The worst presidents in the post WWII era

[TheManWithAUsername]

Anonymous wrote:

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worst -- George W. Bush -- our kids and grandkids will be paying forever.Can't believe the number of Republican myopics on this thread.

Questions like this are pointless to discuss with the yahoos dominating the rank-and-file now. I can imagine an argument for just about any of them as best post-war or as 2nd-worst, but to pick anyone other than W as worst is just ridiculous, almost regardless of your ideology.

W kept us safe for 8 years after 9/11, stopped many many viable threats, took the war to the islamic terrorists on their turf and responded quickly, effectively and decisively to the market downturn. unemployment was low and deficits were relatively low. he should have down more against fannie and freddie, but his hands were somewhat tied.

Mmm...Kool-Aid!

I just heard on Fox News that black is white. Better start blogging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:W kept us safe for 8 years after 9/11, stopped many many viable threats, took the war to the islamic terrorists on their turf and responded quickly, effectively and decisively to the market downturn. unemployment was low and deficits were relatively low. he should have down more against fannie and freddie, but his hands were somewhat tied.

I'm sorry -- do we live in the same timeline?

Have you beamed over from some idyllic, quasi-parallel universe in which W didn't manage to piss away a few TRILLION dollars on unnecessary wars and tax cuts for the rich?

If Muslim terrorists, or American terrorists or the freaking Pillsbury Doughboy attacked the U.S. 8 months after Obama was inaugurated would you be saying "Well sure, but no one attacked us AFTER THAT."

And given this Congress you excuse W because HIS hands were tied?????

Wow. Just. OMG. Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:W kept us safe for 8 years after 9/11, stopped many many viable threats, took the war to the islamic terrorists on their turf and responded quickly, effectively and decisively to the market downturn. unemployment was low and deficits were relatively low. he should have down more against fannie and freddie, but his hands were somewhat tied.

I'm sorry -- do we live in the same timeline?

Have you beamed over from some idyllic, quasi-parallel universe in which W didn't manage to piss away a few TRILLION dollars on unnecessary wars and tax cuts for the rich?

If Muslim terrorists, or American terrorists or the freaking Pillsbury Doughboy attacked the U.S. 8 months after Obama was inaugurated would you be saying "Well sure, but no one attacked us AFTER THAT."

And given this Congress you excuse W because HIS hands were tied?????

Wow. Just. OMG. Wow.

"wow. just. omg. wow."

great debating skills there. very articulate ...

If terrorists attacked the US 8 months into Obama's term after 8 years of letting them have free run while neglecting intelligence and defense, sure I'd give him a pass if he then quickly passed the Patriot Act, ramped up intelligence and rebuilt the defense. Bush is not #1 on that list, but he is not last either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worst -- George W. Bush -- our kids and grandkids will be paying forever.Can't believe the number of Republican myopics on this thread.

Questions like this are pointless to discuss with the yahoos dominating the rank-and-file now. I can imagine an argument for just about any of them as best post-war or as 2nd-worst, but to pick anyone other than W as worst is just ridiculous, almost regardless of your ideology.

W kept us safe for 8 years after 9/11, stopped many many viable threats, took the war to the islamic terrorists on their turf and responded quickly, effectively and decisively to the market downturn. unemployment was low and deficits were relatively low. he should have down more against fannie and freddie, but his hands were somewhat tied.

Are you painting the house with the windows shut?? What's the point of even responding to it?

[takoma]

We live in parallel universes, at least two, probably more. The question should be "Who was the worst president of the postwar years in your universe?

Using WWII as starting point makes sense because it one of the few things the various universes have in common.

[TheManWithAUsername]

takoma wrote:We live in parallel universes, at least two, probably more. The question should be "Who was the worst president of the postwar years in your universe?

The laws of physics, economics, and logic aren't consistent across the universes. For example, over there it's possible to intuit someone's unexpressed ideology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obama personally took a controversial position to take The war to Pakistan. He was criticized for it but that policy is why we got bin laden. He did not have minor involvement in getting OBL.

And remember: McCain (and the GOP hierarchy) responded with sniggering and protests about how such talk was irresponsible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worst -- George W. Bush -- our kids and grandkids will be paying forever.Can't believe the number of Republican myopics on this thread.

