Talk:George W. Bush

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Due to the controversial nature of this article, it has been locked by the Administrators to prevent edit wars or vandalism. Sysops, please do not unlock it without first consulting the protecting sysop.

Liberal Media?

um, isn't that an opinion phrase? I don't really think there's a scientific basis for such a remark.

Didn't you hear? This is conservapedia, a place where ignorance coalesces into a gungy goo of people who think their opinions are always right. Anyone who doesn't agree with them is a goshdang Communist! Liberal Media, haha, oh boy that's a larf.

Everyone thinks their opinions are right. That's why they're their opinions. But you are right, the phrase "liberal media" has become an oft-lampooned indication of conservative paranoia. The use of it will only serve to make this article sound Stephen Colbert-ish. Not only do I think the phrase should be deleted; I think it should become the policy of conservapedia to strive to avoid it in the future. --Mechrobioticon 18:42, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

The Liberal-Biased Media is the GOP's equivalent of Hillary Clinton's Vast Right-wing Conspiracy, as well as being an all-purpose scapegoat from when the facts turn out to have an anti-Bush agenda. --BDobbs 21:49, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Considering this page has been locked, I'd greatly appreciate it if an administrator would remove this clearly biased phrase.--Ge Ming 15:38, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Edits

1) Removed the line about Bush executing Saddam. Saddam was executed by the Iraqis under Iraqi law. 2) Removed the un-encyclopediac comment about John Kerry.

Why's this page locked? It's not going to get any better if you don't let people add to it.

The SysOp locked it b/c of rampant vandalism. It's an obivous target for such action^{[Citation Needed]}.

This page should be unlocked. All of Bush's good (and bad) deeds will not be known to the world until this page is unlocked. The point of our site here is to inform the people, and without people interacting and adding information, Conservapedia will die out. People will go elsewhere to a more democratic environment, and that is not good for this site.

That's just fine. The Liberals can go to Communistpedia, and the people who want a more REPUBLICAN Wiki can come here! --Ballon 21:03, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

The liberals would probably be far more intelligent than the people that frequent this site and go to wikipedia You're wrong 15:17, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

communists can go to http://eng.anarchopedia.org/index.php/Main_Page Jaques 15:21, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

   :I'd rather Communism if Fascism were the other choice. If you really need to think you're always right to sleep at night, then be my guest my lil' Yank friend.

Shouldn't the first sentence read Name, birth date, political party, etc. and then say only President of the United States? After all, it's not like there is a Democratic President. --ColinR 16:48, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

If they didn't know bush was republican we don't want them on the site.

I think by "democratic," the above poster (who failed to sign his/her comment) was referring to the political idea of democracy rather than the American political party, Ballon. And let's try not to deride each other with pejoratives like "commie" and "fascist." Anyway, I agree that this page needs to be watched closely. It is an obvious location for vandalism. However, very sensible changes (exempli gratia: moving references of George Bush's religious values to a section other than "Foreign Policy") have been suggested on this page, and they seem to have been largely ignored. This article is not passable in its current state. The sysops must either unlock the page or at the very least make changes that we agree upon on this talk page.

Mechrobioticon 17:09, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Photo

Somebody deleted the body of this page and substituted a photo-- can anybody verify that this photo actually is President Bush? (Could we maybe print the photo as a thumbnail, and link to the large photo?)

I believe the photo is one of Prince Harry, who has recently taken up active duty in Iraq for the UK, in compliance with the American notion that leaders such as George Washington and the sons of prominent and wealthy people should be involved in and at risk from armed conflict for their country in equal measure to the legions of the poor they send to do their work for them.

Lacking Substance

Conservapedia will go absolutely nowhere if its alternative viewpoints from wikipedia consist purerly in pejorative adjectives and vague speculative references. Disprove alternative opinions with facts, not derogatory adjectives and slanted phrases. I would provide examples, but they are more than clear and numerous.

