Poppy gets points for the good things he did, not the least of which were passing the ADA and making some moves to get the federal budget in line - the tax increases he let through would cost him dearly in 1992.
And we should remember his efforts to fix some of the shit he helped create. Noriega's Panama comes to mind. And Saddam - to an extent, even though he got an awful lot of Iraqis (and Persians) butchered simply by letting that shit go on in the 80s.
And there are other little gems as well.
By that same token, we can lay a good bit of the blame for lots of things at his feet. eg: The other Narco States of Central America that were strengthened because he refused to pursue the idiots who gave us Iran-Contra. And a lot of the shit the CIA pulled under his directorship that helped create conditions that eventually led to the blowback that came home to us on 9/11.
So I won't eulogize him, partly because I didn't know him, but mostly because in this country, we're supposed to be able to recognize that while some presidents are obviously better presidents than other presidents - and far better people too - they're all humans, they're way short of perfection, and not one of them deserves to be fitted for a halo.
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