Questions like this are pointless to discuss with the yahoos dominating the rank-and-file now. I can imagine an argument for just about any of them as best post-war or as 2nd-worst, but to pick anyone other than W as worst is just ridiculous, almost regardless of your ideology.

W kept us safe for 8 years after 9/11, stopped many many viable threats, took the war to the islamic terrorists on their turf and responded quickly, effectively and decisively to the market downturn. unemployment was low and deficits were relatively low. he should have down more against fannie and freddie, but his hands were somewhat tied.

I know it's pretty much an article of faith over on the "Faux InfoTainment Nooze Channel" and among our nation's elite policy experts like Michelle Bachman (R-Moonbase Omega), but Fannie and Freddie had little if nothing to do with our current economic mess. They were made scapegoats so that credulous folks who don't know anything wouldn't blame the overall climate of FIRE-sector deregulation.

It's okay, though. Lots of people think so too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worst -- George W. Bush -- our kids and grandkids will be paying forever.Can't believe the number of Republican myopics on this thread.

Questions like this are pointless to discuss with the yahoos dominating the rank-and-file now. I can imagine an argument for just about any of them as best post-war or as 2nd-worst, but to pick anyone other than W as worst is just ridiculous, almost regardless of your ideology.

W kept us safe for 8 years after 9/11, stopped many many viable threats, took the war to the islamic terrorists on their turf and responded quickly, effectively and decisively to the market downturn. unemployment was low and deficits were relatively low. he should have down more against fannie and freddie, but his hands were somewhat tied.

I know it's pretty much an article of faith over on the "Faux InfoTainment Nooze Channel" and among our nation's elite policy experts like Michelle Bachman (R-Moonbase Omega), but Fannie and Freddie had little if nothing to do with our current economic mess. They were made scapegoats so that credulous folks who don't know anything wouldn't blame the overall climate of FIRE-sector deregulation.

It's okay, though. Lots of people think so too.

well you would be mistaken. they set and move the market. hell, they ARE the market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worst -- George W. Bush -- our kids and grandkids will be paying forever.Can't believe the number of Republican myopics on this thread.

Questions like this are pointless to discuss with the yahoos dominating the rank-and-file now. I can imagine an argument for just about any of them as best post-war or as 2nd-worst, but to pick anyone other than W as worst is just ridiculous, almost regardless of your ideology.

W kept us safe for 8 years after 9/11, stopped many many viable threats, took the war to the islamic terrorists on their turf and responded quickly, effectively and decisively to the market downturn. unemployment was low and deficits were relatively low. he should have down more against fannie and freddie, but his hands were somewhat tied.

I know it's pretty much an article of faith over on the "Faux InfoTainment Nooze Channel" and among our nation's elite policy experts like Michelle Bachman (R-Moonbase Omega), but Fannie and Freddie had little if nothing to do with our current economic mess. They were made scapegoats so that credulous folks who don't know anything wouldn't blame the overall climate of FIRE-sector deregulation.

It's okay, though. Lots of people think so too.

well you would be mistaken. they set and move the market. hell, they ARE the market.

Actually Countrywide was giving them marching orders. Countrywide threatened to pull all of their business if Fannie did not start taking the crap loans. Countrywide was so big they caved.Countrywide was 28% of Fannie's business, and they feared the revenue drop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I know it's pretty much an article of faith over on the "Faux InfoTainment Nooze Channel" and among our nation's elite policy experts like Michelle Bachman (R-Moonbase Omega), but Fannie and Freddie had little if nothing to do with our current economic mess. They were made scapegoats so that credulous folks who don't know anything wouldn't blame the overall climate of FIRE-sector deregulation.

It's okay, though. Lots of people think so too.

well you would be mistaken. they set and move the market. hell, they ARE the market.

