Presidency of George W. Bush

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Presidency of George W. Bush
43rd President of the United States
In office
January 20 2001 – January 20 2009
Vice PresidentDick Cheney
Preceded byBill Clinton
Succeeded byIncumbent
Personal details
Born (1946-07-06) July 6, 1946 (age 77)
New Haven, Connecticut
Political partyRepublican
SpouseLaura Bush
ResidenceCrawford, Texas
OccupationBusinessman (Oil, Baseball), President of the United States
Signature

The Presidency of George W. Bush began on his inauguration on January 20, 2001 as the 43rd and current President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former United States President George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush was elected president in the 2000 general election. Bush was re-elected in 2004 as president.

Bush's term is scheduled to end January 20 2009.

Overview

Although losing the national popular vote, the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore awarded Bush the required number of electoral votes with a 537-vote margin in the state of Florida in a highly debated election. As President, Bush pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program and the No Child Left Behind Act, and has also pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based welfare initiatives.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Bush declared a global War on Terrorism and ordered an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, destroy Al-Qaeda and to capture Osama bin Laden in October 2001. In March 2003, Bush received a mandate from the U.S. Congress to lead an invasion of Iraq, asserting that Iraq was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441.[1]

Running as a self-described "war president" in the midst of the Iraq War,[2] Bush won re-election in 2004[3] and his presidential campaign against Senator John Kerry was successful despite controversy over Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War and his handling of the economy.[4][5] After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism, even from former allies. His domestic popularity decreased[6] due to the war and other issues such as the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy record budget deficits affecting the administration, and the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.

Major issues of Presidency

Major legislation

Legislation signed

Administration and Cabinet

Bush's cabinet has included figures that were prominent in past administrations, notably former Secretary of State Colin Powell who had served as United States National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had served as White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford; Rumsfeld's successor, Robert Gates, served as Director of Central Intelligence under George H.W. Bush. Vice President Dick Cheney served as Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush.

Bush places a high value on personal loyalty and, as a result, his administration has high message discipline. He maintains a "hands-off" style of management that he believes prevents him from being tangled by intricacies that hinder sound decision-making. "I'm confident in my management style. I'm a delegator because I trust the people I've asked to join the team. I'm willing to delegate. That makes it easier to be President," he said in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC in December of 2003. Critics allege, however, that Bush is willing to overlook mistakes[10] made by loyal subordinates.Template:GW Bush cabinet infobox

There has been only one non-Republican present in Bush's cabinet: Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, the first Asian American cabinet secretary, who had previously served as Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton, is a Democrat. Mineta resigned from Bush's cabinet on July 7, 2006 to pursue "other challenges".[11] Mary Peters, a Republican, was nominated and confirmed to succeed him as Transportation Secretary.

Advisors and other officials

Defence force nominations and appointments

Supreme Court nominations and appointments

Main article: President George W. Bush's judicial appointments controversy
Main article: George W. Bush Supreme Court candidates

Bush nominated the following people to the Supreme Court of the United States:

Federal Reserve appointment

On October 24, 2005, Bush nominated Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Senate Banking Committee recommended Bernanke's confirmation by a 13-1 voice vote on November 16, 2005. With the full Senate's approval on January 31, 2006 by another voice vote, Bernanke was sworn in on February 1, 2006.

First term (2001-2005)

Main article: George W. Bush's first term as President of the United States

Second term (2005-Present)

Main article: George W. Bush's second term as President of the United States

Political philosophy

The guiding political philosophy of the Bush administration has been termed neoconservative. The specific elements of neoconservative leadership have been itemized in policy papers by members of the Project for a New American Century, and is represented in the editorial perspective of the political journal the Weekly Standard. Administration officials chosen from the membership of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) began with the selection of the candidate for vice president, Dick Cheney. Others included Richard Armitage, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

In 1998, following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, members of the PNAC, including former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, wrote to President Bill Clinton urging him to remove Saddam Hussein from power using US diplomatic, political and military power.

