I Think, Therefore I Rant!

Currently, President Barack Hussein Obama is planning on going to Copenhagen to be a celebrity pitchman for the city of Chicago (and America in general) for the home of the 2016 Olympics. While there is plenty of controversy over this decision since there are probably hundreds of movie stars and celebrities that could be tasked with helping the cause, the concern that BHO is too busy to go is probably not relevant.

Currently, every head of state for a city that is in the finals is visiting the IOC.  BHO’s lack of attendance would be telling if he did not go.  If BHO stayed home and spent more time socializing our economy, he would be vastly criticized if Chicago lost their bid. It is the sad state of Olympics politics that the head of state needs to be involved in order to win since Blair did that 4 years ago to secure London’s hosting spot.  

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I have spoken about Iranian justice in the past and ranted that a population that wants to be treated seriously cannot be so barbaric.  Now I read about a blogger that specialized in cultural discussions was imprisoned and died in prison. On this blog, I rant and discuss a lot of politics and some cultural things.  In Iran, I would be thrown in jail and I too would probably be dead by now.  For as much as I complain about broken things in the US, at least it is better than most of the world.

I first saw this information on Blog Herald so go over and read about what they have to say on the subject.  You can also read more in the New York Times, the LA Times, and they all seem to point to Radio Free Europe.  

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The White House has released the March Madness NCAA tournament picks of President Barack Hussein Obama.  While I don’t begrudge the man the opportunity to spend a few minutes of pleasure doing the same thing that many Americans are doing today, I question the wisdom of releasing those picks to the public.  I think it may play to the superstar status that he tried to get away from in the election (and caused Paris Hilton to release this video).  It also may be a little frustrating to the thousands that received a foreclosure notice today.

Regardless, here are BHO’s picks.  You can click on the image to go to the original larger image.

I question that BHO crossed out Louisville and then selected UNC.  While that may be a prudent choice, I wonder about his flip-flop on this issue.  I sure hope that he didn’t have a political analyst help him with this!  

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Another story in the continuing discussion regarding former prisoners at Guantanamo that returned to cause harm to Americans and our allies.  This further questions that very political decision to close Gitmo as a secure prison for terrorists.  We obviously cannot release them back to their home countries since it seems that so many were true criminals and should be put in jail for decades.

Here is a part of the story from AP but there are some other interesting thoughts at the blog Clinging to G & G  

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I have written about the legacy of George Walker Bush several times on this site.  Most notably, I did a 5 part series that tried to answer the question if GWB is the worst President ever.  Now I read an opinion by Thomas Fleming, who is one of the most respected and well written presidential historians that we should all take a long sigh and relax for a bit before grading the man.

I respect the work of Mr. Fleming (and the WSJ) to quote too much of his article on this site.  Please go to their site and read the full opinion but here are some highlights that I thought were interesting.

Several polls of historians have named George W. Bush the worst
president in American history. This baffles me. I’ve been writing about
presidents for a long time. What I know, and what I presume these
gentleman know, doesn’t connect.

 

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The current President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, has had a very troubled start to his Presidency.  Not only did he inherit a mess in the economy, but he has had multiple mis-steps in his selection of his cabinet and advisors.  While the tax problems with Daschle and others have plagued the first few nominations, now there is even some concern about his most important advisor, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.  There has also been some criticism for his first international discussions, the first phone call he made to a foreign power was to President Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority.  

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As I write this, George W. Bush is only a few days away from the end of his 8 year Presidency.  Earlier, I had graded Mr. Bush on a variety of major factors but I felt that I left off a huge number of things that he and his administration did or did not do.  This list is the result of trying to be more inclusive.  Many items on this list are actions by the Mr. Bush and his administration and some of them are inactions.

For the last 4 posts we have been exploring the claim that George W. Bush is the worst President of the United States ever.  I am tired of this conversation now.  I may add more topics to grade George W. Bush but I think this is a good list for now.  So, how did he do?  Lets give the short report card.  See the earlier posts if you want to understand the reason behind each grade.

9/11 – A – 4.0
Anthrax – A – 4.0
Afghanistan invasion – A – 4.0
Afghanistan occupation – D – 1.0
Al Qaida – C – 2.0
Preventing terrorism – C  – 2.0
We are wimps – A – 4.0
Libya – A – 4.0
Africa – B – 3.0
Economy -  C – 2.0
Corporate governance -  B – 3.0
Iraq solution – C – 2.0
Iraq invasion – A – 4.0
Iraq occupation – D – 1.0
Israel – B – 3.0
Palestine – D – 1.0
Iran – not sure – no GPA
North Korea – C – 2.0
World opinion – no grade matters – no GPA  

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For the last three posts we have been exploring the claim that George W. Bush is the worst President of the United States ever.  Some say that he is the worst, some say he is in the middle of the pack but just about everyone agrees he is not the best ever.  This post continues the job of grading W on the various issues that he faced in his two terms of office.  See the previous posts to get the background for where we are now.

Iraq occupation – D – same as Afghanistan.  A lot of good but the job is not done so W can’t get better grade until the job is done.  He can’t get better than a C ever since he messed up so bad by putting Bremer in place – Bremer’s decisions really messed up the nation for several years.  I think that history will eventually say that the US did better in Iraq than just about any other takeover of a foreign nation (Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Georgia, Poland, etc) although that is a terrible standard to compare us to.  

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It is probably too early to truly grade W and rank him among his peers.  Time will tell if his policies were somewhat effective or total garbage.  If you are going to grade a President, you need to take a more inclusive look and not just talk about his various failings.  Also the “what if” discussion in that grading is incredibly important such as, “What if President Bush had not gone after Saddam Hussein – what would the world be like?”

It is also difficult to grade individual events because they are so intertwined (Libya, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Al Qaida, Palestine, Syria are all different variations of the same problem).  That said – here are my thoughts on the 19 things that GW did (or didn’t do):  

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