When looking at the war in Iraq, irrespective of whether or not you feel that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is sufficient justification for all that transpired, there have to be some glaring problems with how that came about. What I can't understand is the people who still feel that Bush deserves the benefit of the doubt. I mean, there are three reasons to give someone the benefit of the doubt over someone else: 1) They have shown themselves to be particularly honest. 2) Theyy have shown themselves to be particularly adept. 3) Because you have decided that, come hell or high water, you are going to do so. I think the evidence that Bush et al lied, manipulated and misled to get us into this war is pretty conclusive. I wonl;t bother going into that now, simply because it has been proven so many times that it is obvious that those who refuse to acknowledge it are simply not going to no matter what...but even if you choose, instead, to believe that rather than being dshonest, the Bush administration was simply incorrect regarding evidence tying Saddam to 9-11, WMDs, etc, I have one question; If they have been So wrong about things which were SO important, and about which they were SO sure, how on earth do they still deserve your trust? I don't even mean trust in their honesty, I mean trust in their ability. I still see people in here brushing the entire debacle aside with statements something like " I choose to believe in our government." I ask you, why? What have they done to deserve such faith? Either they were dishonest ( pretty clear) incompetent, or both. Our history shows that our governments have never been mistaken for omniscient, and the same people using the same methods of reasoning that concluded 9-11, WMD, etc were so certain that they demanded an immediate and virtually unilateral military response are still in place...making decisions. If you have merely decided that to be a patriot is to believe whatever the White House says, whatever the facts may suggest, well, my hat's off to your honesty, and good luck to you, but for those who won't admit this...please, explain it to me...regarding how to handle this war, reasons for it, diplomatic maneuvering, evidence gathering, intel evaluation, etc....what have Bush et al done to deserve your unquestioning benefit of the doubt?
I'm not aware of anyone, myself included, who ever said that they were unquestioning. War is hell and it doesn't start and stop on the battlefield. You so that history shows that no governments have ever been proven to be omniscient but then hold The Bush Administration's feet to the fire for being exactly like that. Why?
giddy -- Don't trouble yourself. This is just another in an endless string of threads where MacBeth tries to throw out enough hypothetical garbage to bore us into submission and get us to concede his points. His logic is as follows: If I post enough words, they will tire and just quit. At this point, I will declare myself the winner. It is all an elaborate scheme to convince himself that he is intelligent. His self-esteem is very unstable. He needs constant verification of his perceived intelligence or else his self-image will suffer considerable damage. He avoids this at all costs.
Among the many problems with this, T_J, is that you are the only poster I know of who has a compunction ( and obvious need) to declare himself the winner. Lol. And MY self-esteem is unstable...LOL!!
Because I am not of the opinion that most governments should be given the benefit if the doubt....and certainly not after they have demonstrated repeated dishonesty and/or incompetence. That is the point, and it is of those who do that this question is asked. OK, you want to quibble over unquestioning, fine, we'll stipulate that you;ve questioned them down the line, and it's just a coincidence that you;ve agreed with them each step of the way. Question stands.
Freudian Projection: A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits.
I don't give them the benefit of the doubt, but I also think that the decision to go to war is past and the continued focus on who did or didn't lie is counter-productive and takes attention away from issues that do still need to be addressed, whether at home or abroad. So, I'll give it to you. They're deceitful bastards who tricked the country into going to war for dubious, at best, reasons. Fine. You win. They were wrong. Let's move forward to the next thing because attempting to play "See, I told you so" does nothing to improve anything. If anything, it could allow for the next bit of dishonesty, if any, to slip past since everyone is still so focused on trumpeting their rightness about the wrongness of the war. But to your specific question, I don't give them the benefit of the doubt. I do believe that they believe their actions are justified, but that doesn't excuse it to me. And I am always skeptical of any government official. It's not as if any of them have done a whole lot to earn our trust. So fine. Bush has trust issues (as did his predecessor, and not just on the Monica thing, and as did Reagan and Nixon and LBJ and others). What is John Kerry or John Edwards or Howard Dean going to offer that's any different? So give me something to vote for, and I'll consider a vote for it. But if the message is "George Bush lied about the war", that's not going to get me to mark your name on the ballot. So absent an actual alternative, we may as well follow the road we're already on, especially since we can't put the genie back in the bottle. And, as for me personally, I'm tired of the war thing anyway. There are more pressing issues here at home that I think should be a priority.