This article is useless. It is a stub, which is fine, except that this is GWB, not some arcane entry. This is made more eggregious since this page has undergone many edits, and nobody has decided to actually make it a full article, just back and forth fluff. I admit that I don't particularly want to put the work in, because I don't care about this entry, I just think that conservapedia needs a credible entry for GWB to be taken seriously. Compare with Wikipedia's entry.

As a starting point, how about information that would be useful, that you don't hear about in the liberal media; Major (and minor) legislative pushes, both successful and not. Who were his good conservative judicial appointments? --Whatter 01:51, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Nation building

It's interesting that Bush's stated opposition to nation building isn't modified to show that he has been involved in exactly that in both Afghanistan & Iraq for over half his time in office.

I'd argue he hasn't done much nation-building in either of those places.  :( It is weird, though--having a site for Conservative politics and having such dinky articles about President Bush and Iraq is like having a wiki about oceanography and not mentioning water. --Sandbagger 14:38, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I am concerned that the entry reads as if it were written by a gushing fan instead of one who spent significant time researching the President. If the point of conservapedia is to become a credible resource intellectually honest about its bias, we must demand these entries be written at the highest standard possible. This is gossipy drivel; the libs are bound to cackle over it. }-(

Economy

Since when is Exxon Mobile the bellwether of the US economy?

Whoever wrote that is probably a Liberal grousing about the fact that Bush has made his corporate benefactors a great deal richer by strip-mining the American economy. --Ballon 18:25, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Paul O'Niell (the man who rescued Alcoa) tried to talk economic sense to Bush. Good advice fell on deaf ears. Then Cheney arranged his dismissal.

I've just visited the Yahoo! article linked to by reference 7, and it says nothing about unemployment being at an all-time low in March, 2007. In fact, the article's assessment of the economy is quite bleak.

Regarding “the Clinton years which lead to the lowest point of the stock market in January 2000 AD since the great depression of 1929 AD” it should be noted that the source that is cited states the opposite. The stock market hit it’s highest in January 2000, before GWB took office.

Per the article quoted: “Oct. 9, 2002, the Dow Jones industrial average, battered by the worst stock market meltdown since the 1929 crash, hit bottom. It closed 4,437 points below its January 2000 all-time high”.

The major blow to the stock market took place in 2002, about 20 months after Bush took office. It should be noted that this took place exactly one week after Congress authorized Bush to invade Iraq. Investors claimed this as a reason for the drop in the stock market.

Such frequently found mistakes underlines why Conservapedia is more propaganda than an online encyclopedia and should never be used as a source of information. The information is at best one sided, and more frequently, blantently false. The truth does not have a conservative or liberal slant. There seems to be a trend, however, in the last 12 or so years of American political media to baselessly proclaim an extream slant in media. Just because the reader does not like the truth does not mean that the carrier is slanted. Artical

"As we all know, the facts have an anti-Bush agenda." -- Steven Colbert. (Or, to be more accurate, it looks like Bush has an anti-facts agenda. :( --BDobbs 15:32, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Skull and Bones Club

MountainDew, why did you take that part out? It's a matter of public record (and any number of jokes) that Bush and Kerry are in the same club.

The guy who put that in there was a known vandal, so I was just reversing all his edits at once. MountainDew 18:53, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Locked Page

Should we really lock a page with so many typos? Miguel_Cervantes 09:13, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

I can understand why the page is locked, obviously people will target Bush, but the page needs LOTS of improvement, not just typos, but the Economy section is laughable.

Indeed. No mention of the 8 trillion (is it 9 now) debt? GofG _|^|_| Talk 20:07, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Debt only matters if you ever intend to pay it off. --BDobbs 15:29, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Economy

Though the liberal media continues to disparage Bush's handling of the economy, they often neglect to report the many aspects of the economy that Bush has improved. For example, during his term Exxon Mobile has posted the largest profit of any company in a signle year, and executive salaries have greatly increased as well [5]. This is due to changes in the stock market that lead to a record high in 2006, recovering from the Clinton years which lead to the lowest point of the stock market in January 2000 AD since the great depression of 1929 AD, and "Companies are churning out double-digit profit growth" currently.[6] Even the working class is benefiting from the Bush economy, as unemployment hits an all time low in March 2007.[7] Bush worked with Democrats to raise the minimum wage to a more livable level.[8]

The information in this section appears to have either been written by a liberal who was interested in subtly undermining the informative authority of this particular entry (and possibly Conservapedia in general), or by someone who is perhaps good-intentioned but very badly informed.

