Rate Bush as president (scale 1-10)

[Total_Blender]

Clinton was smart in not starting a war in central asia/middle east. Even Alexander the Fucking Great couldn't keep up a prolonged land war there. The smart approach is to use surgical strikes to go after the leadership of these groups, and to double up defensive measures on the homefront.

Also, a major part of Bush being elected in the first place was that he called Clinton/Gore out on the terrorism threat and their downsizing of the military. So if anyone should have been prepared for a terrorism event it was W.

[BanginJimmy]

So if anyone should have been prepared for a terrorism event it was W.

So conservatives are crazy to expect to see any improvement in the economy under Obama in 10 months, but Bush should have been able to rebuild trust within the intelligence community, rebuild and modernize the military, AND solve a moderate recession in 8? Makes perfect sense to me.

[Total_Blender]

Intelligence agencies were following Bin Laden already. The evidence that something big was about to happen concerning Al Qaeda was already on the table. The lack of intelligence wasn't the problem, the problem was the failure to act on the intelligence. And then once he did act, he fucked it up royally.

[BanginJimmy]

Intelligence agencies were following Bin Laden already. The evidence that something big was about to happen concerning Al Qaeda was already on the table. The lack of intelligence wasn't the problem, the problem was the failure to act on the intelligence. And then once he did act, he fucked it up royally.

There wasnt enough intelligence to act on, that was the problem Clinton had as well. From what I remember, we knew there were terrorists in the country, we knew they were planning something big, and we knew it had something to do with airplanes, airlines, or airports. That is all we knew at the time. Also, before 9/11 the intelligence community did not talk to each other about anything. That was one of the biggest consequences of Clinton's intelligence spending policies. Agencies were basicly paid for results, so they didnt tell anyone else about anything they uncovered.

I find it funny that Bush is hammered for not acting on sketchy and incompelete intelligence before 9/11, then is attacked again when he acted on much better intelligence that turned out to be false. The hypocrisy of a liberal knows no bounds does it.

[Total_Blender]

Are you talking about the intelligence of Ahmed Chalabi? The false testimony of ONE PERSON that led us into the Iraq war. As far as "intelligence" goes, that was transparent BS, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out at the time. We sure as hell didn't find Bin Laden in Iraq, no WMD's either.

The mark of a good comand is to be able to tell good intel from bad, to know when to act, and to act both judiciously and decisively. Bush sat on good intel, acted bigtime on bad intel, and failed to act judiciously, dividing the effort by adding an un-necessary front.

[BanginJimmy]

The mark of a good comand is to be able to tell good intel from bad, to know when to act, and to act both judiciously and decisively. Bush sat on good intel, acted bigtime on bad intel, and failed to act judiciously, dividing the effort by adding an un-necessary front.

Once again, the intel before we went into Iraq was BETTER than the intel before 9/11. We had far more info, but because the intelligence services didnt talk to each other, there was never a clear picture. You are also ignoring the fact that about 15 other country's intel services reviewed our raw data and came to the same conclusions we did.

[BABY J]

Once again, the intel before we went into Iraq was BETTER than the intel before 9/11. We had far more info, but because the intelligence services didnt talk to each other, there was never a clear picture. You are also ignoring the fact that about 15 other country's intel services reviewed our raw data and came to the same conclusions we did.

This is not true. LOTS of the major players didn't go w/ us on this one. We basically did it alone.