Bush

Another reason I love Obama over Bush:

"The new focus on biking and walking represents a turnaround from the administration of President George W Bush. Mary Peters, transportation secretary under Bush, dismissed biking paths and trails as projects that "really are not transportation," saying they had no place in federal transportation policy.

"You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate
energy policy.

You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.

In the midst of revision by former bush adminstration officials (most recently Rove with his new book), it's nice to look back and see how well their memories match reality...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/opinion/14rich.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR201003...

As little as I like the fact that we're at war in Afghanistan, it gives me comfort to know the lengths Obama went to in reassuring himself that this was the right decision.  I want to be able to trust that the decisions our president makes are the best ones, even if they don't seem like it with the limited information availble to me.  With Bush, I never got that feeling...

One of the most stupid things I thought Bush did was pursue his missile shield agenda - even if it were effective (which according to everything I've heard it wouldn't have been), it was a huge problem for our relations with Russia, and was causing way too much tension between all of the former soviet countries.  Like a sign that reads, "Beware of sign," this system was its own reason for being there.  Thanks for getting rid of this, Obama!

Really interesting account of the events surrounding the arguments over Libby in the final days of the Bush administration:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1912297-1,00.html

I don't know what's more newsworthy, that bush premedidated the iraq invasion, or that he was capable of planning?

From Bush's biographer:

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999. It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade·.if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it.”

More of Bush's legacy in dealing with Israel and mid-east peace:

"Senior Israeli officials expressed irritation on Wednesday that President Obama had declined to acknowledge what they called clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement housing within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honor a settlement “freeze.”"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/world/middleeast/04israel.html?hp

Actually an intesting interview of Ventura on Larry King:

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/05/jesse_ventura_c.php

"Prison guards jailed for abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq are planning to appeal against their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for the Bush Administration.

"The photographs of prisoner abuse at the Baghdad jail in 2004 sparked worldwide outrage but the previous administration, from President Bush down, blamed the incident on a few low-ranking “bad apples” who were acting on their own.