took the US, the Australians and others to stop them. Then US troops remained there, and created the conditions for the building of a peaceful, prosperous Japan. That sounds rather positive to me, eh?
So I assume you’re okay with Iran carrying out its publicly sworn intention of obliterating Israel and exterminating all Jews. Evidently you don’t think Iran should be stopped or that there should be any consequences if it acts on these words.
Would you like the US to have a president who advocates a US invasion of Pakistan? How about one who regards pregnancy as “punishment” for a “mistake”? Or one who regards an extreme racist as his greatest mentor? Or who considers working people to be ignorant and irrational? If you don’t like any of those ideas, then Obama’s not your man either.
You need to care about US politics, because Canada is essentially an extension of the US, and they can only have some of the policies they do because the US economy makes it possible. (For example, Canada can only get away with regulating the price of medicines because the cost can be passed on to Americans.) Canada also benefits from the US military’s presence down south.
As for the US going down and down, I was saying the same thing when Reagan was president, but somehow the country never goes down any farther.
In America, many times the president doesn’t run the country. He is often run, and not the runner.
Yours is a rather naive view of international business/shareholding/ownership , etc.
That occurs much less than conspiracy theorists like to imagine. In fact, it almost never happens. I think the last time was when Franklin Roosevelt was very sick and near death.
Is racism new in USA? or ceased to exist? :roll:
I’d have this person over someone who is a liar and a racist like Hillary.
I had a friend before whose father was a rapist and my friend didn’t know it for a long time. So my friend has bad judgement or morally corupt? :roll:
But anyway I don’t want to continue this debate as it is pointless for me. I just hope a good president, I know who i’d be, takes the office and put things back in order. Bush’s administration was a big disaster.
Take care
Bye.
Children don’t choose their parents, but adults choose their mentors, so that analogy isn’t valid when it comes to Obama. He chose the racist, and there was no missing the fact that the guy was racist, because he yelled it out from the pulpit almost every week. Other prominent black figures were so sickened by it that they left, but Obama stayed for 20 years.
You seem to have the idea that whenever anyone questions the function of your president or the capabilities of a native-speaker conspiracy theories are at work.
And?