Mrpaige... i respect your position, but respectfully disagree. Bush lying us into a war IS enough of a reason to vote against him, NOT to say HA! Caught you, you b*stard!, but because if we donlt, if he does what he does, this is what it means: *We have essentially approved of that action, thereby establishing a mandate to Bush and whoever follows that we will accpet being mislead and lied to so long as the person thought they were doing the wrong thing...without getting into another Hitler analogy, let's suffice it to say that that way lies dragons. *We have told the rest of the world that, not only should they not trust us, but that we donlt even care if our leaders lie to us as well as ohers. THis would completely eliminate what little trust the rest of the globe has for us. Moreover, it will tell them all that we will wage unjust wars, and forgive ourselves as though nothing went wrong. *It will give the person...who had to worry about a second term...4 more years to do even more, and this time with our stamp of approval. * And lastly it will make any pretense we have about responsible governmment seem like a farce.
Perhaps the question is, if you supported Bush before, is being lied to in regards to a very important issue enough to make you not vote for him this coming election? I'm not saying you'll want to vote for the democrat nominee, but just not vote. I know that there are fiscal conservatives out there threatening to do just that.
Well, good luck with that on the campaign trail. But I maintain that those who would vote against the President because he lied about the war are, for the most part, folks who were going to vote against this President no matter what. And those who are giving the President the benefit of the doubt are those who were probably going to vote to re-elect the President anyway. And if your whole campaign is "Bush is a Liar, and that's bad" they're probably going to make sure they get out in vote for the guy, even if they aren't personally comfortable with a lot of what he's done. I know that if the Democratic candidate offers nothing more than 'Bush is Evil' as his platform, I'm going to make sure I get out there and vote for Bush. Might even campaign for the guy. But if the candidate actually offers a platform that gives me something to vote for, I'll consider it. Most of the rest of us like to vote for someone. In the abstract, yes it is important that the President was, at best, less than honest about the war. But here in the real world, it's only important if you want to play "I've got the moral highground" rather than attempt to win an election. Clinton was a truly a gifted campaigner in 1992. There had been a recession, and the President seemed out of touch about it. Clinton could've gone around the country saying how horrible the President was and how awful it is that he's gotten the country into this mess. But his message went beyond that. It was about what Clinton was going to do to make things good again. He didn't paint a happy picture on the then-current administration, but he offered a positive message. Vote for me, and things are going to get better. Here's how. Here's why. We all know that any Democratic candidate isn't going to invade Iraq, especially since we've already invaded Iraq (and we will have to deal with that regardless of who's President). So him telling us that the invasion was wrong doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't make anybody's life any different. Tell me what you're going to do differently to make the country better, don't just sit there and harp on why things are bad. There's not a person in this country who doesn't have the information regarding the dubious nature of the war. Everyone has pretty well made up their minds whether it matters to them or not. Ten more months of a candidate telling me all about it... again isn't going to get me to rush to the polls. But that's just what I think.
Politicians are our servents -- they work for us. We deserve better than, "Eh, they might do the right thing eventually." We deserve more than the benefit of the doubt. A healthy democracy demands a watchful constituency, and it's our responsibility to demand that our government be truthful and responsible. Unchecked, our elected officials become our elected dictators.
I agree with your point that we need to move ahead and see what we can do with the situation we are currently in. But I don't think we just stop worrying about the past and who lied for what reasons etc. It's important not to do that in order to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes twice or three times or whatever. It's important that we learn the tricks that our govt. can pull in order to not be duped again.
I have to ask (rhetorically of course) who in the hell do you give the benefit of the doubt?! (Did my smilie show up yet?) I'm not inclined to blithely call people in the Administration of the US government incompetent. I'm not quibbling over the unquestioning assertion... I FLATLY DENY IT. How do you get the termerity to convert my abject denial into a spineless quibble to your own satisfaction? Just because I've argued with the critics doesn't mean that I've agreed with the administration "each step of the way." It means that I've parried with those who are, in my estimation, overly critical. What it really means is that I've accepted events-- sometimes regretfully sometimes not. War is hell.
Those who support Bush are those who believe that all of existence begins and ends with their tax return, the Bible, or their tax return and the Bible.
This from the guy who has started fights in three threads over the last two days (count 'em, three!) and wilted and run away when he was bested. And as JAG said, from the only guy here who puts a high premium on "winning" on a basketball BBS. Keep talking, 'psychological warrior...' Just make sure to jump to another thread or another point every time you definitively lose.
I support Bush, don't pay taxes (jobless at the moment) and have not read any part of the Bible in a while. Way to paint with broad strokes there moron.
