Discussion UsefulNotes / GeorgeWBush

Considering the source, George W. Bush's economic advisor...not exactly an objective third party one.

Second we aren't supposed to trope real-life characteristics, but common representations in media, and mention in real-life to illustrate that it may or may not cohere to reality.

Does it matter? This page is completely ridiculous in its bias. It's tantamount to garbage.

I agree, although I suspect my reasons for doing so are antithetical. The difficulty is that almost everybody on Earth still has very strong opinions about this guy, and it's even more difficult to deliver straight factual statements about him than it is to do so about, say, Twilight. When I tried to write up a totally non-biased statement that would explain to a reader who George W. Bush was without any judgement or bias, it turned out to be three sentences long, and one of them was, "George W. Bush is a human being."

Yes. I'll make a sandbox with proper indentation and ask the mods to swap it in.

Edit requests should go here to get the mods' attention.

Saved in my thread watchlist. Thank you Telcontar

The Sixth Ranger - Tony Blair?

I'd be alright for a separate page for the movie.

A lot of Americans still oppose the Iraq War, though. Still, the response deserves an entry, maybe as Deadpan Snarker?

The Chessmaster isn't automatically villainous, either - both were very smart for their times, and Bush even called Rove the architect of his electoral campaigns. In the Token Good Teammate, General Failure, The Renfield and Screw the Rules, I Make Them! entries, it's always pointed out that it's what the "characters" thought about it "in-universe".

There was also the time where Martha Raddatz said "Al-Qaeda came to Iraq after we invaded it." Bush said "Yeah, that's right. So what?" Wouldn't that count as Kick the Dog, since he basically said "I don't care that I invaded a country when my Arch-Enemy wasn't there"?

At the very least, he gets a What the Hell, Hero? moment, since quite a few presidents here have had it already. I also see a Double Standard on how Obama has Screw the Rules, I Make Them!, when Bush (who was also viewed in such a regard) doesn't have it.

Serocco:

One, Martha Raddatz isn't necessarily correct. There is evidence that Al Qaeda had a presence in Iraq well before any coalition troops set foot there. Most of them were in the Kurdish region, but they were fighting against a resistance that Saddam also opposed. That implies cooperation between the groups.

Two: Sorry, but this isn't a Kick the Dog moment, because it comes strictly from your personal opinion on the matter. The Bush Administration did not claim they were going into Iraq for Al Qaeda (unless you count one quote from Colin Powell, and even then, it was a minor point that he raised as a simple possibility). There were reasons to enact regime change in Iraq that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, which isn't the only terrorist group in existence, in case you didn't know. Bush's foreign policy was never "Go where Al Qaeda is". It was "Go after all threats to the United States and her allies, Al Qaeda or not". So, in all fairness, Bush was perfectly in line when he responded that way. The point was completely irrelevant, if not outright false. So, no Kick the Dog.

Three, you can find several examples where Bush and co. either scoffed off supposedly shocking information, or even contradicted themselves. All politicians do this. But, really, it means nothing. It doesn't change the facts one bit. I don't like how the Bush Administration handled the war, but, in my opinion at least, that doesn't negate the cause for the war itself. The entry I removed was completely opinionated, with nothing based in fact. Thus, it does not belong (nor, for that matter, does the other one you suggested).

Four, I don't care who opposes the war or not. I don't know about you, but I don't strive to keep my views in line with the latest opinion polls.

Sledgesaul:

If you are offended by the opinionated post on the Obama page, and feel it doesn't belong, delete it. Do not add one to the Bush page just to make a balance. These pages are not here for personal soapboxing.

I don't see how it's insulting to have Cheney down as The Stoic.

Well, I thought this page was supposed to be about Bush. Shouldn't Cheney have his own page? He's certainly well-known enough to have one. Al Gore has one.

Obama's page cannot be edited further. It's been locked.

Would Rice really be The Chick, though? The only reason I could see why is because she's female, but that wasn't really her role.

Specifically, two democratic presidents.

The problem is popularity. Obama has equal numbers detractors and supporters, and they end up cancelling each other out, and Clinton doesn't have very many haters, since everybody agrees he was a horn dog. Dubya, on the other hand, was unpopualar enough that if we let in examples, we'd be covered in partisan bias in a matter of days.

Okay, so let's kill the Obama and Clinton examples then. It's just as partisan to keep examples about them as it is to not have examples about Dubya. Also, when has something being popular EVER been a reason not to do something on TV Tropes? Yes, Yes Cautious Editing and what not, but seriously? This honestly gives us more of a conservative bent than anything. If we're to strive for a neutral stance, then both should be acceptable to attack/mock/poke fun at.

In fact, the ONLY presidents of recent history (Gerald Ford onward) to have Trope examples in addition to apperances in fiction are Clinton and Obama. This bugs me to no end. I don't disagree with ANY of the trope examples for these two. I think they're pretty spot on. From a certain point of view at least. I still think we should either kill them or allow/add examples to Dubya.

I advise you make a thread about this in the Trope Repair Shop.

Summary of the page:

He's famous for idiotic malapropisms. Three paragraphs about how his becoming president was a very controversial close call. Blurb about how he was elected for a second term and this was also controversial. Paragraph about how he ordered the controversial invasion of Iraq, attacked imaginary WMDs and had a critical blow dealt to the credibility of his administration. Mention of his horrible approval rating. Mention of two plans he advanced immediately followed by what "many critics nonetheless believed" of them and what they were frequently accused of. Note that he was often being made fun of due to being perceived as "too small a man" morally for the job. A tip of the hat to the widely-held perception that he was a puppet being manipulated.

Compare the article about Adolf Hitler.

Yeah, I sense a certain lack of perspective. If someone has any objection to this page being hacked to conform to the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment (which it even cites- Refuge in Audacity if I ever saw it), Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace.

Was your point about there being Liberal bias on the page? Or did I misread you? Because I would love to add any good things he did...I just can't think of any. But yeah, let's slap some examples down here, we've got plenty, the Malaproperisms alone should fill the page.

No, I'm not talking about "liberal bias". I'm saying that if any sort of "bias" is possibly an issue in our coverage of a matter as controversial as this, we're doing it wrong. George W. Bush's term and the high points and low points of it is a highly contested issue and the article is all over it like some hunger-crazed piranha. I'm not talking about some minor example pruning, I'm talking about axing 90% of the text above the examples. We should just let this one go. Shake our hands off of it. Again, Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment. There's the rest of the internet to argue about George W. Bush.

Whether you deem any of his actions to be good or not good is nowhere near the point.

Rewrite done. The Other Wiki has a neutrality policy to deal with this sort of thing; here, we like using a very big axe.

If I could, I'd write in huge bolded letters: THE BIGGEST IDIOT ON THE FACE OF THE UNIVERSE HANDS DOWN.

Then I'm glad you can't, jackass.

Shouldn't there be some mention in this article that 9/11 happened, or at least that George Bush launched a war on terror, updated national security, and sent troops into Afghanistan? All that stuff happened, right?

Troops to Iraq are mentioned, the other two not. Add them if you like.

Just don't make it sound like

"controversially made frequently-accused-of-being-fascist updates limiting personal freedom in order to help so-called 'national security', leading to great outcry among those who care about human rights"

or

"boldly made necessary updates to national security in the face of an imminent terrorist threat, which was met with the usual shrieking from the bleeding-hearts".