George Bush Was a Good President

Alright sir, firstly I must thank you for inviting me to debate a notion that 72% of the country already agrees with me on. I shall wish you the best of luck, and I thank you for a clear and cogent resolution. I do not want to get extremely stipulative in your usage of Bush being a "good" president. I think everyone understands what is meant, and that is that the Presidency of George Bush was overall a positive impact on the United States. So, I hereby contend, George Bush was not a good president. A.)Bush reacted to the best of his ability in the 9/11 situation. He worked fast and efficiently under enormous amounts of pressure. Acting to the best of one's ability, doesn't constitute "goodness". If someone of a 75 IQ takes the SAT and scores a 300, that does not mean it was a good test. Even if it was "good" for the test taker, it doesn't mean it is universally good, and we are arguing whether Bush was good in a universal sense. If you consider sitting in a chair for 20 minutes immediately following the message of the greatest foreign attack since Pearl Harbor as "working fast", then you have serious misguidance. And I doubt he was collecting his thoughts. After 9/11, Bush asked Americans to go out and spend money. He then invaded a country on pretenses that have been proved illegitimate, in a war longer than WWII, more expensive than any other war in U.S. history, which is still going on today. Efficiency? No way in hell. And true, the war was responded to quickly, which is not too hard when forging evidence, and calling it an "operation" instead of a war, and thus not getting congressional approval. And enormous amounts of pressure? Must be tough bearing a 90% approval rating. But I digress, none of this makes him even remotely 'good'. b) He always did what he thought was right. Bush did not cave into the demands of Congress and the people, he did not base his decisions on polls or advisers Bush always did what he thought was right and he should be respected for that. Why would Bush doing "what he thought was right" make him a good president? If I thought ethnic cleansing was right, would that make it good? Hell no. And my second point is why would you consider not listening to the people to be a virtue in a democracy? Poor representation makes no one a good leader, and I do not care WHO you are. Negligence deserves no respect. And how can you know he did what he 'thought was right'? c) Bush did not cause the "economic crisis" we are in now. Bush had no control over the banks and their loaning habits. Why would that be any concern to the president at all. It was the Clinton administration that allowed banks to push forward into "risky deals". Not Bush. "Not causing" a recession does not make Bush a good president. And saying he had no control over the banks is foolish. The Sec. of Treasury, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and the Chamber of Commerce all are under the Executive Branch. He did have control over the banks, and for the majority of his tenure, he had a Republican Congress who could have easily regulated the banks, thus controlling them. Which he didn't. As president, Bush had the responsibility to overhaul Clinton's mistakes, and by not doing do, he bears partial blame. d) The events that took place during Hurricane Katrina severely hurt Bush's approval rating and I don't understand why. How would the president have supposed to have known about the levee situation in New Orleans. He gave the city the status of "emergency" and opened the emergency funds to the city. That is all the president was entitled to do. The evacuation of the city and obvious building flaws of the levees were the responsibility of the mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana. I won't take up too much time with this one. It is after all not my fault that you "don't understand why". A little light reading my fair you well. So here: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com... Now for why Bush wasn't only not a good president, but a pretty bad one (even though I do not need to prove this, for my opponent has the burden of proof, I'll do so anyway) -invaded Iraq on false pretenses -did not catch Bin Laden, something he considered vital -created the greatest deficit in U.S. history -Left U.S. with a clear recession -horrendous on environmental concerns, by not signing KYOTO Protocol, and drilling for Uranium 20 miles from Grand Canyon -'involved' in making a CIA operatives identity public -outsourced American Jobs by renewing NAFTA and CAFTA -decreased American respect in world -4263 American soldiers tragically lost for lie -90,000 Iraqis dead for 'freedom' Sources: http://www.antiwar.com... http://www.iraqbodycount.org... http://www.washingtonmonthly.com... http://www.historycommons.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... more sources, cannot fi