The FISA courts didn’t become an issue until the Bush II years greatly increased the reach of the court, and the approval rate for warrants from judges shot from too high to a literal rubber stamp for a much wider set of warrants. Especially considering it applied a confidential paper trail where previously there was none on purpose, it didn’t pave the way since it was an oversight measure to begin with.
Not shocking, it took the combined efforts of Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II (and Democrats chasing pro-military votes) to get into a position where the SCOTUS could call the expansion constitutional when it was a massive overreach following 9/11.
Since that was in response to some spoilered images that people may not want to view, a text summary:
One image was of Nicaraguan nuns murdered by the US-backed Contras. The other was of an incinerated Iraqi soldier on the Highway of Death.
Bush Sr’s Gulf War was morally equivalent to defeating Hitler’s Third Reich? The needless slaughter of the retreating Iraqi conscript army was no big deal? Likewise for the murders, wars and coups across Latin America?
You’re comparing The Highway of Death to a virtual My Lai. My comparison is less nonsensical.
I cant believe I’m being forced to defend Bush 41, but your ridiculous stance necessitates that. Thats good you can use hindsight to see that an attack in a ground campaign that lasted 100 hours might have been unnecessary. Showing a wall of photos (or text) does nothing to illuminate your argument.
Also, you might not know this, but during the Reagan Administration, Reagan was President not Bush.
I can find plenty of reasons to tar Bush 41, but your brush is way too broad. After the horrible era that was of Reagan, Bush 41 was practically a breath of fresh air. And almost no other President could have done a better job at assembling and directing the coalition that drove Hussein out of Kuwait.
What always particularly irks me: when they do it with that slightest trace of a smile on their face. It just goes right back to the schoolyard: What? I’m not touching you. My finger can be in your face if I’m not touching you.
They know exactly what they’re doing, because they’ll never say it on the House or Senate floor, to someone’s face. They only use it at partisan rallies or when talking to (partisan) press.
I think there are probably plenty of people who lived significant parts of their lives listlessly moving from one thing to the next, never finding their place, before finding that things that they really wanted to do with themselves. I do think, however, that George W. Bush is probably unique in the history of all democratic countries, as a person who listlessly meandered through the job of head of state before finding his passion. As a person with love and compassion for everyone, I’m genuinely happy that he found his place in the world as a painter, but it would certainly be a lot happier if his road to that wasn’t full of crimes against humanity.
Though if I had to put a bet on one as the non-affair-having president, George W. Bush would be a contender (It’d be him or Obama). One thing I will say for Bush, and a thing that gives him a huge lead over Trump as not-a-horrible-person, is that when I’ve heard him speak about his wife, he seems to think she’s a human being. It was something my wife commented on too in hearing him in an interview, she said, “He doesn’t seem to hate women.”
Carter would be a likely contender too. In a 1976 interview with Playboy this is what he said when asked about the role of religion in his life:
"I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I’m going to do it anyhow, because I’m human and I’m tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, ‘I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.’
“I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do—and I have done it—and God forgives me for it.”
He later got pummeled for that interview but frankly a politician who openly volunteers that he’s guilty of adultery by the Biblical definition probably isn’t one of the guys regularly going around committing adultery by the common definition.