First of all, using Exxon-Mobil and executive salary increases as an indication of how much Bush has done for the economy is actually quite bad press for him. The majority of Americans are not voting to line the pockets of the people at the very top. They prefer to have their own pockets lined, even if it is just in small ways, like in tax cuts for the middle class. Suggesting that Bush has done good for our economy as evidenced by the economic boon of the elite would seem to give credit to Bush's detractors who have accused him of being concerned only with his "oil buddies" and largest contributors. Let's not add more wood to that fire, please. That's how we lost the mid-terms - shooting ourselves in the foot.

Second point, please, whoever has write permissions, clean up the spelling errors at the very least (Exxon-Mobile, signle - in this section)

Third, someone else cited the error in referencing January 2000 as the lowest point of the stock market. In addition to their points (including the quote from the article that was supposedly used as reference for that inaccurate "fact"), I think it's important to clarify that while the market has never dropped as low as it did following the crash of 1929, the *percentage* drop could again be as great as it was in 1929. In 1929 the percentage drop was 23%. In 1987, the crash of October caused a dip of 22.7%. The actual numbers of 1929 were in the 200-400 range, whereas the Dow Jones is over 12,000 right now. If, in the modern era, the DJIA ever dropped as low as it did in 1929, i.e., down ot the 200-400 range, then we may as well prepare for Armageddon, because the state of the world would probably be *that* bad.

Fourth, is it necessary to place A.D. after every year, even when it is obvious that the referenced year is In the Year of Our Lord (i.e. Anno Domini)? It seems unnecessary, and certainly cumbersome to have A.D. following years that are obviously referring to U.S. political events. Our conservative audience is not so dumb as to be confused about whether the Clinton administration of the year 2000 is in reference to 2000 years before or 2000 years after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mostly I agree that we should not be concerned about the stereotypes our liberal brothers and sisters have placed upon us, but when possible for us to avoid looking stupid and playing into the stereotypes the liberals have assigned to us, I think we ought do so.

Fifth, the unemployment rate is dropping for March 2007, and this is wonderful and it speaks well of Bush's handling of the economy. It is not the lowest rate of all time, however. I don't feel compelled to provide sources here, because this information is readily available in under 2 minutes of searching for "U.S." and "unemployment rate" on any search engine of your choosing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, can tell you that the lowest unemployment rate of the last 60 years was in 1953 at just under 3%. It's an easy fact to check, and a ridiculous error to lock into an entry about our President. There are true pieces of information about President Bush that make him worthy of admiration. There is no need to attempt to bolster his image with false information.

And finally, let's please be honest about the minimum wage situation. The decision to raise the minimum wage is controversial among conservatives, and I am having difficulty finding a reliable source that suggests Bush supports, in isolation, the idea of raising the minimum wage (i.e. without tax-cuts for small-businesses also tacked on as a proviso). In terms of economic growth, raising the minimum wage may not be helpful, and everything I have read about President Bush seems to indicate that he knows that. So any suggestion that his personal opinion is that the minimum wage should be raised is questionable. Aside from his personal opinion, in his professional capacity, he most certainly hasn't been placed in a position of "working with the Democrats to raise the minimum wage to a livable level." The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 has passed in both the House and the Senate, but it has not yet been presented to our President to be signed into law, because it is pending committee review. Additionally, crediting Bush with "working with Democrats" on this is erroneous. Bush has reached across partisan lines on many occasions, but this particular bill was brought on entirely by Democratic feather-ruffling during their "First 100-Hours" campaign. It was an attempt by the Dems to make a garish display of their new "authority," having gained the majority in Congress.

