Worst President In History?

So him being a "nice guy" is good enough for him to run the country? Observance of his policies are other ways to "know" someone...I mean, we are talking about a persons performance on the job. Their personal views, albeit skewed, do affect that policy.

By the way, I should ask you the same question...

Check these out...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...pd_ka_1/104-3412009-1575955?v=glance&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...8378807/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-3412009-1575955


P.S. It might be you that is being fooled about GWB.

 

You are kidding, right?

It is EASY to see the elitism, narrow-mindedness, and hypocracy in GWB, you just have to open your eyes and ditch the selective perception. I can do it, as evidenced by my complete support for the action in Afghanistan and the "War on Terror." You seem to give blind support to this administration without question and even defend positions that the administration has given up on.

All you have to do is look at the actions of this administration and the elitism, narrow-mindedness, and hypocracy are extremely clear.

 

It is blind support because you defend EVERYTHING, even the indefensible positions. You seem to have swallowed the same hook that t_j has and you seem to have a really crippling case of selective perception.

Elitism:
Giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the rich while leaving crumbs to the middle and lower classes.
Appointing industry shills to important posts in the Commerce Department and EPA.
His action figure is called the "Elite Force Aviator" for crying out loud.

Narrow mindedness:
Funding "faith-based" charities and removing funding from non-denominational and non-religious charities.
Banning new stem cell lines and research.
Removing funding for international groups that do not kowtow to the pro-life lobby.
Tunnel vision with regards to "intelligence" on Iraq.

Hypocracy:
"By far the vast majority of my tax cut goes to the middle and lower class."
Out of control spending policies.
Stance on prohibition given his history.

I could go on for quite some time, but suffice to say that those of us who look critically at ALL of the policies of whatever administration is in power have the ability to identify these things much better than people with selective perception as pronounced as yours.

I decried Clinton's gaffes (in particular, the night he looked me in the eye and lied) as much as anyone except Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly. I just have the ability to see past party, an ability you either haven't developed or have suppressed effectively.

 

I'lll bite.


How would our ignorance of the fact that no WMDs have been found, that no link with 9-11 has been found, that faulty intel was knowingly used, that our prediction of being welcomed with open arms has proven incorrect, that the administration has repeatedly shown it's manipulative nature by denying the WMD issue to such a degree that even it's former biggest advocate, Kay, is now calling for a more honest approach, or the fact that Bush et al claimed that the intel was telling them exatly the opposite of what we now know the intel was telling them alter our anti-war argument?


This is just a sample of the incredibly damning factual revelations which have been ignored by the pro-war argument.

Please compile a list of facts the anti-war argument is ignoring. I am intrigued.

Hint: Saddam being a bad guy is not debated, nor is it any less true now than pre-war, when it wasn't nearly sufficient caussi bello.

 

A) Giddy...you and your great grandchildren will be able to chant 'yet' till the end of time. We will, I acknowledge, never prove a negative.

That said, according to any reasonable standard, the issue has been pretty much put to bed. Certainly the position that we had the information we said we had about these two issues has been proven false.

A) Knowingly is pretty much all most would need to condemn the administration.

B) Good question, especially in that the administration decided to go contrary to the inteligence community and develop their own intel re: Iraq to support the war, and use obviously compromised sources over objective ones. So, again, whose fault that it was faulty indeed?

Uh...yes. Put it this way; if it isn't, then we sure as hell had the worst post war plan I've ever heard of.

WHat!?!?!? The administration decided to go against the addive of the intel community, establish it's own intel division to find any information which supported the war, dismissed the objections of almost every other foreign leader and the UN, ignore objections from within the country itself... and you feel that they were manipulated into so doing by the opposition!??!!?!?!?!!? Honestly, this may be the greatest example of blind rationalization I;ve ever seen in here...wow.

Which is the same as ignoring them, giving their obvious import.

