I was inspired recently by Matthew Yglesias' comments http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/27975 regarding whether George W. Bush was the "worst President ever." After some consideration, I came to the conclusion that he already has won that distinction.
Here is my bill of particulars:
1) He has placed the country in a huge financial bind through a combination of ill-timed tax cuts (which did little to stimulate general spending since most of them went to the well off), increased the size of the federal budget more than any previous President, and added an additional future entitlement (drug benefit) which seems to only benefit large drug companies. His policies have led to a federal debt of over 9 trillion dollars ($30,000+ for every person in America). Cap that with a trade deficit that is resulting in foreign ownership of America and you have a financial situation from which we cannot recover without great pain. What will we do if there is another recession? The deficit will balloon and we won't be able to cut taxes again to fix it. What happens if the rest of the world unloads their dollars and t-bills? Kiss your rear goodbye, U.S. economy.
2) He abandoned our commitment to the military. We are breaking it by misusing it in another war in which it is impossible to know who to shoot at. As a result, our troops are coming home far more psychologically traumatized than after Vietnam. It Vietnam, there were safe zones where troops could relax, not in Iraq. Recruitment is down...standards are down. He abandoned the Republican commitment to clear mission, clear exit strategy, use of overwhelming force, etc.
3) He has violated his oath of office to protect the constitution. He is acting as a dictator, choosing which laws he will and will not obey, spying on Americans without warrant in a huge data-mining operation, and deciding who to incarcerate without access to habeous corpus on his word alone. Monday, U.S. News and World Report will run an article which suggests that he has concluded he may order the FBI to conduct warrantless physical searches in violation of the 4th amendment.
4) He has established precedents that will hamper future Presidents from undoing his damage. He has destroyed checks and balances, abandoned any international treaty that he didn't agree with, established the precedent of first strike warfare on shabby evidence. He lied to the American people about wanting to work through the U.N. to resolve the situation and took us to war because Saddam's WMD's were an immediate threat. In so doing, he has established the world climate where every dictator with a tin hat is trying desperately to get a nuke (and North Korea has, on Bush's watch) as a means of securing themselves from American invasion. He is the little boy who cried wolf. What will happen if a real one appears?
5) He has set back the cause of Christianity by centuries. If you read the Bible, you will see that Christ avoided political involvement, was only critical of the religious bigots of his day, went about healing the sick and helping the poor, and spent much time telling parables of HUMILITY. Bush has used Bible thumping as a means of getting elected while abandoning the values of Christianity.
In conclusion, Bush was the opposite of everything he claimed. He was a divider, not a uniter; he never reached across the political aisle to the democrats, he never envisioned a "humble foreign policy," he never considered cutting CO2 emmisions, he increased the size of government and engaged in rampant nation-building. He is the anti- conservative.
