Quote:
Originally Posted by revrew
I voted Carter because when the two presidents were actually faced with something that's the president's job (most of what these guys are being judged on is way outside the constitutional duties of the chief executive), Carter handled the Iran Hostage Crisis and Cold War Russia far worse than Bush handled 9/11.
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Ironically, much of what Bush did in response to 9/11 has since been judged (a few times by the Supreme Court, no less) outside the constitutional remit of the chief executive.
Interestingly, though, this post neatly sums up the dichotomy of thought on Bush, and using Carter as a comparison in this sense is actually very revealing.
It's generally assumed (certainly in this thread) that Carter's faults mainly stem from a lack of action when confronted with big problems. On the flipside, it's generally assumed (again, certainly in this thread and in FOFC political discussions) that, aside from "My Pet Goat", the response of the Bush Administration to 9/11 did not suffer from a lack of action.
Thus we divide into two camps. Those who applaud the direct action, and either praise the results or consider the results irrelevant, vs. those who view the direct action and its results as only furthering the overall problem.