I don't ignore the fact that the accused was seen stabbing the victim 50 times by a crowd. I don't ignore the fact that the accused had told friends and family before the fact that he intended to kill the victim that evening. I don't ignore the fact that the accused was caught by the police with the bloody knife in his hand. I have never denied these facts, I merely don't see them amounting to much in the way of real evidence like you do....

Er...yes. You said we were equally blind. Blind implies overlooking/not seeing things due to bias.

 

giddyup, did you really post this? Golly!


by giddyup:
"Have you seen all the intel? I think that the administration was painted into the corner on the WMD issue by a calculating opposition. Do you blame the administration for trying to control the political damage? How realistic is that?"

I haven't seen that spin yet... that's a doozy!


Hey, I meant to reply to your reply to my reply. I'm not the greatest googler in the world, and most of what I heard on this subject was an accumulation of things I read over several months, but here's one article I found (I don't think I've posted it). There are some pretty wild things in this poll taken by the BBC:



Poll: World Hostile to U.S.

NewsMax.com
Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Nearly two-thirds of respondents to an international poll sponsored by the British Broadcasting Corporation say they have an unfavorable opinion of George W. Bush. Asked who is the more dangerous to world peace and stability, the United States was rated higher than al-Qaida by respondents in both Jordan (71 percent) and Indonesia (66 percent).
Furthermore, America was rated more dangerous than two countries considered as "rogue states" by Washington.

The U.S. was rated more dangerous in the eleven-country survey than Iran -- by people in Jordan, Indonesia, Russia, South Korea and Brazil, and more dangerous than Syria -- by respondents in Canada, Brazil, France, Indonesia, Jordan, Russia, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

The countries rounding out the eleven include: Australia, Israel and the United States. The survey, conducted for the BBC by ICM and other international pollsters, gauged opinion towards U.S. military, economic, cultural and political influence.

Other results -- to be aired this week as part of a U.K. television program “What the World Thinks of America” -- include:


Over half the sample felt that the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq. This included 81 percent of Russian respondents, and 63 percent of the French response.

Thirty-seven percent thought it right to invade, including 54 percent of the U.K. response, 74 percent of the U.S. response and 79 percent of the Israeli sample.

Seventy per cent of the group as a whole thought the U.S. could do more to prevent civilian casualties -- with the majority in each country, excepting the United States, saying that more could be done, including 73 percent of respondents in the U.K., 74 percent in France and 57 percent in Israel.

Seventy percent of the American respondents said other countries did not appreciate how much America does to avoid civilian casualties.

The sample showed negative attitudes about American initiatives, such as the war on terrorism and U.S. efforts in the Middle-East.

Attitudes towards America as a whole were polled and showed that 50 percent expressing fairly or very favorable views, as opposed to 40 percent unfavorable views. (Figure excludes Americans polled.)

All the poll interviews were carried out during May and June 2003.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/6/16/215754.shtml

 

First of all the places the U.S. would search for WMD first would be the places with the best intel pointing that location. They've searched all the places that intel told them there would be weapons, or at least the most likely places. With the failure to find them there, the chances are less and less they will be found in other places.

Add that to the fact that the Bush appointed chief WMD hunter says they weren't there prior to the invasion. The UN says they weren't there prior to the invasion. Most of Bush's own administration admits they weren't there prior to the invasion.

As for WMD being only a 'small' part of the rationale for invading. I will ask for the tenth time... If they were such a small part, why was WMD given as the ONLY way for Saddam to avoid an invasion. Bush NEVER mentioned improved human rights, or fair elections as a method for avoiding war.

 

giddyup... honestly, I don't understand why you give the Administration a pass on intel when they seem to have gone to such great lengths to get their own intelligence source that supported someone the C.I.A., among others, knew was unreliable. And that's Ahmad Chalabi.

