With friends like these...Perry on George W. Bush
Somebody from the Bush camp should put a cork in Rick Perry's mouth. The current Texas Governor (and rumored GOP presidential contender) tries to go to bat for his pal and Gubernatorial soul brother George W. Bush and instead asks us all to define Bush's presidential legacy based on losing criteria:
I mean, there are two things that I think people judge Presidents on: their safety and the economy.
Can you think of two topics on which George W. Bush scores worse?
As a reminder:
1. Worst terrorist attack in US history was on George W. Bush's watch. Oh, and he was warned ahead of time.
2. Two wars in the middle east were launched under his command. Eight years later, we're still fighting them with no good resolution in sight.
3. A major American city (New Orlenas) and much of the Southeastern Coastal region was decimated by hurricane only to see the issues in said city compounded by inattention to engineering and ecological weaknesses and an inability to respond to a crisis despite 24-hour news reporting and public demands to "do something!"
4. The US economy faced it's greatest challenge in 70 years, with the foundation of the financial sector nearly collapsing. The underlying deregulation of the financial sector was laid out before Bush's term, but the indicators of a collapse mounted and were left unaddressed until collapse was imminent.
5. Unemployment hit a 30-year record.
6. The United States suffered TWO recessions, one of which is only now subsiding.
7. Housing prices, the cornerstone of most American families' wealth and financial security, bottomed out.
8. Real wages stagnated while a higher concentration of wealth fell into a smaller number of hands.
9. The number of American families living BELOW the poverty level rose.
10. Bush inherited a budget surplus of $127 billion from Democrat Bill Clinton and left a deficit of over $1 trillion to Democrat Barack Obama.
So yeah, let's judge George W. Bush on those topics...