In September 2000, the PNAC issued a report entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For A New Century, proceeding "from the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces." The group stated that when diplomacy or sanctions fail, the United States must be prepared to take military action. The PNAC argued that the Cold War deployment of forces was obsolete. Defense spending and force deployment must reflect the post-Cold War duties that US forces are obligated to perform. Constabulary duties such as peacekeeping in the Balkans and the enforcement of the No Fly Zones in Iraq put a strain upon, and reduced the readiness of US forces. The PNAC recommended the forward redeployment of US forces at new strategically placed permanent military bases in Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia. Permanent bases would ease the strain on US forces, allowing readiness to be maintained and the carrier fleet to be reduced. Furthermore, PNAC advocated that the US-globalized military should be enlarged, equipped and restructured for the "constabulary" roles associated with shaping the security in critical regions of the world.[12]

Environmental Record

George W. Bush’s environmental record begins with promises as a presidential candidate to clean up power plants and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In a speech on September 29, 2000 in Saginaw, Michigan, Bush pledged to commit two billion dollars to the funding of clean coal technology research. In the same speech, he also promised to work with Congress, environmental groups and the energy industry to require a reduction of the emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide into the environment within a “reasonable period of time.”[13] He would later reverse his position on that specific campaign pledge in March 2001 in a letter to Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel, stating that carbon dioxide was not considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and that restricting carbon dioxide emissions would lead to higher energy prices.[14]

In 2001, President Bush appointed Philip A. Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, to the White House Council on Environmental Equality. Cooney is known to have edited government climate reports in order to minimize the findings of scientific sources tying greenhouse gas emissions to global warming.[15]

In March 2001, the Bush administration announced that it would not implement the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan that would require nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, claiming that ratifying the treaty would create economic setbacks in the U.S. and does not put enough pressure to limit emissions from developing nations.[16] In February 2002, Bush announced his alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, by bringing forth a plan to reduce the intensity of greenhouse gasses by 18% over ten years. The intensity of greenhouse gasses specifically is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions and economic output, meaning that under this plan, emissions would still continue to grow, but at a slower pace. Bush stated that this plan would prevent the release of 500 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, which is about the equivalent of 70 million cars from the road. This target would achieve this goal by providing tax credits to businesses that use renewable energy sources.[17]

In late November 2002, the Bush Administration released proposed rule changes that would lead to increased logging of federal forests for commercial or recreational activities by giving local forest managers the ability to open up the forests to development without requiring environmental impact assessments and without specific standards to maintain local fish and wildlife populations. The proposed changes would affect roughly 192,000,000 acres (780,000 km2) of US forests and grasslands. Administration officials claimed the changes were appropriate because existing rules, which were approved by the Clinton administration two months before Bush took office, were unclear.[18]

In November 2004, Bush administration officials asked the United Nations to allow US industries to use an additional 458 tons of methyl bromide, an ozone-destroying pesticide that was slated for elimination by the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The additional increase request brings the US’s total exemption for the year 2005 to 9,400 metric tons of methyl bromide, more than all other nations’ requests combined, and well over the 7,674 metric tons used by US agribusiness in 2002.[19]

In January 2004, Interior Secretary Gale Norton approved a move to open nearly 9,000,000 acres (36,000 km2) of Alaska's North Slope to oil and gas development, citing claims from the energy industry that nearly 13 billion barrels (2.1×109 m3) of oil could be extracted from the region. The North Slope neighbor's the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a sanctuary and habitat for migratory birds, whales, seals and other wildlife. Reports from the U.S. Geological Survey, however, estimate that less than one-third of the reported 13 billion barrels (2.1×109 m3) is economically recoverable in the entire 23,500,000-acre (95,000 km2) National Petroleum Reserve.[20]

In July 2005 the Environmental Protection Agency decided to delay the release of an annual report on fuel economy. The report shows that automakers have taken advantage of loopholes in US fuel economy regulations to manufacture vehicles that are less fuel-efficient than they were in the late 1980s. Fuel-efficiency had on average dropped six percent during that period, from 22.1 miles per gallon to 20.8 mpg. Evidence suggests that the administration’s decision to delay the report’s release was because of its potential to affect Congress’s upcoming final vote on an energy bill six years in the making, which turned a blind eye to fuel economy regulations.[21]