Here is a quote from Pat Buchanan that could use repeating, from his review of the book by Richard Perle and David Frum, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror:

..............
On Sept. 11, al-Qaeda attacked us. Al-Qaeda is our enemy, not Syria, Libya, or Saudi Arabia. And the way to cut off al-Qaeda and kill it is to isolate it from all Arab and Islamic nations and centers of power including Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

None of these nations had a hand in 9/11. All have a vital interest in not being linked to an al-Qaeda for whom an enraged superpower is on the mortal hunt. Thus, no matter the character of these regimes, we have interests in common. And if Bush can use carrots to get Bashir Assad to help us find and finish al-Qaeda—as his father got Assad’s father to help us expel Iraq from Kuwait—let us make Syria an ally rather than another enemy of the United States.

But here is the rub: The neocons do not want to narrow our list of enemies. They do not want to confine America’s war to those who attacked us. They want to expand our list of enemies to include Israel’s enemies. They want to escalate and widen what Chris Matthews calls “the Firemen’s War” into a war for hegemony in the Middle East. They had hoped to exploit 9/11 to erect an empire, and as they see the vision vanish, their desperation knows no bounds.

That great American military mind Col. John Boyd once described strategy as appending to yourself as many centers of power as possible and isolating your enemy from as many centers of power as possible.

This was the strategy used by Bush I in the Gulf War. He persuaded Russia and China to sign on in the Security Council, Germany and Japan to finance his war, Syria and Egypt to send soldiers, Britain and France to help us fight it. By giving everyone a stake in an American victory—call it imperial bribery, if you will—Bush I lined up the world against Iraq. As did George W. Bush, brilliantly, in Afghanistan.

But what Frum and Perle are pressing on him now is an altogether opposite strategy. They want Bush to expand the war, broaden the theater of operations, multiply our enemies, and ignore our allies. If Bush should adopt this strategy, it would be America and Israel against the Arab and Islamic world with Europe neutral and almost all of Asia rooting for our humiliation.

Let it be said: it is vital to victory over al-Qaeda, to the security of our country, the safety of our people, and our broader interests in an Arab and Islamic world of 57 nations that stretches from Morocco to Malaysia that we not let the neocons conflate our war on terror with their war for hegemony.
...............
http://www.amconmag.com/3_1_04/cover.html


You keep defending Bush and the invasion of Iraq, but ignoring or dismissing the cost to this country, not only in blood and treasure, but in our relations with our allies, the countries in the region, and the rest of the world... that if they don't like what we're doing, then they should **** themselves (so to speak) and get the hell out of our way.

I have yet to see a rational explanation by you, or anyone else, of why we could not have waited before we acted against Iraq, until we had made every attempt to gather the coalition that Bush's father was able to amass. I have yet to see one rational explanation why we were in such an all-fired hurry. Not one.


I wanted to mention that the word "neocons" used by Buchanan is not one I favor. It's as inappropriate and as broad a brush as "lunatic, leftist fringe" and the like, that gets thrown around by those on your side of the fence. Cheers.

 

I guess you are the first to reject that "neocon" taunt that gets thrown around far too much on your side of the aisle. I won't ever call you a dirty name like left-wing kook, socialist, etc. Now as for Pat Buchanan, I've never really been a big fan of his and his claims that we are trying to start an empire are just, ridiculous.

 

I do not automatically criticize Bush for everything (I supported Afghanistan, I approve of his stance on NASA's future), nor do I automatically defend Democrats (I was as upset at Clinton looking me in the eye and lying to me as anyone except Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly).

Sorry, but only one of the two of us shows evidence of being a blind partisan. I disagree with the vast majority of what Bush has done to this country, but it is not out of blind partisanship, it is because I have actually reviewed the available evidence, analyzed what it means, and come to a conclusion based on logic and evidence.

You just say "...yet..."

 

That sums things up in a nutshell, giddyup... Bush is our country's new baby and we're all sufferin'!
In November, throw him out with the bathwater.

 

I hate to step into this, but I just wanted to clarify something. The situation was not underestimated, it was basically ignored. The administration commissioned a great deal of military and "expert" analyses of war and postwar estimates, plans, etc.. Almost all predicted things similar to what have happened and, thus called for greater troop numbers, slower movement, etc. (much more complicated than that). Again, they were pretty much ignored for Rumsfeld's plans. All of these documents are public record and some have been published.