As to be expected when the main stream media is mostly controlled by the left, George W. Bush was often criticized ( to put it nicely) constantly on nearly every single policy. Now while I could cite examples of how nicely the Media has treated Obama (aka the anointed one) compared to their blatant bias of Bush, I'm going to take a different turn. With a close look back as Bush's presidency, it becomes clear that he was honestly one of the most progressive presidents since LBJ. After looking at all his liberal policies, I think that only if Bush would have had a (D) after his name, the media would've been drooling all over him. This partisan judgment shows the hypocrisy of the left, similar to the Petraeus replacing McChyrstal situation. Remember when Democrats called him "General Betray Us"?
Just to give some examples of how Progressive George W Bush really was:
-Bush added $3.3 trillion dollars to the Deficit, increased the National Debt to $5 Trillion dollars, spent a total of $20.5 trillion dollars in his eight years, and increased the Federal Budget by 42 PERCENT! Compare that number to Bill Clinton's figure of increasing the budget by only 12 percent, and he was supposedly a Democrat. As the NY Times reported in January of 2002: "In a sign of changing times, Bush calls for more spending. The budget...strays far from the agenda of a small government and fiscal conservatism that the administration advocated on taking office a year ago." If I recall correctly, liberals abide by the Keynesian notion that one can spend his way out of debt. Seeing as Bush clearly greatly expanded spending, then why so many complaints?
-Most people remember the Bush Tax Cuts as an example of a good conservative promise being kept, yet tax cuts only work best when combined with SPENDING CUTS. The way the politicians carried on with their massive spending increases mirrors the Reagan years where a Democratic congress refused to let spending cuts accompany the tax cuts instituted by Reagan.
-In his first term, Bush spent more money on regulatory spending than Clinton did in his eight years. Now, which one is supposed to be the conservative who believes in a free market with very limited Government regulations? While regulations might not seem like a big deal, think of it this way: every time you regulate something (cough cough health care) new bureaucracies are created, more red tape is set up, and more money is spent fishing your way through these rules and regulations. In 2008 alone, over 1 trillion dollars was spent in regards to complying with regulations compared to a total corporate revenue of only 304 billion dollars.
-Bush expanded the Government's role in education by signing the "no pass no play" bill. When the National Government gets involved in things it shouldn't, everybody pays a price. In order to find away around this rule, teachers simply lowered their standards of what it meant to "pass" going from a 70 to 45 in some cases. (I could discuss a lot more about education problems and National Government, but we'll save that for later)
And then just to name a few other things, which don't necessarily need explaining and fit pretty well into a "liberal" category: Filed a Supreme Court brief that supported affirmative action, proposed amnesty for illegal immigrants, and added over 100,000 federal employees.
All in all, Bush's two terms were riddled with overwhelmingly PROGRESSIVE policies ( lets not forget the bailouts). So its a wonder why the liberal media was so hard on him, isn't this what they wanted? Also, these progressive policies clearly contributed to the economic recession, so once the democrats take over, what's their solution to solve it? Oh, well how about they just take Bush's policies and make them EVEN MORE PROGRESSIVE, maybe that will solve the problem! Obviously Bush does indeed deserve some blame for the economic slump, but by blaming him and then continuing on with his failed policies, liberals really aren't helping their case...
Now obviously I haven't forgotten about Iraq and Afghanistan. I guess the wars are really the only non-liberal things Bush did while in office, and was no doubt the center for much of the hate he was given. Still, the fact that Bush was portrayed as a far right dictator, often being compared to Hitler, is ridiculous considering that George Bush really ought to have had a (D) after his name.
Oliver Shea