For starters, what powers do the executive branch have over economics? --JamesLipton 22:29, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

My personal political philosophies aside, I completely agree that Exxon-Mobile is probably the worst company that could have been chosen to show support for Bush's economic policies. This is an encyclopedia for conservatives, but if it's going to stand up to the criticisms of the liberal community and not be a major source of embarrassment for conservatives as a whole, it must hold itself to a higher level of political awareness. Whether one believes Exxon-Mobile's booming business is proof the economy is in great shape or not, the majority of those who read this (including conservatives) will fall out of their chairs when they read that. I guarantee you, liberal citizens all across America will copy and paste the paragraph into their blogs for their readers to laugh at.

This is probably the most important article on conservapedia. It HAS to be beyond reproof. --Mechrobioticon 14:42, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

When is this going to be fixed? The "lowest unemployment rate in history" is not true, it was far lower in the 60s, and lower during the later years of the Clinton administrator. The claim isn't even supported by the reference, which claims "the lowest in five years", which I suppose is true enough. Concise and fact based indeed. --Abrown 16:02, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Ridicolous claim

"He is now working tirelessly to end the Iraqi insurgency and stabilize the region."

Eh, ok? Source? A silly attempt to try to create some kind of sympathy for the man. It's like saying "Jesus was very kind." in his entry. It has got nothing to do with facts and people should be given facts on this site and then determine for themselves if Jesus was kind and if GWB is working tirelessly.

Agreed. Authors establish bias effectively by utilizing fact selectivity and through awareness of the perspective from which those facts are related. Ineffective authors establish bias by simply writing their opinions. An openly biased article is not the same thing as an opinion column. An encyclopedia does not need to allow itself to be tainted with opinions in order to be biased. This is supported by conservapedia itself in its article "Examples of Bias in Wikipedia." (Wikipedia, however biased it may or may not be, never allows anything close to the candid opinions of its editors to pollute articles.)

Mechrobioticon 17:29, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

"Hard Work"

George W Bush has never done a day's hard work in his lifetime.

Oh wait, he was having trouble reading his children's book when he heard about 9/11. Dang, forgot about that.

Sarcasm and exaggeration are the didactic devices of idiots.

Mechrobioticon 17:31, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Ridicolous Article

This whole article is a joke, right? How can you put this out as fact when it has been debunked so many times?

Better Picture

I agree, that is a much better picture. It's the same one used on wikipedia, but it's public domain. I'd use it, but get a higher resolution copy of the image at http://www.defenselink.mil/DODCMSShare/NewsPhoto/2003-02/030114-O-0000D-001.jpg

Mechrobioticon 14:49, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

This article does not just neglect important information, but also gives incorrect facts. Al Gore won the popular vote in the 200 election. Also, this I laugh out loud that people are actually believing this conservopedia crap.

Requested edits

• The article needs to have {{DEFAULTSORT:Bush, George W.}} added just above the categories at the bottom, so its category sortkey is set properly. Thanks. --Interiot 17:02, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

Please add [[Category:Military Commanders]]

He is after all our Commander in Chief leading the hugely successful war against terrorism in Iraq and elswhere.

"Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people." (Isaiah 55:4)

JC 10:26, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

"Hugely successful?" I missed the announcement that they'd caught Osama Bin Laden. --BDobbs 15:56, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Poor addition to a poor article

The line, "Many people feel that George W. Bush's faith is sincere and profound. The Faith of George W. Bush, a non-political book by author Stephen Strang, made the New York Times best-sellers list" should be quickly deleted from this article. I know wikipedia doesn't allow such B.S. qualifiers as "many people feel," and neither should conservapedia if it's going to be taken seriously. Just state that he's a Christian. How profound his Christian-ness is is both irrelevant and unquantifiable.

At least move it out of the "Foreign Policy" section of the article.