In May 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) allegedly blocked release of a report that suggested global warming had been a contributor to the frequency and strength of hurricanes in recent years. In February, NOAA (part of the Department of Commerce) set up a seven-member panel of climate scientists to compile the report. The panel’s chair, Ants Leema, received an e-mail from a Commerce Department official asking for the report to not be released as it needed to be made “less technical.”[22] NOAA would later go on to say that the report was not released because it “was not complete” and was in reality not a report, but a “two-page fact sheet about the issue.”[23]

Controversy

Bush's presidency has been characterized by the unitary executive theory, which is a vigorous defense of "executive privilege", evidenced in such acts as signing Executive Order 13233, which suspends the release of presidential papers, tight control of Congressional inquiries into White House officers such as in the 9/11 Commission's interviews with Condoleezza Rice, Bush and Dick Cheney, and the generally high level of coordination between the White House, Congressional Republicans and Senate Republicans in both of Bush's terms. Many commentators have claimed that deference to executive privilege was one of the principal considerations in Bush's administration, when he proposed his three nominations for the Supreme Court, and appointed John R. Bolton to the United Nations.[24][25]

Policies of the Bush administration have been criticized for allegedly subverting elements of the Constitution, violating treaty obligations, and obstructing justice. The suspension of habeas corpus for US citizens was reversed by the Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004). Domestic spying has included undercover infiltration of political organizations with no suspected terrorist affiliations, telephone surveillance without a warrant, and the Carnivore program for internet surveillance. The policy of holding enemy combatants in a legal status outside of either due process of criminal prosecution nor the Geneva conventions for prisoners of war created a legal limbo without a process for adjudication or appeal. The extraordinary rendition of an innocent citizen of Canada, to Syria, caused an international incident involving kidnapping, wrongful imprisonment and torture.[26] The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, stated in a white paper that "President Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers."[27]

Ellen Mariani, widow of Louis Neil Mariani, killed in the September 11 attacks, has charged George W. Bush, et al., because "Defendant GWB has not been forthright and honest with regard to his administration's pre-knowledge of the potential of the "911" attacks" (Mariani v. Bush, Case number 03-5273, United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania). Former White House chief counter-terrorism advisor Richard A. Clarke has criticized both the failure to prevent the attacks of 9/11, and the response to them in both domestic and foreign policy, in his book Against All Enemies.

The Union of Concerned Scientists published a report, Scientific Integrity in Policymaking, in March 2004 that criticized the unprecedented "manipulation, suppression, and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration ... World renowned scientific institutions such as that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health take decades to build a team of world-class scientific expertise and talent. But they can be severely damaged in short order by the scientifically unethical behavior such as that displayed by the current administration."[28]

Third Way issued a new report on September 5 2006 analyzing the Bush administration’s record on national security. The report was released at a press conference in the Capitol with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, retired General Wesley Clark, Assistant Minority Leader Dick Durbin, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Carl Levin, and founding Third Way Co-Chair Senator Thomas Carper. In The Neo Con: The Bush Defense Record by the Numbers, Third Way analyzed available data across seven key national security indicators: Iraq, terrorism (broadly defined), Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, the condition of the American military, and China. The report finds that the numbers lead to an indisputable conclusion that incompetence and a failed strategy have "helped lead us to this dangerous situation".[29]

Anti-crime tax funds have been appropriated to youth programs based on political connections instead of merit. Current and former Justice Department employees allege that the head of the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention ignored staff rankings in favor of programs that had political, social or religious connections to the Bush White House.[30]

Alleged War Crimes culpability

In 2007, Red Cross investigators concluded in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation methods for high-level Al-Qaeda prisoners constituted torture which could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to the book Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer, a journalist for The New Yorker.[31]