Again, you've been listening to too much Michelle Bachmann. Since this trope has been pretty thoroughly debunked by now, and since you brought it up, I'm going to assume that you're one of those shiny-eyed True Believers who are immune to evidence and think that Newt Gingrich is "a thinker", but on the off chance that there's someone out there reading this, and might think, "Hrm, maybe lower-case ALL-CAPS lower-case guy's got a point" there's a great breakdown of the numbers here:

It is of course well known, including by their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, that Fannie and Freddie were responsible for some actual high-risk loans, primarily through their purchases of high-risk private-label securities for their investment portfolio as well as through purchases of actual high-risk loans for their core securitization business. Yet as Wallison knows, this actual high-risk activity by Fannie and Freddie was neither sufficient in volume nor did it come at the right time to persuasively argue that the two mortgage finance giants drove the surge in actual high-risk lending we saw in the 2000s.

Did Fannie and Freddie buy high-risk mortgage-backed securities? Yes. But they did not buy enough of them to be blamed for the mortgage crisis.[ii] Highly respected analysts who have looked at these data in much greater detail than Wallison, Pinto, or myself, including the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission majority, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and virtually all academics, have all rejected the Wallison/Pinto argument that federal affordable housing policies were responsible for the proliferation of actual high-risk mortgages over the past decade.[iii]

Indeed, it is noteworthy that Wallison’s fellow Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission—Bill Thomas, Keith Hennessey, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, all of whom are staunch conservatives—rejected Wallison’s argument as well.

Zowee, when even Holtz-Eakin acknowledges you're wrong, you're really, really wrong. Great way to keep the party going after it's caused the worst damage to the economy since the Great Depression, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worst -- George W. Bush -- our kids and grandkids will be paying forever.Can't believe the number of Republican myopics on this thread.

Questions like this are pointless to discuss with the yahoos dominating the rank-and-file now. I can imagine an argument for just about any of them as best post-war or as 2nd-worst, but to pick anyone other than W as worst is just ridiculous, almost regardless of your ideology.

W kept us safe for 8 years after 9/11, stopped many many viable threats, took the war to the islamic terrorists on their turf and responded quickly, effectively and decisively to the market downturn. unemployment was low and deficits were relatively low. he should have down more against fannie and freddie, but his hands were somewhat tied.

I know it's pretty much an article of faith over on the "Faux InfoTainment Nooze Channel" and among our nation's elite policy experts like Michelle Bachman (R-Moonbase Omega), but Fannie and Freddie had little if nothing to do with our current economic mess. They were made scapegoats so that credulous folks who don't know anything wouldn't blame the overall climate of FIRE-sector deregulation.

It's okay, though. Lots of people think so too.

well you would be mistaken. they set and move the market. hell, they ARE the market.

Actually Countrywide was giving them marching orders. Countrywide threatened to pull all of their business if Fannie did not start taking the crap loans. Countrywide was so big they caved.Countrywide was 28% of Fannie's business, and they feared the revenue drop.

It's really pretty amusing, when you start from your conclusions, and work your way backwards to your evidence, it's very easy to get confused about cause and effect, as "lower-case guy" clearly is.

[Anonymous]

For folks who are interested in a succinct and comprehensive explanation of why "blame freddie and fannie" is mere propaganda to deflect blame from the real problem--a dangerously deregulated FIRE sector--this is a good walkthrough:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/for-the-last-time-fannie-and-freddie-didnt-cause-the-housing-crisis/250121/

Again, since it's not on FoxNews.com, True Believers should feel free to ignore this--I know they will anyway.

[Anonymous]

You are incorrectly focusing on the CRA. That is not a big issue, nor are the default rates amongst different loan categories. The problem is that Fannie and Freddie were a huge part of the subprime market. They provided a much larger marktplace for this loan product, thus helping to fuel the bubble. You are focusing on those that blame the CRA and affordable housing targets. I do not. I blame the greed of Fannie/Freddie and their shortsited analysis. When prices began to fall, because of the way they packaged their debt on the secondary market, the panicked investors lowered the value of these packaged securities thus putting a few Wall St houses out of business. That was a big part of the panic in the fall of 2008.

If I had to rank the blame, I'd put Fannie/Freddie behind the Fed. The real problem was the low interest rates and the cheap money, but Fannie and Freddie are second.

and what are you referring to as "lower case poster"?

[Anonymous]

Wrong. If there had been no Fannie and Freddie, the bubble would've been every bit as large, and its deflation every bit as catastrophic.

http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2008/10/13/16/647-20081013-ECONOMY-subprime.large.prod_affiliate.91.jpg