Public image of George W. Bush
[13] It has been suggested that Bush's accent was a deliberate and active choice, as a way of distinguishing himself from his family's traditionally wealthy, intellectual, Northeastern image, and anchoring himself to his Texas roots.
In an unusual deviation from the historical trend of midterm elections, the Republican Party regained control of the Senate and added to its majority in the House of Representatives.
For example, Zogby International on November 2, 2005, asked whether respondents agreed with the statement, "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
[41][42] Democratic 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry cited Bush's lack of swift action, calling into question the incumbent's leadership capabilities, and concluding: "Americans want to know that the person they choose as president has all the skills and ability, all of the mental toughness, all of the gut instinct necessary to be a strong commander in chief.
Twice, in late 2001 and early 2002, Bush stated that before entering the classroom he had seen on a television set the first plane hit the World Trade Center, and that he had assumed it was an accident.
Democratic candidate Howard Dean in particular called for a repeal of the part of the tax cuts which affected the wealthiest Americans in order to fund public health care programs and reduce the federal deficit.
Those costs – both to sustain the current mission in Iraq and to pay longer-term 'hidden' expenses like troop healthcare and replacement equipment – are far more than US officials advertised when Congress gave President Bush the authority to launch the invasion in March 2003.
At the time, the White House and then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld predicted a quick, decisive victory and counted on Iraqi oil revenues to pay for the war.
And when Lawrence Lindsey, one of Bush's top budget advisers, estimated in 2003 that the entire undertaking could cost as much as $200 billion, he was fired ... McGovern said he is worried about the long-term financial impact of the war, adding that his primary concern is that the United States is borrowing money to pay for it.
Some leading economists have predicted that, depending on how long troops remain in Iraq, the endeavor could reach several trillion dollars as a result of more 'hidden' costs —including recruiting expenses to replenish the ranks and the lifelong benefits the government pays to veterans.
The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world ... Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered," he said.
The relaxed regulation under the Bush presidency are regarded to have been a major contributing factor to the subprime mortgage crisis, and there are fears that the United States and the world economy could slide into another Great Depression.
[61][62] A Harper's Magazine column by Linda Bilmes, a lecturer in Public Finance at Harvard's Kennedy School, and Joseph Stiglitz titled "The $10 trillion hangover: Paying the price for eight years of Bush", "estimate that the cost of undoing the Bush administration's economic choices, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the collapse of the financial system, soaring debt and new commitments to interest payments and Medicare, all add up to over $10 trillion".
[66][67][68][69] Others likened the event to the Watergate scandal, referring to it as Gonzales-gate,[70] and members of Congress from both parties called for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
In the aftermath of this disaster, thousands of city residents, unable to evacuate prior to the hurricane, became stranded with little or no relief for several days, resulting in lawless and unsanitary conditions in some areas.
[75] These critics argue that the alleged unreadiness of the United States National Guard, negligence of federal authorities, and haplessness of officials such as Michael Brown did not represent incompetence on the part of the federal authorities, but were instead natural and deliberate consequences of the conservative philosophy embraced by the Bush administration, especially "sink or swim" policies to force reductions in government expenditure and privatize key government responsibilities such as disaster preparedness,[76] [77] both of which resulted in the systematic dismantling of FEMA by the US Department of Homeland Security.
[82]In "Texas Chainsaw Management" (2007) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argues that "The verdict on George W. Bush as the nation's environmental steward has already been written in stone.
Bush has also been criticized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, representing over 20 Nobel Laureates, who accuse him of failing to acknowledge basic science on environmental issues.
His midnight regulations, opening America's wilderness to logging and mining, trashing pollution controls, tearing up conservation laws, will do almost as much damage in the last 60 days of his presidency as he achieved in the foregoing 3,000.
[87]Moral and ethical questions have been raised over the billions of dollars Bush has requested for the Iraq war,[88] which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has said ensures that less money is made available to help children and the poor in the United States.
In 2005, Bush called for "billions of dollars in cuts that will touch people on food stamps and farmers on price supports, children under Medicaid and adults in public housing.
[92] No official moral leadership emerged to challenge Americans to think constructively about our place in the world, to redefine civic commitment and public responsibility.
[100] Another point of discussion has been whether the enhanced interrogation techniques in the Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantánamo Bay detainment camp constitutes torture or not.
[106][107][108][109] These sentiments are partly a result of the Pentagon's suggestion that the president can decide whether normal strictures on torture still apply if it outweighs the security of the nation,[110] and because the Bush administration has repeatedly acted against attempts to restrict controversial interrogation techniques,[111] including signing statements by Bush to exclude himself from the laws created by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 as well as vetoing legislation that would have made waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods illegal.
[123][124] While Krauthammer's column was somewhat tongue-in-cheek (e.g., "What is worrying epidemiologists about the Dean incident, however, is that heretofore no case had been reported in Vermont, or any other dairy state"), the term indicates a belief that some extreme criticisms of Bush are of emotional origin rather than based in fact or logic.
[134] In November 2006, a survey taken in Great Britain, Mexico, and Canada showed that they believed Bush was more dangerous than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Bush admitted in his 2010 memoir Decision Points: "The reality was that I had sent American troops into combat based in large part on intelligence that proved false ... No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn't find the weapons.
[149] A 2010 Siena College poll of 238 Presidential scholars found that Bush was ranked 39th out of 43, with poor ratings in handling of the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence.
[163] Later, Mike Rivard, one of the six business owners from Minnesota, came forward and told Fox News that one of the reasons why they did it was they thought it was a hilarious message, and the image they used was found online.
[164] Journalists from several media sources opined that the publication of Bush's memoir Decision Points in November 2010 was intended to or would have the effect of improving his post presidential image.