According to the book, the report of the International Committee of the Red Cross found that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure captured by the United States, were “categorically” torture, which is illegal under both American and international law. A copy of the report was given to the C.I.A. in 2007. For example, the book states that Abu Zubaydah was confined in a box “so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position” and was one of several prisoners to be “slammed against the walls,” according to the Red Cross report. The C.I.A. has admitted that Abu Zubaydah and two other prisoners were waterboarded, a practice in which water is poured on the nose and mouth to create the sensation of suffocation and drowning. Lawrence Wilkerson, former army officer and chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, warned senior Bush Administration officials who formulated the U.S. torture policy that they should never leave the U.S., except perhaps to Israel or Saudi Arabia, because they "broke the law" and could in the future be prosecuted "in a foreign court, or in an international court" for their roles in authorizing torture.[32]

Gallery

References

  1. ^ Powell, Colin (February 5, 2003). "U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council". Whitehouse.gov. Retrieved 2006-05-25.
  2. ^ "Transcript for Feb. 8th". MSNBC. 2004-02-08. Retrieved 2006-09-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ 2004 Presidential Election Results
  4. ^ 13 October 2004 "The Third Bush-Kerry Presidential Debate" transcript
  5. ^ CNN's exit poll showed Terrorism (19%) and Iraq (15%) as the third and fourth most important issues behind Moral Values (22%) and the Economy (20%) "CNN - U.S. President / National / Exit Poll / Election 2004"
  6. ^ Pollingreport.com - PRESIDENT BUSH – Overall Job Rating in recent national polls
  7. ^ Bush, George W. (2002-05-14). "President Signs Farm Bill". White House. Retrieved 2006-09-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ Bush, George W. (2002-08-17). "President Bush Signs H.R. 4, the Pension Protection Act of 2006". White House. Retrieved 2006-09-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  9. ^ Bush, George W. (2006-10-04). "President's Statement on H.R. 5441, the "Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007"". White House. Retrieved 2006-10-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ Eleanor (2004-05-28). "Gen. Sanchez Gets Promoted". Retrieved 2007-04-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ Wilber, Del Quentin (2006-06-24). "Lone Democrat in Bush Cabinet Is Departing". Washington Post. Retrieved 2006-11-20. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century" (PDF). Project for the New American Century. 2000. Retrieved 2007-04-07. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  13. ^ George W. Bush for President Official Site: Speeches
  14. ^ CNN.com - Bush reverses position on emissions reductions - March 14, 2001
  15. ^ Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming - New York Times
  16. ^ BBC News | SCI/TECH | US blow to Kyoto hopes
  17. ^ CNN.com - Bush unveils voluntary plan to reduce global warming - February 14, 2002
  18. ^ Logging rules may be eased
  19. ^ ES&T Online News: Methyl bromide phaseout drags
  20. ^ NRDC: The Bush Record - January 2004 Actions
  21. ^ NY Times Advertisement
  22. ^ Journal: Agency Blocked Hurricane Report - washingtonpost.com
  23. ^ http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/nature-article
  24. ^ Baker, Peter (2005-08-02). "Privilege at Stake With Nominees". Washington Post. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
  25. ^ Kiely, Kathy (2005-10-04). "Senators look for best angle on Miers". USA Today. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
  26. ^ Mayer, Jane (2005-02-14). "Outsourcing Torture: The secret history of America's "extraordinary rendition" program". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
  27. ^ Healy, Gene (2006-05-01). "Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush". The Cato Institute. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
  28. ^ Numerous Prominent Signatories. "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking". Union of Concerned Scientists. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  29. ^ Sharon Burke and Harlan Geer. "The Neo Con: The Bush Defense Record by the Numbers". Third Way. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  30. ^ Ross, Brian (2008-06-09). "Justice Department Official Awards $500,000 Grant to Golf Group". Nightline. ABC News. Retrieved 2008-06-12. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  31. ^ New York Times, July 11, 2008, "Book Cites Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Qaeda Captives" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/washington/11detain.html
  32. ^ The Guardian (UK), April 19, 2008, "Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture," http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/19/guantanamo.usa

See also

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