--Mechrobioticon 18:53, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

I don't agree with the first paragraph by Mechrobioticon, but I do agree with the second paragraph. I think that faith statement should be moved from the "Foreign Policy" section to a new "Faith" section. There is tons of material from the book God and George W. Bush. Crocoite^talk 02:30, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

OK, maybe requesting that the reference be completely omitted is a little harsh to ask of a conservative encyclopedia, but I still stand by my statement that it needs to be drastically reworded. "Many people feel" is simply a phrase that should never be used in scholarly writing. It's an obvious euphemism for "I feel," and a bad attempt to cover up personal bias. It makes the article appear very amateurish and will become a point of ridicule for knowledgeable readers.

Mechrobioticon 14:28, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Who cares how 'sincere' he is? Marshall Applewhite was 'sincere', but that didn't stop him from being lethally deluded. Or are we hoping the Great Pumpkin will visit Bush this Halloween? --BDobbs 15:51, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I agree that how "profound" or "sincere" one's faith in something is is a poor indicator of one's character (not to mention highly arbitrary and impossible to confirm), but this isn't my encyclopedia. It's conservapedia. The ideas of the secular humanist must yield to the consensus of the conservative majority. I think that even bearing this fact, however, that there is a good case to be made for the removal of the sentences in question on the basis that they are, in fact, an opinion that can't be indisputably confirmed. But again, that's not my place to decide, and if the conservative editors and sysops of conservapedia say "it stays," then it stays. Secularists should always remember that we are here to advise and help, not to ridicule and lampoon.

Mechrobioticon 16:54, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

No information

There's no information about how GWB is being named the Worst President in History [1] by alot of people, as well as having some of the lowest approval ratings ever.[2][3] And lack of information about major events in his presidency. Such as Katarina, September 11th and stuff like that.

No Information

Period. This isn't an encyclopedia entry, this is more like the bio somebody writes for the program to their high school musical. Could it be more bland? Ish. Flippin 16:02, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

Nothing about his childhood, his college, or his time as Texas governor. And there never will be. Conservapedia doesn't trust their editors to write about this icon. (They might mention, for instance, his drunk driving arrest or allegations of cocaine use). Czolgolz 13:36, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Someone tell me when this article is fixed

I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that this article is hopeless. It's not my opinion that George W. Bush's "sincere and profound faith in God" doesn't belong in the foreign policy section of this article. It's a demonstrable fact. Someone tell me what qualifies his religion as a formal written policy by which America's interactions with other countries are deliberated, and I will shut up. The addition is also poorly written, vague, unscholarly, conjectural, impossible to confirm, and dripping with bias and ethnocentrism, but I'll ignore that. Just move it. Please just move it. If this ever happens, please email me at happyhealey@gmail.com, and will resume contributing to Conservapedia. It's ludicrous for a wiki project to be unable to correct its own typographical errors. It's been a month. A whole month. If this were Wikipedia it would have been corrected in less than five minutes. This is, without exaggeration, pitiful. Mechrobioticon 23:24, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, at least you changed the picture. Good to know the article isn't completely stagnant. Mechrobioticon 23:32, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

How can I edit this article?

There are some spelling mistakes (Exxon Mobil not Exxon Mobile) and grammar that need correcting but I can't get on to fix it. Erasmus 11:19, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Could someone add "Category:Christian warriors" which I created specifically for Dubya?Muschifresser 08:23, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Protected articles

Protected articles infringe on the right to free speech. I am greatly opposed to this policy. Bush happens to be one of my favorite people and you are depriving the fact that I can't contribute to this article is appalling. I know you are worried about vandals, but you are just punishing the innocent. The world is being deprived of my great knowledge, these are sad times.--BushRules12 23:22, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Eavesdropping program

When it becomes possible to edit this article again, something should be added about the NSA eavesdropping program. As today's New York Times indicates, this program is extremely controversial even among conservatives and almost led to the resignations of Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller.--User:Amyz 10:04, May 16, 2007 (EDT)

This is one sad page...

....And since it's locked, only the syspos (who have enough to do as it is) can DO anything with it. --Gulik3 02:37, 21 May 2007 (EDT)